A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It (1992) is a drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Robert Redford and based on Norman Maclean's semi-autobiographical novella. Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot won the Oscar for his work here — and the fly-fishing sequences on Montana's Blackfoot River are the reason why.

Brothers Norman and Paul Maclean grow up in a Presbyterian minister's household, raised on scripture and fly rods in equal measure. Craig Sheffer plays the older Norman, who leaves for college and an eventual career in academia. Brad Pitt is Paul — restless, reckless, and an almost supernaturally gifted angler who'd rather chase the next cast than deal with the wreckage piling up around him: gambling debts, bad company, a drinking problem nobody names out loud. Their father, Tom Skerritt, holds the family together through ritual: early mornings on the water, the line arcing clean against the sky.

Redford shot on location across Montana, using the landscape as a kind of emotional shorthand — wide-open country around people who can't quite reach each other. The film asks what it means to love someone you cannot help. Stream A River Runs Through It (1992) online on iFILM.