To Die For

Suzanne Stone, a young woman from a small New Hampshire town, has one ambition: to become a television news anchor. She marries Larry Maretto, whose family runs a local restaurant, and takes a job as a weather presenter at a modest cable station, treating the position with intense seriousness. Larry, meanwhile, wants a conventional family life, and his expectations become an obstacle to the future Suzanne has planned for herself. Determined to remove anything standing in her way, she draws a troubled teenager, Jimmy Emmett, into her scheme.

Gus Van Sant directed the film, the third of the eighteen features he has made in chronological order, following My Own Private Idaho and preceding Good Will Hunting. Buck Henry wrote the screenplay, and Laura Ziskin produced. Nicole Kidman plays Suzanne, with Matt Dillon as Larry, Joaquin Phoenix as Jimmy, Casey Affleck as Russel Hines, Illeana Douglas as Janice Maretto and Alison Folland as Lydia Mertz. The production credits list 47 cast members and 77 crew members.

Made for about 20 million dollars, the film took in roughly 21 million worldwide, a modest return. On IMDb it holds 6.8 from around 59,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.6 from roughly 924 votes. A critics' rating of 7.4 from 67 reviews places it above both audience scores, indicating that reviewers responded more favorably than the wider public did.