8MM

“You can't prepare for where the truth will take you.”

Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) is a small-town private investigator who wants to get home to his wife and daughter, but a wealthy widow hires him to learn whether a short reel of 8mm film found in her late husband's safe shows a real killing. With Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), a streetwise clerk, he follows a thin trail of evidence. Joel Schumacher shows what that search costs Tom's marriage, and a stranger's fate depends on him not looking away.