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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Collector's Edition, Theatrical Version, Trailers
Brimming with laughter, tears and subtle beauty, Hannah and Her Sisters is a magnificent "summation of (Woody Allen's) career to date" (The New York Times). Winner of three Oscars, and featuring a brilliant all-star cast, Hannah and Her Sisters spins a tale of three unforgettable women and showcases Allen "at his most emotionally expansive, working on his broadest canvas with masterly ease" (Newsweek)!The eldest daughter of show-biz parents, Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a devoted wife, loving mother and successful actress. A loyal supporter of her two aimless sisters (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest), she's also the emotional backbone of a family that seems to resent her stability almost as much as they depend on it. But when Hannah's perfect world is quietly sabotaged by sibling rivalry, she finally begins to see that she's as lost as everyone else, and in order to find herself, she'll have to choose -- between the independence her family can't live with...and the family she can't live without.
"Warmhearted, wise and fiercely funny!" The New York Times
"A joy to behold, a complex film that never loses either its sense of purpose or sense of humor." Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
"Sad funny and richly romantic, everything that makes Allen's movies so beloved." Gerald Nachman, San Francisco Chronicle
"Mellow, beautiful, rich and brimming with love, "Hannah" is the best Woody Allen yet and, quite simply, a great film." Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times
"...a dramatic comedy not quite like any other, and one that sets new standards for Mr. Allen as well as for all American moviemakers." Vincent Canby, The New York Times
Editor's Note
Woody Allen combined the best parts of his earlier films in creating HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, his 1986 masterwork about the changing relationships among three sisters living in New York City. Hannah (Mia Farrow) has put her acting career aside in order to take care of her family with second husband Elliot (Michael Caine in an Oscar-winning performance). Elliot has fallen in love with Hannah's sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), who herself is feeling suffocated by her cynical, mean-spirited loner of a lover, played with great intensity by Ingmar Bergman regular Max von Sydow. Meanwhile, third sister Holly (Oscar winnner Dianne Wiest) is struggling to find her own voice, working as a caterer while she tries to get her own acting career going. And in the middle of everything is Mickey (Woody Allen at his most neurotic), a television writer who is divorced from Hannah, has dated Holly, and, when he suspects he might have a brain tumor, decides to reevaluate his life and his faith in God. HANNAH AND HER SISTERS is Allen's most fully realized, optimistic adult comedy. He won a well-deserved Oscar for his marvelous screenplay, filled with his trademark sharp, witty dialogue, his undying passion for New York (its culture, architecture, music, romance), and some of his most well developed characters. The cast is extraordinary, the music illuminating, the settings magnificent. Taking place over the course of a few Thanksgivings, Allen's insightful, wonderful film is a thoroughly enjoyable mature look at the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of family life.
Plot Summary
Woody Allen's brilliant comedy examines the relationships and confusing romantic attachments of three sisters living in New York City.
