The Miracle Worker

If you want a drama that takes its characters as seriously as its plot, The Miracle Worker is available in Australia on MGM Amazon Channel, and in the US on fuboTV and MGM+ Amazon Channel right now. The length is exactly right for the story it is telling — nothing rushed, nothing dragged out. 345 people have weighed in on TMDB, and the verdict leans heavily positive. Anne Bancroft anchors it with a performance that rewards close attention. Start it on MGM Amazon Channel whenever you need something guaranteed to land.

Whatever else is competing for your attention this week, The Miracle Worker is worth clearing space for. The Miracle Worker trusts its audience to sit with discomfort instead of resolving it too quickly. The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was released in 1962. The performances in The Miracle Worker do a lot of work in the silences between the dialogue. It rarely drops the ball, and when it does, it recovers fast.

Viewers drawn to character-driven storytelling will find plenty to sit with in The Miracle Worker. It stands on its own even without an obvious comparison point. Short enough to finish in one sitting, substantial enough to feel satisfying. Anne Bancroft's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.