Beloved

Beloved (1998) is a drama directed by Jonathan Demme, adapted from Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — watch it online on iFILM. Oprah Winfrey leads the cast as Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman now living in rural Ohio; Danny Glover and Thandiwe Newton co-star.

Years have passed since the end of slavery, but Sethe's house on the edge of Cincinnati has been shunned by neighbours for as long as anyone remembers. When an old friend named Paul D. arrives and moves in, something shifts — and then a young woman calling herself Beloved turns up at the door, wet and disoriented, with no past anyone can name. Sethe recognises her. The film slowly, carefully earns the weight of what that recognition means.

Demme spends nearly three hours building dread from history rather than from jump scares, and the result is one of the more sombre American films of the 1990s. Morrison's novel was called unadaptable by many; the film never fully dispels that doubt, but Winfrey's performance is reason enough to sit with it. Stream Beloved (1998) online on iFILM.