Silkwood

Silkwood (1983) is a drama directed by Mike Nichols you can watch online on iFILM, with Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher as three housemates working the same Oklahoma plutonium plant. Streep's performance earned her an Oscar nomination; Cher picked up her first nomination in the same sweep for a supporting turn that took most people by surprise.

Karen Silkwood — Streep's character — is a union member, not an activist by temperament. She just notices things: safety corners being cut, colleagues showing radiation contamination that supervisors pretend isn't there. She starts gathering documents. She arranges a meeting with a New York Times reporter. On November 13, 1974, she drove out to that meeting. The car ended up in a ditch. She did not survive.

Nichols is less interested in the conspiracy than in the person — what moves an ordinary woman to put herself in front of a corporation that has every reason to stop her. The film never resolves what happened on that road, and it doesn't try to. That open ending feels more honest than any tidy conclusion would. Stream Silkwood online on iFILM.