Sleepers

Sleepers (1996) is Barry Levinson's crime drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Four boys come of age in New York's Hell's Kitchen, a neighborhood run in equal parts by a parish priest and the local mob.

A prank with a stolen hot-dog cart goes wrong and lands them in a juvenile reformatory. Inside, a group of guards led by Sean Nokes turns the sentence into months of abuse the boys swear never to speak of. Fifteen years pass. Two have become street killers, one writes for a newspaper, and another works in the district attorney's office. A chance encounter in a bar hands them a way to settle the score.

Levinson assembled a remarkable cast: Robert De Niro as Father Bobby, Dustin Hoffman as a washed-up defense lawyer, plus Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Brad Renfro and Minnie Driver. The courtroom gambit, where the prosecution quietly throws its own case, rides on how far a friendship forged in that basement is willing to go. Stream Sleepers (1996) online on iFILM.