Mother Night

Mother Night (1996) is ready to watch online on iFILM — director Keith Gordon's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's 1962 novel. Nick Nolte plays Howard Campbell, an American playwright who agreed to work as an Allied spy before the United States entered the war. His cover: host Nazi radio propaganda broadcasts and smuggle coded messages inside them for Washington.

The war ends. His handlers go dark. Campbell has no documents, no names, no proof of anything. The broadcasts survive, and the world knows exactly what they sounded like. Cheryl Lee plays his German wife; Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Kirsten Dunst appear in supporting roles.

Shot in black and white, the film refuses to behave like a spy thriller or a war drama — it is something harder to place. Vonnegut put the moral on the first page: "We are what we pretend to be." Gordon takes that seriously. Stream Mother Night online on iFILM.