The Player

The Player (1992) is Robert Altman's satirical thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Studio executive Griffin Mill decides which scripts get made and which get a polite no. Hundreds of rejected writers resent him for it. One of them, it seems, has stopped sending pitches and started sending threats.

Griffin (Tim Robbins) keeps finding anonymous postcards promising payback. Convinced he's identified the culprit, he panics and kills the wrong man, a harmless screenwriter. From there it turns into a comedy of self-preservation: he romances the dead man's girlfriend, painter June (Greta Scacchi), dodges a sharp detective (Whoopi Goldberg), and fends off rivals circling his job. Dozens of stars wander through as themselves, from Bruce Willis to Julia Roberts.

Altman aimed a poison pen at the dream factory and somehow charmed the factory with it. The film opens on an unbroken eight-minute take, a sly joke about an industry that forgot how to shoot long takes. It picked up three Oscar nominations and the directing prize at Cannes. Made for anyone who likes the business roasting itself with real bite. Stream The Player (1992) online on iFILM.