Ordinary People (1980 Best Picture)

The tenth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 1980 features the Academy Awards Best Picture winner, Robert Redford’s Ordinary People. Directed by Robert Redford from a script by Alvin Sargent (based on the novel by Judith Guest) and starring Timothy Hutton, Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch and Elizabeth McGovern, Ordinary People was nominated for six Oscars and won four, including Best Picture.

The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Roger Ebert (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ordinary-people-1980), Vincent Canby in The New York Times (https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/people-re.html), and Pauline Kael in The New Yorker.

Please like, share, rate and comment on the show and this episode, and tune in for the next 1980 installment, featuring our producer David Rosen’s pick, the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor comedy Stir Crazy.