Straight Time (1978) with Dustin Hoffman, it lived up to everything I'd hoped it would be and more. In my opinion, the best role I've ever seen Hoffman play. It's cliche, but he really does become his character. The performance is so subtle and unself-conscious that the movie truly takes on a fatefully voyeuristic character. He nails it. You must see it to believe it. Only recently released as a DVD, and the highest recommendation.
Overall the movie does an amazing job of realistically and artfully showing how an ex-con is what he is and how he can struggle and fail to live a straight life. If there's a single downfall, it's the use of Hoffman's parole officer so bluntly as a personality foil to him in a scene when it's both an unnecessary and overbearing evidence that people's manners are often ironically similar and only act on different planes of reality. The movie did a well enough job of making all the hardships look like no-one's fault, anyhow, so no need for that.
Other notable supporting cast: Theresa Russell, Gary Busey (with son Jake), Harry Dean Stanton, and Kathy Bates. Enough said.
When a friend asked what the movie was about, I told him that it was about a gay man attempting to live a straight life. It would probably be funny to watch it thinking that, too.
