Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.
Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
A young woman fakes her own death in an attempt to escape her nightmarish marriage, but discovers it is impossible to elude her controlling husband.
An adopted girl discovers her talent for butter carving and finds herself pitted against an ambitious local woman in their Iowa town's annual contest.
A naive Midwesterner insurance salesman travels to a big-city convention in an effort to save the jobs of his co-workers.
The Earth is invaded by alien parasites—AKA 'slugs'—that ride on people's backs and control their minds.
The children of Iowa farmers find love, with mixed results, at the state fair.
The lives of an Iowa farmer's three daughters are shattered when he suddenly decides to bequeath them the family's fertile farm.
King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.
Alexis is on top of the world until a tragic accident dashes her hopes and dreams of becoming a world-class figure skater. Only with the help of those who love her can she prove to the world — and herself — that she still has the potential to realize her dreams.
Jewell and Gil are farmers. They seem to be working against the odds, producing no financial surplus. Gil has lost hope of ever becoming prosperous, but Jewell decides to fight for her family.
When Rachel’s husband disappears, the police have one suspect: her. While trying to prove her innocence, she uncovers many secrets about the man she married.
Jessica is one of the most famous actresses in the world, leading a glamorous – if tabloid worthy – life. But all that is thrown for a loop when she goes on location to shoot a holiday themed film in the Christmas-obsessed town of Homestead, Iowa. While a romance brews between her and Matt, a local inn keeper who is a single dad, she also gets a taste of small-town life and rediscovers the true meaning of Christmas.
An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.
Farm boy Daryl Cage's parents ship him off to the big city to live with his brother, hoping he will have a better life there. After a baggage mixup at the airport, Daryl finds himself in possession of a drug cache, which a ruthless drug dealer wants back. The dealer murders Daryl's brother and the small town boy ends up all alone in the big city, being pursued by both the drug dealer and the police, who suspect him of the murder.
An Iowa pajama factory worker falls in love with an affable superintendent who had been hired by the factory's boss to help oppose the workers' demand for a pay raise.
The insidious typical talk of a small town makes a young man and the married woman he is in love very unhappy.
On his family's farm in rural Iowa, young Jack Gudmanson is wrestling with his sexual identity, not an easy thing to do in the macho world of the Midwest. But things become clearer for him when he discovers via a rusty old lunch box filled with gay magazines that his father, killed in Vietnam, led a double life down on the farm. But as liberating as the discovery is for Jack, it is painful for his grandfather and mother, who have tried for years to keep it a family secret. Now Jack must decide whether to share this new information with his younger sister or allow it to remain buried a while longer.