Directed by Barry Levinson and written by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow (in fact, the characterization of Raymond was based on Kim Peek and Bill Sackter, two savants that Morrow met and had already written about in the script for the movie Bill), Rain Man is the story of how Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) has a brother, the aforementioned Raymond, that he never knew about. Even more vexing, his father has given all of his estate to Raymond.

Once he thinks back to his childhood, Charlie realizes that Raymond was the Rain Man of his childhood, someone that the adult version of himself saw as an imaginary friend. Instead, he was a real person who was eventually put in an institution when their father believed that he tried to scale his younger brother in the bath.

After seeing how Charlie treats his brother, his girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino) leaves him. Yet the more time the two brothers spend together, the closer they become, even if Raymond is difficult for him to deal with and costs him his latest deal to sell four collector cars.

Originally, Dennis and Randy Quaid were going to play the brothers, then Bill Murray as Raymond and Dustin Hoffman as Charlie. Luckily, things in our universe worked out the way they did, as I couldn’t see any other actors in these roles. That said, when Hoffman studied Peek’s Savant Syndrome, he felt that the character of Raymond needed more, so he also made the character autistic. As this movie was such a big deal, it led to many in the public thinking that all savants are also autistic or that autistic people are all savants, when only 1 in 200 have these gifts. To be fair, Hoffman was really concerned with his performance, telling Levinson, “Get Richard Dreyfuss, get somebody, Barry, because this is the worst work of my life.” He and Cruise felt like the movie would bomb and called it Two Schmucks In a Car.

This was also filmed during a writer’s strike — completed just hours before it began — which is why the ending wasn’t debated and an alternate ending shot.

I’m fascinated that Sir Michael Caine is such a big fan of this movie because he actually lived it. He found out late in his adult life that he had a brother that he had never met before, one who had been hospitalized due to an extreme case of epilepsy.

The MVD 4K UHD release of Rain Man has a 4K Ultra High Definition version of the movie that was scanned in 4K from the original camera negative and approved by director Barry Levinson, who also provided an audio commentary. There are also two other commentaries, one by Barry Morrow and another by Ronald Bass.

This set also includes a trailer, a featurette on the making of the movie, another on autism, deleted scenes and a limited edition slipcover.

You can buy it from MVD. There’s also a blu ray edition.