In the 1960s, a decade after his American parents are executed as Soviet spies, New York graduate student Daniel (Timothy Hutton) contacts friends and relatives in an effort to understand his parents' deaths and confirm his belief that they were innocent. Meanwhile, he participates in anti-Vietnam War protests. Sidney Lumet directs this tense drama, based on E.L. Doctorow's best-selling novel. Mandy Patinkin and Ellen Barkin co-star.