Backdrop fallback

American Beauty

American Beauty

Share

American Beauty

"... look closer"

1999

2h 2m

8.0(13323 votes)

Drama

Overview

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

Where to Watch

Buy

Apple TV Store

Google Play Movies

YouTube

Rent

Apple TV Store

Google Play Movies

YouTube

Amazon Video

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

DreamWorks Pictures

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

Lester Burnham

Annette Bening

Annette Bening

Carolyn Burnham

Thora Birch

Thora Birch

Jane Burnham

Wes Bentley

Wes Bentley

Ricky Fitts

Mena Suvari

Mena Suvari

Angela Hayes

Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher

Buddy Kane

Allison Janney

Allison Janney

Barbara Fitts

Chris Cooper

Chris Cooper

Colonel Fitts

Scott Bakula

Scott Bakula

Jim Olmeyer

Sam Robards

Sam Robards

Jim Berkley

Creative team

Directed by: Sam Mendes
Written by: Alan Ball
Produced by: Dan Jinks
Bruce Cohen

Similar Movies

Falena

Falena

Intrigued and inspired by an unexpected encounter with an older neighbour, Leila spends her last days in the suburbs exploring her identity through nude photography. As she faces her transition to adulthood, Leila is confronted with her changing relationship to her best friend Cassy.

Hello? Spring(Bom) is Coming.

Hello? Spring(Bom) is Coming.

Every coming outs are hard. Especially coming out to the family is the hardest one. Can love make coming out to the family?

A Wedding Day

A Wedding Day

For newlyweds Brad and Jill, it seems the honeymoon is over before it even began. When an eccentric stranger named Jess White stumbles into the couples first argument as man and wife, the day takes an abrupt turn and changes their lives forever.

Lonely Country

Lonely Country

In 1950s rural Ontario, Eugene, a closeted gay man, comes across Jack, a handsome young hitchhiker. When Eugene offers Jack a place to spend the night, he is forced to question just how much of his true self he is willing to reveal.

Undercover Vampire Policeman

Thèo (17) is a teenager that is drawing and creating by himself and without any other incentive than his passion a series of underground comics called "Undercover Vampire Policeman". With her best friend and partner in crime (Ava) supporting him, he daydreams about leaving their world behind to be an illustrator.

One Man and His Dog

One Man and His Dog

Kees (Ramsey Nasr) is a gently eccentric loner who takes his imaginary dog for a walk each evening and likes to listen in on his neighbors' conversations. He is lonely. He has no real family, as his father is dead and his mother is institutionalized. However, when the chronically unemployed Kees gets a job at a bank, many of his co-workers don't know what to make of him, and scarcely anyone talks to him -- until the day someone comments on a photo in his wallet. Though he doesn't actually know the woman in the picture, Kees tells them the woman in the photo is his girlfriend and starts spinning tales about their "relationship." Before long, Kees has invented an entire alternate personality and is stealing photos from others to fit the new "friends" and "family" he's created.

Any Day Now

Any Day Now

An aging theology professor must confront his demons when a mysterious new student brings his past back to haunt him.

Into My Heart

Into My Heart

At Columbia University, during the week of John Belushi's death, lifelong friends Ben and Adam meet Nina at a student bar. After Nina and Adam marry, she goes to grad school in New York, while he begins a career as a writer. Ben marries Stanford law student Kat, and they both find work in New York. Lives are altered after Ben and Nina enter into an affair.

Cock & Bull Story

Cock & Bull Story

Two friends are torn apart by passion and ambition in the violent world of amateur boxing.

The Cat in the Bag

The Cat in the Bag

A young journalist is unhappy with society and contemplates what he can do about it. Symbolizes the political coming of age of the people of Québec.

Aquí donde no estás

Aquí donde no estás

A man is tormented by the devastating loss of his pregnant beloved, whose presence lingers everywhere, haunting him relentlessly. Reality and memory intertwine, shattering his mind and plunging him into an endless abyss of isolation and sorrow

Thirst

Thirst

Two friends go on a hike to the desert. In the desolate wilderness something hidden comes out in their friendship. From then on, the only way they manage to communicate is sexually and violently. While one of them wants more than the other is able to give, he expresses his frustration by making sure they get lost and have no water - anything to escape from awaiting reality.

