"American history"

2010 · Rebecca Skloot · 370 pages · Nonfiction

Rebecca Skloot spent more than a decade researching the story of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cancer cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951 and became one of the most important tools in modern medicine. The result is a book that works as science writing, biography, investigative journalism, and a meditation on race and medical ethics in America. It's deeply moving, occasionally infuriating, and important in ways that extend well beyond its subject. The science is accessible, the human story is devastating, and the questions it raises about consent and exploitation have only become more urgent since publication.

1994 · Robert Zemeckis · 142 min · Drama / Comedy

Forrest Gump is a crowd-pleaser built on one of the best lead performances of the 1990s. Tom Hanks disappears into the role, and the film's emotional beats still land hard three decades later. Its treatment of history and ideology won't satisfy everyone, and the Best Picture debate will never truly end. But as a piece of popular filmmaking designed to make you feel something, it does exactly what it sets out to do, and very few films have done it better.