Rain Man

Director: Barry Levinson
Year Released: 1988
Rating: 3.0

Auto dealer Charlie (Tom Cruise) is told his estranged father has passed away and left his three million dollar inheritance to his long-lost brother Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), a "high-functioning autistic savant" living in an institution (with a set of strict rules and habits he follows) so he takes Ray on an extended road trip from Cincinnati to Los Angeles, putting up with Raymond's various ... peculiar tendencies.  Having worked with autistic children in the past, I can only say - speaking from experience - that Hoffman's portrayal is not at all off the mark or offensive (he deservedly won the Oscar for it), and that the scene in the airport reminds me of a time when I was with a Life Skills student (who also had autism) in a grocery store and he wouldn't leave the freezer isle and then started screaming.  What doesn't get talked about enough, however, is how good Cruise is as well: the way he goes from tolerating to loathing to exploiting Ray (to win at cards in Vegas) to eventually accepting him is very sweet - it's a buddy movie, except one of the buddies is only partially living in what we know of as "reality."