Fox Searchlight Pictures
Good Machine
Not part of a collection.
The Ice Storm
It was 1973, and the climate was changing.
In the weekend after thanksgiving 1973 the Hood family is skidding out of control. Then an ice storm hits, the worst in a century.
- Original title
- The Ice Storm
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- $18,000,000
- Revenue
- $16,000,000
CinemaSerf
Dec 19, 2025 · via TMDB
With both Thanksgiving and an ice storm approaching their early 70s Connecticut town, the “Hood” and “Carver” families are congregating for their celebrations in which you sense you might actually be safer if you were the turkey. We first meet the former family where dad “Ben” (Kevin Kline) is pretty much only going through the motions in his marriage to “Elena” (Joan Chen). Their loved up teenage son “Paul” (Tobey Maguire) has arrived from college in New York, and then there is daughter “Wendy” (Christina Ricci). The latter lot appear just as messy as “Jim” (Jamey Sheridan) and “Janey” (Sigourney Weaver) have their two kids “Mikey” (Elijah Wood) and “Sandy” (Adam Hann-Byrd) and both are replete with all the usual familial dysfunction you’d expect from small town America (or anywhere else). What we learn fairly swiftly is that “Ben” is having a long-term affair with “Janey”; “Wendy” is engaged in something embryonic with “Mikey” - to the chagrin of “Sandy” and with tempers raising as exponentially as the temperatures outside are dropping, things begin to come to a long-awaited head. Though the scenarios are somewhat exaggerated here, this is one of the best character studies I’ve seen on screen as it deals with adult issues of ennui, betrayal and tragedy, but also of adolescence and growing up - and virtually all of that is done with as little sentiment as possible. There’s sex, lust, infatuation on display here - but is there actually any love? Or respect? Is age in any way an arbiter of maturity, or of being “grown up”? Kline, Chen and Weaver offer us quite a solid masterclass on just how to portray characters with virtually no self-awareness, nor sense of anything except themselves. Hypocrisy rules amidst a “do as I say not as I do” mentality that is best exemplified by “Ben” and his rapport with the sexually adventurous “Wendy” and by “Elena” as her patience finally begins to evaporate. Meantime, a solid series of efforts from the younger cast remind us all of the joys and pitfalls of puberty and the years immediately following our own sexual awakening. The whole thing is written with toxicity in mind, and with the external photography of this equally chilling environmental phenomena taking hold outside their centrally heated igloos, there develops a distinctly claustrophobic feel to the whole thing. Hopefully, most family life won’t be like this…!?
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Google Play Movies
YouTube
Fandango At Home
Kevin Kline
Ben Hood
Joan Allen
Elena Hood
Sigourney Weaver
Janey Carver
Jamey Sheridan
Jim Carver
Christina Ricci
Wendy Hood
Tobey Maguire
Paul Hood
Elijah Wood
Mikey Carver
Adam Hann-Byrd
Sandy Carver
Michael Cumpsty
Philip Edwards
Katie Holmes
Libbets Casey
Henry Czerny
George Clair
David Krumholtz
Francis Davenport
Kate Burton
Dorothy Franklin
William Cain
Ted Shackley
Maia Danziger
Mrs. Gadd
Christine Farrell
Marie Earle
Glenn Fitzgerald
Neil Conrad
Allison Janney
Dot Halford
Jonathan Freeman
Ted Franklin
Barbara Garrick
Weather Reporter
Dennis Gagomiros
Stephen Earle
John Benjamin Hickey
Mark Boland
Byron Jennings
Pierce Sawyer
Miles Marek
Mr. Gadd
Colette Kilroy
Sari Steele
Daniel McDonald
Weatherman
Donna Mitchell
Maria Conrad
Nancy Opel
Claudia White
Larry Pine
Dave Gorman
Jessica Stone
Marge
Sarah Thompson
Beth
Scott Wentworth
Paul's Teacher
Robert Westenberg
Rob Halford
Colleen Camp
Dr. Pasmier (uncredited)
Joe O'Connor
Marty (uncredited)
Courtney Peldon
Billie (uncredited)
Bettina Skye
Drug Store Clerk (uncredited)
Nicholas Lundy
Assistant Art Director
Mark Friedberg
Production Design
Frederick Elmes
Director of Photography
Anthony Bregman
Post Production Supervisor
Danny Downey
Stunts
Jill Brown
Stunts
Ang Lee
Director
Lisa M. Rowe
Second Assistant Director
Tim Squyres
Editor
Anthony Bregman
Associate Producer
Avy Kaufman
Casting
Ang Lee
Producer
James Schamus
Producer
Ted Hope
Producer
Mychael Danna
Original Music Composer
Randall Balsmeyer
Visual Effects Supervisor
Rick Moody
Novel
James Schamus
Screenplay
Lapseni on minun…
Wild Geese
The Wall
Lady Against the Odds
Thursday the 12th
A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story
Forrest Gump
Les petites couleurs
Apocalypse Now
Tokyo Story
Metropolis
American Beauty
Swaarangi
Blade Runner
Freedom Writers
Anatomy of a Murder
Fried Green Tomatoes
Beasts of No Nation
The Inquisitor
Obsession
The Motorcycle Diaries
Dean Spanley
Kings Row
Oh No, Lasse Falls!
Fourteen Hours
The Secret Scripture
Midaq Alley
Semua Akan Baik-Baik Saja
A History of Violence
Rakastunut rampa
Flywheel
The Cider House Rules
Möte med livet
Oliver!
Two for the Road
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Little Caesar
It's the Heart That Dies Last
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
To Live, To Die, To Live Again
Northanger Abbey
The Life Ahead
The Friend
Absolute Power
Providence
The Last Mitterrand
If These Walls Could Talk 2
The Grifters
Experiment
The Red Lantern
Sons and Lovers
Counsellor at Law
Losing Isaiah
The Day of the Locust
My Summer in Provence
Sheep in the Box
A Kismet Christmas
Tragic Vacation
A Little Chaos
Tell Me Softly
A Kiss Before Dying
A Wrinkle in Time
Force 10 from Navarone
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny
Hammett
Waiter
The Rules of Attraction
The Elementary Particles
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
The Legend of Barney Thomson
Perfect Strangers
A Walk on the Moon
The Harder They Fall
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Under The Greenwood Tree
The Lowlife
All the King's Men
The Story of Piera
Varg Veum - Buried Dogs
Schroeder's Wonderful World
Eugenie de Sade
Monsieur Beaucaire
Moonlight Warrior
Cocktail Hour
Ithaca
Murder in the Cassava Patch
Jarrapellejos
Madame and Her Niece
Bahnwärter Thiel
Autumn's Kiss
Semestr něžnosti
The Beast in Man
Vincenz Priessnitz
The Montreal Protocol
Cold Enough for Snow
Butterfly in the Typewriter
Today, the two of us skipped
Lincoln in the Bardo
The Lifeboat
Gone Girl
Eyes Wide Shut
Nocturnal Animals
25th Hour
Argo
This Boy's Life
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
The Wife
Under Fire
The Gift
Goodbye June
Auto Focus
Derailed
Leave the World Behind
The Postcard Killings
Affliction
The Other Woman
Heatwave
American Pastoral
I Smile Back
Crime of Passion
Die My Love
The Humans
Straw Dogs
Addicted
Winged Creatures
Boxcar Bertha
Deep Water
Sep 26, 1997
New York Film Festival
Sep 27, 1997
Nov 26, 1997
