Synopsis

Widowed history professor Michael Faraday becomes friends with the Langs, a seemingly ordinary family who move in across the street. After noticing inconsistencies in their stories and links to domestic terrorism, Faraday investigates their past and grows convinced they are planning an attack. His suspicions intensify into a desperate attempt to expose the conspiracy before he is dismissed as paranoid.

Factoids & Trivia

• Ehren Kruger's screenplay won an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship in 1996. It was subsequently produced as his first feature screenplay.

• The story draws on 1990s concerns about right-wing militias, the Ruby Ridge standoff, the Waco siege, and the Oklahoma City bombing. The film disguises these real-world references through fictional incidents and altered details.

• Early drafts referred directly to the Oklahoma City bombing. The shooting script instead placed the fictional bombing in St. Louis.

• The bombing discussed during Faraday's classroom slideshow combines details associated with the Oklahoma City attack and a photograph of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. The fictional Federal Roosevelt Building in St. Louis does not exist.

• The film was one of the earliest releases from the revived Screen Gems label. It followed Limbo in 1999 and became Screen Gems' first wide theatrical release.

• An alternate ending was filmed for home video. It includes a conversation suggesting that Grant may understand what happened to his father, but it was removed from the theatrical version to preserve the ambiguity of the original conclusion.

• Arlington Road was released in the United States on July 9, 1999, several months later than its originally planned January opening. The delay followed changes in distribution and release scheduling.

• The production was made by Lakeshore Entertainment in association with Arlington Road Productions Corporation and was distributed domestically through Sony's Screen Gems label.