Family Business (1989) poster
1989 · crime · family · heist

Family Business

Directed by Sidney Lumet1h 50m1989
ElsewhereIMDb5.715kRT35%Metacritic54TMDB5.7278
  • brisk
Movie DNA

Neutral, kinetic, measured crime / family, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son and Jessie's grandson, who is bright, good-looking, and without a criminal past.

Our read · Family Business (1989) reads as a neutral, kinetic, grounded crime · family · heist entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Where to watch
All options on JustWatch

Availability in Latvia · via JustWatch

More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of Family Business

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want three generations of crooks arguing through one last caper.

ends bittersweetit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 18attention 3/5feels its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if a talky multi-generational heist without sparkle will bore you.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself