Jacob's Ladder (18)

Having established himself as one of Hollywood’s most dependable commercial directors with Flashdance (1983), 9½ Weeks (1986) and Fatal Attraction (1987), Adrian Lyne ventured into markedly darker territory with Jacob’s Ladder. Tim Robbins gives one of his finest performances as Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran whose attempts to rebuild a quiet life in mid-1970s New York are undermined by the lingering trauma of combat and the devastating loss of his young son. As terrifying hallucinations and disquieting encounters begin to erode the boundary between memory, paranoia and reality, Lyne’s film gradually reveals itself to be far more than a psychological study of post-Vietnam trauma. Drawing equally on psychological horror, religious allegory and existential dread, Jacob’s Ladder unfolds as a phantasmagoric descent into a fractured consciousness, its unnerving imagery and immersive atmosphere sustaining a profound sense of unease before culminating in one of American cinema’s most haunting final revelations.