| Features | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Widescreen Version, Enhanced For 16X9 TVs | | Collectible Booklet | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Audio: English, Spanish Mono |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: MGM |
| Release Date: 4/7/2009 |
| Running Time: 106 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1986 | | Catalog ID: 101392 | | UPC: 00027616860453 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (1987) |  | Michael Caine, Winner, Best Supporting Actor | | Dianne Wiest, Winner, Best Supporting Actress | | Woody Allen, Winner, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen | | | Woody Allen, Nominee, Best Director | | | Robert Greenhunt, Nominee, Best Picture | | Dianne Wiest, Winner, Best Actress in a Supporting Role | |
Golden Globe (1987) | | | Dianne Wiest, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | | Hannah and Her Sisters, Winner, Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical | | | Michael Caine, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | |
Oscar (1987) | | Michael Caine, Winner, Best Actor in a Supporting Role | | | Stuart Wurtzel, Carol Joffe, Nominee, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration | | | Susan E. Morse, Nominee, Best Film Editing | |
British Academy Awards (1987) | | Woody Allen, Winner, Best Direction | | Woody Allen, Winner, Best Screenplay - Original |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...Ardent, ambitious and memorable....[A] compassionate comedy..." 12/14/1989 p.23New York Times
"...Nonstop exhilaration -- a dramatic comedy not quite like any other, and one that sets new standards for [Allen] as well as for all American movie makers..." 02/07/1986 p.C4 New York Times
Included in the New York Times "10 BEST FILMS OF 1986" 12/28/1986 p.II,19 Los Angeles Times
"...Mellow, beautiful, rich and brimming with love, HANNAH is the best Woody Allen yet and, quite simply, a great film..." 02/07/1986 p.C1 Sight and Sound
"...Allen interweaves the stories of Hannah, Lee and their other sister Holly with exemplary skill, creating a witty, sophisticated and brilliantly shot comedy-drama..." 10/01/2002 p.63 Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters," the best movie he has ever made, is organized like an episodic novel, with acute little self-contained vignettes adding up to the big picture...Each section begins with a title or quotation on the screen, white against black, making the movie feel like a stately progression through the lives of its characters. Then the structure is exploded, time and again, by the energy and the passion of those characters: an accountant in love with his wife's sister, a TV executive who fears he is going to die, a woman whose cocaine habit has made her life a tightrope of fear, an artist who pretends to be strong but depends pitifully on his girlfriend...By the end of the movie, the section titles and quotations have made an ironic point: We try to organize our lives according to what we have read and learned and believed in, but our plans are lost in a tumult of emotion...Allen approaches his material as a very bright, ironic, fussy, fearful outsider; his constant complaint is that it's all very well for these people to engage in their lives and plans and adulteries, because they do not share his problem, which is that he sees through everything, and what he sees on the other side of everything is certain death and disappointment...Allen's writing and directing style is so strong and assured in this film that the actual filmmaking itself becomes a narrative voice, just as we sense Henry James behind all of his novels, or William Faulkner or Iris Murdoch behind theirs...The movie is not a comedy, but it contains big laughs, and it is not a tragedy, although it could be if we thought about it long enough...It suggests that modern big-city lives are so busy, so distracted, so filled with ambition and complication, that there isn't time to stop and absorb the meaning of things. Neither tragedy nor comedy can find a place to stand; there are too many other guests at the party. - Roger Ebert
Apollo Movie Guide 8 of 10
It sometimes seems almost pointless bothering to write reviews of Woody Allen films. There is no other filmmaker who elicits such strong feelings one way or the other, and it doesn't seem likely that any review is going to swing people from one camp to the other. Fans of Allen wouldn't dream of missing his yearly offerings, while everyone else wouldn't see an Allen flick if you paid them, no matter how accessible. So what's the point?...If action is not a prerequisite for your viewing pleasure and you like good dialogue and quirky humour, chances are you already like Woody Allen. Hannah and Her Sisters offers plenty of dialogue on the full range of Allen obsessions: love, sex, death, philosophy, architecture, music, adultery, religion, and the meaning of life...Like many films in the Allen oeuvre, the plot plays second fiddle to the issues. Which is not to say there is no story. There is. But it's more a slice of life. Mia Farrow plays the title role and the most stable character of the sisterly triumvirate, which also includes Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest). If the film wasn't so interesting and funny, the characters could come straight out of a soap opera. Allen plays the hypochondriac (okay, that's hardly a surprise) Mickey, ex-husband of Hannah; he now dates Holly. Michael Caine plays Elliot, Hannah's current spouse, who secretly loves Lee. Needless to say, the complications among these relationships are immense, and drive the film forward...The funniest moments come, of course, from Mickey. Convinced he has a brain tumour, Mickey searches for the meaning of life. He investigates Catholicism, but doesn't believe in God. He's willing to dye Easter eggs, though, if it'll work...For fans of the "talkie," the inspiring Hannah and Her Sisters will surely please. For Allen-haters, well, it's just one more to put on your 'don't bother' list. - Guy MacPherson
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