“Listen: Billie Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” Slaughterhouse-Five is an award-winning 1972 film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel of the same name. Director Hill faithfully renders for the screen Vonnegut’s obsessive story of Pilgrim, who survives the 1945 firebombing of Dresden, then lives simultaneously in his past, present, and future.

Four exiled international criminals on the run hide out in a remote Nicaraguan village whose economy is dependent on an oil company. An oil well 200 miles away catches fire and can be extinguished only with explosives. The criminals are given a chance to earn a great deal of money by transporting highly volatile and sensitive explosives through hazardous and rugged terrain full of obstacles and danger.

In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service abroad the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.