Family Sins is a 1987 American crime drama made-for-television film, starring James Farentino as a father whose troubled son, Bryan, is arrested for voluntary manslaughter after the drowning of his spoiled younger brother, Keith.

Bryan looks up to Gordon as well, but has trouble expressing this; in the absence of his father's love, he finds solace in the praise of a kind-hearted male science teacher who stands up for him after he twists his ankle while playing baseball as the other players taunt him, including Keith, who is on the team.

While Kate expresses horror that a gentle boy like Bryan would hurt a rabbit, suggesting he needs psychological help, Gordon brushes off the incident as a deliberate act of spite.

Hoping to bring the dysfunctional family together, Gordon and Kate rent a summer cottage on the lake, which bothers Bryan, who is afraid of water after a childhood accident in which he nearly drowned.

When Gordon and Kate return to the cottage, they find that Bryan has rowed back to shore and called the police, and that Keith has drowned on the lake.

Gordon sobs hysterically and hugs Keith's corpse, and the parents are made to take Bryan to a local sheriff's station for questioning.

Family Sins received mixed reviews from critics, who compared it to an earlier 1980 psychological drama feature film called Ordinary People.

But these musical attempts to exalt this material into some form of primeval human drama serve only to reinforce the pervasive chilliness of the film, which is also emphasized in cinematographer Denis C. Lewiston’s drained-out images.