Empire Falls (Season 1)

Empire Falls (2005) is an HBO miniseries you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Fred Schepisi from Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The cast brings together Ed Harris, Paul Newman, Helen Hunt, Robin Wright and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Miles Roby has run the Empire Grill in Empire Falls, Maine, longer than he can explain to himself. The mills that once kept the town alive have been idle for years; real power belongs to Francine Whiting, the widow who owns most of what remains. Miles is caught in the town's own paralysis — unable to finish his divorce, unable to leave, unable to get out from under Mrs. Whiting's quiet control. Everyone around him is similarly stuck, each carrying a private account of how things went wrong.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who were married for nearly five decades in real life, play characters at opposite ends of the town's moral spectrum — that casting alone carries weight. The miniseries took two Emmy Awards in 2005. Watch Empire Falls online on iFILM.