Backdrop fallback

The United States of Leland

The United States of Leland

Share

The United States of Leland

"Crime. Confusion. Compassion. They're all just states of mind."

2003

1h 48m

6.5(341 votes)

Crime

Drama

Overview

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

Thousand Words

Trigger Street Productions

Paramount Classics

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle

Pearl Madison

Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling

Leland P. Fitzgerald

Chris Klein

Chris Klein

Allen Harris

Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey

Albert T. Fitzgerald

Jena Malone

Jena Malone

Becky Pollard

Lena Olin

Lena Olin

Marybeth Fitzgerald

Michelle Williams

Michelle Williams

Julie Pollard

Martin Donovan

Martin Donovan

Harry Pollard

Ann Magnuson

Ann Magnuson

Karen Pollard

Kerry Washington

Kerry Washington

Ayesha

Creative team

Directed by: Matthew Ryan Hoge
Written by: Matthew Ryan Hoge
Produced by: Bernie Morris
Palmer West

Similar Movies

Infernal Affairs II

Infernal Affairs II

In this prequel to the original, a bloody power struggle among the Triads coincides with the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, setting up the events of the first film.

Fist of Fury

Fist of Fury

During the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, Chen Zhen, the star pupil of a recently-deceased martial arts teacher battles a Japanese dojo which seeks the demise of his fighting school.

Chen Mo and Meiting

Chen Mo and Meiting

The touching encounter of two drifting beings - Meiting, a hairdresser, and Chen Mo, a street vendor, in Beijing. A strange relationship on the background of survival and anonymous urbanization, a chronicle on the survival of feelings.

Freche Mädchen

Freche Mädchen

Teenage best friends Mila, Hanna and Kati play matchmaker to their teachers while helping each other through their own budding romances.

Angel

Angel

Edwardian England. A precocious girl from a poor background with aspirations to being a novelist finds herself swept to fame and fortune when her tasteless romances hit the best seller lists. Her life changes in unexpected ways when she encounters an aristocratic brother and sister, both of whom have cultural ambitions, and both of whom fall in love with her.

Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast

Ex-safecracker Gal Dove has served his time behind bars and is blissfully retired to a Spanish villa paradise with a wife he adores. The idyll is shattered by the arrival of his nemesis Don Logan, intent on persuading Gal to return to London for one last big job.

Hard Miles

Hard Miles

A strong-willed social worker at a youth prison assembles a cycling team of teenage convicts and takes them on a transformative 1000-mile ride. Inspired by the life of Greg Townsend and the Ridgeview Academy Cycling Team. This is the story of how these troubled young men found another gear.

Run Hide Fight

Run Hide Fight

A 17-year-old girl uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters.

Mr. Petrified Forrest

Mr. Petrified Forrest

A passport photographer named Steven Forrest is petrified of death following the sudden demise of his fearless buddy in a martini accident.

Battle of Memories

Battle of Memories

A man becomes involved in a memory manipulation operation to try and regain lost memories. He thinks the exercise may help repair his failed marriage, but accidentally ends up with the mind of a serial killer.

Murder by Numbers

Murder by Numbers

Tenacious homicide detective Cassie Mayweather and her still-green partner are working a murder case, attempting to profile two malevolently brilliant young men: cold, calculating killers whose dark secrets might explain their crimes.

Even Dwarfs Started Small

Even Dwarfs Started Small

A group of tormented patients stage a coup at an oppressive, dismal asylum after they're not allowed out on an excursion.

Let Me Eat Your Pancreas

Let Me Eat Your Pancreas

A dying girl meets a nonchalant boy who found out her secret. She decided to fulfill her bucket list with none-other-than the boy who couldn't care less about the world.

Smoking Guns

Smoking Guns

A young gambler makes a large, risky bet on a horse race. When the odds turn in his favour, more than one party has sudden interest in the winning betting slip, and they'll do anything to get their hands on it.

The Eternal Blonde

A true crime noir about the execution of Ruth Snyder

Babylon

Babylon

Dark animation examining the thin line between human definitions of war and peace. Part of Sweet Disaster; a 1986 series of short films made for Channel 4. It consists of “animated visions of the apocalypse”.

Redacted

Redacted

A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.

Rear Window

Rear Window

Jason Kemp, a recently paralyzed architect, lives in a high-tech apartment filled with assistive technology. As a quadriplegic confined to his home, he passes the long hours by spying on his neighbors from his apartment window. His innocent pastime takes a deadly turn when he believes he witnesses a murder. Determined to uncover the truth, Jason continues to dig deeper - eventually finding himself locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

The Life of David Gale

The Life of David Gale

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

Amok

Amok

A man is murdered, but the person responsible avoids being discovered and arrested. A few years later a police inspector suspects he has found evidence in a newly-published book entitled "Amok".

Recommended Movies

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.

Class of 1984

Class of 1984

Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.

McVicar

McVicar

John McVicar was a London Bad Boy. he graduated to armed bank robbery and was Britain's "Public Enemy No. 1". He was captured and put into a high security prison. Will even the highest security prison be able to hold him? This is the true story of his life, his criminal exploits and his eventual rehabilitation.

The Substitute 2: School's Out

The Substitute 2: School's Out

When teacher Randall Thomasson is killed during a carjacking, an unexpected visitor shows up at his funeral - his estranged brother, Karl Thomasson. An ex-Green Beret turned mercenary, Karl signs on as a new substitute teacher in order to investigate Randall's murder.

Cape Fear

Cape Fear

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

Murder by Numbers

Murder by Numbers

Tenacious homicide detective Cassie Mayweather and her still-green partner are working a murder case, attempting to profile two malevolently brilliant young men: cold, calculating killers whose dark secrets might explain their crimes.

Above the Rim

Above the Rim

Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.

Black Butterfly

Black Butterfly

Paul is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who picks up a drifter and offers him a place to stay. However, when the deranged stranger takes Paul hostage and forces him to write, their unhinged relationship brings buried secrets to light.

Bad Boys

Bad Boys

Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

The Unforgivable

The Unforgivable

A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.

The Grifters

The Grifters

A small-time conman has his loyalties torn between his estranged mother and his new girlfriend, both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play.

Girl in the Basement

Girl in the Basement

Sara is a teen girl who is looking forward to her 18th birthday to move away from her controlling father Don. But before she could even blow out the candles, Don imprisons her in the basement of their home.

Farewell, My Lovely

Farewell, My Lovely

Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by ex-con Moose Malloy to find his girlfriend, a former lounge dancer. While also investigating the murder of a client and the theft of a jade necklace, Marlowe becomes entangled with seductress Helen Grayle and discovers a web of dark secrets that are better left hidden.

True Story

True Story

A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Monster

Monster

The story of Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

A Walk Among the Tombstones

Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.

Siberian Education

Siberian Education

The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.

The Rookie

The Rookie

Veteran cop Nick Pulovski is used to playing musical partners; many of the partners he's had in the past have died on the job, and often as a result of Nick's risky tactics. But the rookie who's been assigned to help Nick bust a carjacking ring is almost as hotheaded as he is … and when Nick gets kidnapped, his newbie partner is his only hope.

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Panic

Panic

Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful part of his life. He seeks the help of a therapist and meets a woman in the waiting room that he connects with.