Arlington Road is a 1999 drama film directed by Mark Pellington and starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, and Hope Davis. The film tells the story of a widowed George Washington University professor who suspects his new neighbors are involved in terrorism and becomes obsessed with foiling their terrorist plot. The film was heavily inspired by the paranoid culture of the 1990s concerning the right-wing militia movement, Ruby Ridge, the Waco siege and Oklahoma City Bombing. Ehren Kruger wrote the script, which won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) Nicholl Fellowship in 1996. The film was to have been originally released by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, but the film's United States distribution rights were sold to Sony Pictures Entertainment for $6 million. The eventual release was the second title for Screen Gems (and its first wide theatrical release) while PolyGram (now part of Universal Studios) handled foreign rights. Plot Michael Faraday is a history professor at George Washington University specializing in terrorism. His FBI agent wife Leah died in the line of duty in a Ruby Ridge-style standoff, and Michael now lives with his 9-year-old son Grant in Reston, Virginia. He is still friends with Leah's partner Whit Carver, and is dating his former graduate student Brooke. Upon finding a severely injured boy named Brady stumbling in his neighborhood, Michael rushes him to the hospital, where the wounds are determined to be caused by fireworks. Michael meets Brady's parents, structural engineer Oliver Lang and housewife Cheryl, discovering they are his neighbors. They become friends, and their sons join the Discoverers, a Boy Scouts-style group. In casual conversation, Oliver expresses his sympathy for Leah's death by displaying potentially violent anti-government beliefs. This, and the cause of Brady's injuries, arouses suspicion in Michael. He also finds blueprints in Oliver's possession that are not for his purported building project, and receives misdirected mail suggesting Oliver lied about his college years. Brooke and Whit dismiss his concerns as paranoia. Michael takes his class on a field trip to the site where Leah was killed, and excoriates the FBI for igniting the standoff after failing to probe the besieged family. His students appear uneasy. Michael reluctantly lets Grant go to a Discoverers camp with Brady. His research reveals that Oliver was born William Fenimore and tried to blow up a Kansas post office at age 16. Oliver discovers Michael's interest and confronts