An American Crime

For other uses, see American Crime.

An American Crime
Against a black background, a tightly cropped image showing only Catherine Keener's glaring eyes appears above the title "An American Crime" in white. A similarly cropped image of Elliot Page's tear-filled eyes appears below the title, and just above the tagline "The true story of a shocking crime and a secret that wouldn't keep". The leads' names appear above the images.
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTommy O'Haver
Written byTommy O'Haver
Irene Turner
Produced byChristine Vachon
Jocelyn Hayes
Henry Winterstern
Kevin Turen
Hans C. Ritter
StarringElliot Page[a]
Catherine Keener
Hayley McFarland
Ari Graynor
James Franco
CinematographyByron Shah
Edited byMelissa Kent
Music byAlan Ari Lazar
Production
company
Distributed byShowtime
Release dates
  • January 19, 2007 (2007-01-19) (Sundance Film Festival)
  • May 10, 2008 (2008-05-10) (Showtime)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

An American Crime is a 2007 American crime drama film directed by Tommy O'Haver and starring Elliot Page[a] and Catherine Keener. The film is based on the true story of the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis single mother Gertrude Baniszewski. It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.[1]

Because of internal problems with the film's original distributor, First Look International, the film was not released theatrically.[2] The Showtime television network officially premiered An American Crime on May 10, 2008.[3] The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, a Primetime Emmy (both for Keener's performance), and a Writers Guild of America Award.


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  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference broeske was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ McNary, Dave (March 2, 2007). "First Look's Winterstern resigns". Variety. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
  3. ^ "TV Tonight: An American Crime on Showtime". BuzzSugar. May 10, 2008. Archived from the original on April 2, 2012.