Ree Dolly (Lawrence) is a seventeen-year-old girl desperately trying to keep her poverty-stricken family intact despite an absent father and mentally ill mother. When the local Sheriff informs Ree that her criminal father has put up their house as collateral for bail and that they will lose it unless he turns up to court in a week’s time, she sets off on an investigation across dangerous terrain to discover what has happened to him.

Debra Granik’s (Leave No Trace) film earned critical acclaim upon release and was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture. However, it was the performance of the relatively unknown Lawrence that caught critics’ eyes, with her portrayal of the courageous, stubborn Ree launching her to stardom.

“Every once in a rare while a movie gets inside your head and heart, rubbing your emotions raw. The remarkable Winter's Bone is just such a movie.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Inspired by the 50th anniversary restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s neo-noir thriller The Conversation (at QFT from Sat 13 July), we are spending July looking at noir detectives, from classic noir’s police investigators to neo-noir’s common people turned amateur sleuths.