Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #88. Philippe Falardeau’s The Good Lie

Published on February 21, 2014

The Good Lie

Director: Philippe Falardeau
Writer: Margaret Nagle
Producers: Black Label Media’s Molly Smith, Imagine Ent.’s Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Karen Kehela Sherwood
U.S. Distributor: Right Available
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Corey Stoll, Thad Luckinbill

With his film Monsieur Lazhar, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau suddenly became a hot commodity and secured an English language debut starring Reese Witherspoon, an actress currently throwing herself into a gamut of independently minded film projects. While the plot sounds like a familiar configuration (several recent foreign films share a similar synopsis, like Terraferma or Le Havre), the director’s pedigree has us hopeful that this is definitely worth seeking out.

Gist: A Sudanese refugee is taken in by a straight-talking American woman in their new home in the United States.

Release Date: Reportedly in post-production, this seems like a vehicle prime for awards consideration grooming, so a later year premiere should be expected.

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Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.