Two loners in a small Long Island town meet and talk for two hours, that is essentially the core of Trust, Hal Hartley’s 1991 masterpiece. Evicted from her home after revealing her pregnancy to her family and dumped by her meat-head footballer boyfriend, high-school drop-out Maria (Adrienne Shelly) takes refuge in an abandoned house. There she runs into Mathew (Martin Donovan), a thorny ‘empiricist’ who doesn’t believe in love and keeps an old hand grenade on him at all times – just in case. As the two misfits warm up to each other and try to find some way forward in their lives, trust, admiration and respect begin to grow between them – some might even call it love.

Hal Hartley’s responsible for some of the best, and most well-known indies of the 90s, including Simple Men, The Unbelievable Truth, Amateur, and Henry Fool and Trust is widely considered his best. In this bittersweet portrait of the aimlessness, contradiction and confusion of small-town America, Hartley’s signature deadpan dialogue, black comedy and simple sweetness flourish at their fullest thanks to the singular charms and talents of regulars Adrienne Shelly and Martin Donovan among others.