Pretty Baby

Pretty Baby (1978) is a provocative American drama from French director Louis Malle, available to watch online on iFILM. New Orleans, early 1917: twelve-year-old Violet (Brooke Shields) has grown up inside a Storyville brothel, raised among her mother Hattie's (Susan Sarandon) working life without ever being told it was unusual.

A photographer named Bellocq (Keith Carradine) arrives and begins photographing the girl. Malle refuses to moralize. He builds a precise, uncomfortable picture of a child shaped entirely by her surroundings — a world where what was happening to her was simply commerce.

The film screened in competition at Cannes and sparked controversy that followed it for decades. Sarandon received a BAFTA nomination for her performance. This is not easy viewing, which is precisely why it stays with you. Watch Pretty Baby (1978) online on iFILM.