Through a Boy's Eyes

Through a Boy's Eyes

A selection of short films that shows the struggles and celebrations seen through the eyes of boys becoming men but also attracted to them.

Slow Dance

Slow Dance

During a middle school dance, a boy is struggling with his courage when experiencing his first love.

I didn't... I wasn't... I amn't...

I didn't... I wasn't... I amn't...

A lonely single working class woman falls for the charms of a smooth-talking wealthy sexy older man- but as she grapples with her desire how far will she go to get what she wants?

When Light Finds You

When Light Finds You

After losing the people and purpose that once kept him going, Rio drifts through life with little hope for the future. Everything begins to change when he meets Anna, a cheerful young woman who encourages him to see beauty in the ordinary. When hope finally begins to bloom, an unexpected turn of events challenges everything they have learned about life, loss, and the courage to keep moving forward.

13 Minutes

13 Minutes

As a new day begins in the small American town of Minninnewah, the residents start their day as ordinary as the next. Mother Nature, however, has other plans for them. Inhabitants have just 13 minutes to seek shelter before the largest tornado on record ravages the town, leaving them struggling to protect their loved ones and fighting for their lives. Left to deal with the aftermath, four families must overcome their differences and find strength in each other in order to survive.

Family Squares

Family Squares

The Worth Family has been divided for years but when the matriarch, Grandma Mabel, dies suddenly, the family has to come together. The story of Family Squares takes the Worth Family on a journey discovering that not only did Grandma Mabel keep some secrets, so did everyone else. They find their way back to each other and realize that while you can’t choose your family, you can choose to be friends with them.

Anything's Possible

Anything's Possible

Anything’s Possible is a delightfully modern Gen Z coming-of-age story that follows Kelsa, a confident high school girl who is trans, as she navigates through senior year. When her classmate Khal gets a crush on her, he musters up the courage to ask her out, despite the drama he knows it could cause. What transpires is a romance that showcases the joy, tenderness, and pain of young love.

Final Analysis

Final Analysis

A psychiatrist becomes romantically involved with the sister of one of his patients, but the influence of her controlling gangster husband threatens to destroy them both.

Recommended Movies

From Straight A's to XXX

From Straight A's to XXX

When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.

Careful What You Wish For

Careful What You Wish For

A guy gets more than he bargained for after entering into an affair with the wife of an investment banker. Soon, a suspicious death and substantial life insurance policy embroil him in a scandal.

Addicted

Addicted

A gallerist risks her family and flourishing career when she enters into an affair with a talented painter and slowly loses control of her life.

Lolita

Lolita

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

The Ledge

The Ledge

A thriller in which a battle of philosophies between a fundamentalist Christian and an atheist who shares an apartment with a gay friend escalates into a lethal battle of wills.

May December

May December

Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

Mammal

Mammal

After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.

Lolita

Lolita

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

Deep Water

Deep Water

A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.

Effie Gray

Effie Gray

A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.

Magnolia

Magnolia

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals

Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.

Adulterers

Adulterers

On a steamy New Orleans afternoon, Sam Deuprey decides to surprise his beautiful wife, Ashley, for their anniversary and comes home early. But Ashley is not alone in the bedroom. She and her lover, Damien are about to learn how far a jealous husband will go.

The Starling Girl

The Starling Girl

17-year-old Jem Starling struggles with her place within her Christian fundamentalist community. But everything changes when her magnetic youth pastor Owen returns to their church.

The Only Living Boy in New York

The Only Living Boy in New York

When a young man learns that his overbearing father is having an affair, he tries to stop it, only to be seduced by the older woman as well.

Dream Lover

Dream Lover

Not long after they cross paths at an art gallery, architect Ray Reardon and hypnotically sensual Lena are married with children. But as strange incidents occur, Ray begins to realize he may not really know the woman he married.

The Crush

The Crush

A precocious and obsessive teenager develops a crush on a naive writer with harrowing consequences.

Crash

Crash

A car crash victim inexplicably finds himself aroused by car accidents and becomes involved with an underground subculture of like-minded souls.

Butterfly on a Wheel

Butterfly on a Wheel

A sociopathic kidnapper methodically pushes a desperate pair of parents to their absolute breaking point.

Nightmare Alley

Nightmare Alley

An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.