Jacob's Ladder

Director: Adrian Lyne

1990 / 113min / 35mm

Having proven himself a reliable hitmaker through the 1980s with Flashdance, 9½ Weeks, and Fatal Attraction, Lyne took an excursion into troubling new territory with this headlong plunge into the damaged psyche of Vietnam veteran Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) who, haunted by his wartime experience and the death of a son, finds his drab daily life in c. 1975 New York City increasingly infringed on by nightmarish hallucinations—disturbing visions that suggest something more than run-of-the-mill PTSD. A nerve-fraying, phantasmagoric, wholly immersive waking nightmare that dangles its protagonist—and we, the audience—over a yawning abyss of horror. “Both a highly effective stream-of-consciousness puzzle thriller offering the viewer not one but many ‘solutions’ and an emotionally persuasive statement about the plight of many American vets.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Distributor: Rialto Pictures