This trilogy explores the detailed middle class milieu of the author's home town and contains rich seams of autobiography. "Diner" portrays a close-knit group of young men on the brink of adulthood while "Tin Men" is a comedy about aluminium siding salesmen. "Avalon" opens at the start of World War I and spans 50 years in the life of Sam Krichinsky. This film is an elegy to a vanished America as seen through the eyes of Sam who remembers that Baltimore was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. Barry Levinson also directed "Good Morning Vietnam" and "Rain Man".