Stanley & Iris

Stanley & Iris (1990) is a Martin Ritt drama you can watch online on iFILM, pairing Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro in one of his quietest, least expected roles.

Iris King is eight months a widow, working at a factory bakery and squeezed into her sister's house with no obvious way forward. Stanley Cox is the cafeteria cook who loses his job when his secret surfaces: he cannot read. Not a word. Iris starts teaching him in her kitchen after the kids are asleep — cautious evenings, slow progress, small victories.

Ritt, who spent his career on socially grounded stories, keeps the romance almost secondary to the literacy arc. De Niro plays Stanley with real restraint — no intensity, no outbursts, just a man carrying a decades-old shame. The film's tagline said it plainly: some people need love spelled out for them. Stream Stanley & Iris (1990) online on iFILM.