Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 American psychological thriller film directed by Joseph Ruben and starring Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, and Kevin Anderson.

[2] Roberts plays a woman who fakes her own death and moves from Cape Cod to Cedar Falls, Iowa to escape from her controlling, obsessive, and abusive husband, but finds her peaceful new life interrupted when he discovers her actions and tracks her down.

Laura Burney has a seemingly idyllic life and a happy marriage to Martin, a successful Boston investment counselor, and they live in a luxurious home overlooking the sea of Cape Cod.

Beneath Martin's charming, handsome exterior, however, is an obsessive and controlling person who has physically, emotionally, and sexually abused Laura throughout their nearly four-year marriage.

She cut her hair, donned a wig, flushed her wedding ring down the toilet, and took her stashed belongings and money and headed to a nearby bus station.

Her neighbor, Ben Woodward, a young drama teacher at a local college, is attracted to Laura, though he suspects she has a checkered past.

[7] Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of a possible 4 upon its release, saying while the film had good performances and the opening scenes "briefly seemed to have greatness in its grasp", Sleeping with the Enemy quickly fell into cliches and plot holes and became "a slasher movie in disguise, an up-market version of the old exploitation formula where the victim can run, but she can't hide.

"[8] Another mostly negative review came from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who wrote that the film "has the bare bones of a tantalizing thriller" and praised Robert's performance ("you can practically feel her pulse"), but also felt Bergin's role was too "mechanical" to be believed, and placing blame on the "deadwood" script.

Columbia Records released an album concurrently with the film containing just over 38 minutes of score plus the Van Morrison song "Brown Eyed Girl".

In 2011, La-La Land Records issued a limited edition album of 3500 copies expanding Goldsmith's score (but omitting the song).

The film reached #1 in the rental charts in September 1991,[14] and ended up as the ninth most rented movie that year in the United States.