23 Movies Starring Sidney Poitier

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

The Biddle brothers, shot while robbing a gas station, are taken to the prison ward of the County Hospital; Ray Biddle, a rabid racist, wants no treatment from black resident Dr. Luther Brooks. When brother John dies while Luther tries to save him, Ray is certain it's murder and becomes obsessed with vengeance. But there are black racists around too, and the situation slides rapidly toward violence.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

In the back country of South Africa, black minister Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) journeys to the city to search for his missing son, only to find his people living in squalor and his son a criminal. Reverend Misimangu (Sidney Poitier) is a young South African clergyman who helps find his missing son-turned-thief and sister-turned-prostitute in the slums of Johannesburg.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

When the truck that is transporting convicts has an accident on the road, the inmates John "Joker" Jackson and Noah Cullen that are chained to each other escape. They hate each other but they need to help each other to succeed in their intent of going north to jump in a train and reach freedom. Meanwhile the humane Sheriff Max Muller organizes a posse to track them down in a civilized manner and respecting justice. Joker and Cullen reach a small farm where a lonely woman helps them to get rid of their chains. She offers to drive her car with Joker and her son Billy while Cullen would escape through the swamp to the railroad. But when Joker learns that she sent Cullen to a trap, he leaves her and is shot in the shoulder by Billy. Joker seeks out Cullen to save him and when they meet each other, their former hatred has changed to friendship and respect.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

In this legendary Gershwin opera set among the black residents of a fishing village in 1912 South Carolina, Bess - a woman with a disreputable history - tries to break free from her brutish lover Crown after he becomes wanted for murder. The only person willing to overlook her past and offer her shelter is the crippled Porgy. Their relationship is threatened by the disapproval of the townspeople, the presence of her old drug supplier Sportin' Life - and the threatened return of Crown.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time, Jazz musicians are celebrated and racism is a non-issue. When they meet and fall in love with two young American girls, Lillian and Connie, who are vacationing in France, Ram and Eddie must decide whether they should move back to America with them, or stay in Paris for the freedom it allows them. Ram, who wants to be a serious composer, finds Paris more exciting than America and is reluctant to give up his music for a relationship, and Eddie wants to stay for the city's more tolerant racial atmosphere.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall...

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Homer Smith, an unemployed construction worker heading out west, stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict Mother Maria, who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much-needed church in the desert...

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Accidentally blinded by her prostitute mother Rose-Ann at the age of five, Selina D'Arcey spends the next 13 years confined in the tiny Los Angeles apartment that they share with "Ole Pa", Selina's grandfather. One afternoon at the local park, Selina meets Gordon Ralfe, a thoughtful young office worker whose kind-hearted treatment of her results in her falling in love with him, unaware that he is black. They continue to meet in the park every afternoon and he teaches her how to get along in the city. But when the cruel, domineering Rose-Ann learns of their relationship, she forbids her to have anything more to do with him because he is black. Selina continues to meet Gordon despite Rose-Ann's fury, who is determined to end the relationship for good.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Alan is a Seattle college student volunteering at a crisis center. One night when at the clinic alone, a woman calls up the number and tells Alan that she needs to talk to someone. She informs Alan she took a load of pills, and he secretly tries to get help. During this time, he learns more about the woman, her family life, and why she wants to die. Can Alan get the cavalry to save her in time before it's too late?

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Lieutenant McAllister is ordered to transport several ammunition wagons to another fort through Apache territory with only a small troop of rookie soldiers to guard them. Along for the ride is ex-scout Jess Remsberg who is trying to track down Ellen Grange, who, having recently been freed from Apache captivity, has mysteriously run off again to rejoin them. Remsberg frees Ellen again and leaves her with the embattled soldiers as he rides off to the fort, not only for help, but to find the man who killed and scalped his Indian wife.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

After a period of vacation in Hawaii, Joanna "Joey" Drayton returns to her parents' home in San Francisco bringing her fiancè, the high-qualified Dr. John Prentice, to introduce him to her mother Christina Drayton that owns an art gallery and her father Matt Drayton that is the publisher editor of the newspaper The Guardian. Joey was raised with a liberal education and intends to get married with Dr. John Prentice that is a black widower and needs to fly on that night to Geneva to work with the World Health Organization. Joey invites John's parents Mr. Prentice and Mrs. Prentice to have dinner with her family and the couple flies from Los Angeles to San Francisco without knowing that Joey is white. Christina invites also the liberal Monsignor Ryan, who is friend of her family. Along the day and night, the families discuss the problems of their son and daughter.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Detective Virgil Tibbs is caught up in the racial tension of the US South when he is arrested after the murder of a prominent businessman. Tibbs was simply waiting for his next train at the station in Sparta, Mississippi and the confusion is soon resolved but when local police chief Gillespie learns that Tibbs is the Philadelphia PD's number one homicide expert, he reluctantly asks for his assistance. The murdered man, Mr. Colbert, had come to Sparta from the North to build a new factory and his wife and business associates immediately point the finger at Endicott, the most powerful man in the county and the one who had the most to lose if a major new employer comes to the area. Tibbs' life is clearly in danger but he perseveres in a highly charged and racially explosive environment until the killer is found.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Engineer Mark Thackeray arrives to teach a totally undisciplined class at an East End school. Still hoping for a good engineering job, he's hopeful that he won't be there long. He starts implementing his own brand of classroom discipline: forcing the pupils to treat each other with respect. Inevitably he begins getting involved in the students' personal lives, and must avoid the advances of an amorous student while winning over the class tough. What will he decide when the engineering job comes through?

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Former U.S. Army lieutenant Jason Higgs (Sidney Poitier) who, after becoming a black militant during the 1960s Black Reveolutionary movement, is wounded when he pulls a payroll heist to help imprisoned "brothers" and has to hide from the police. Social worker Cathy Ellis (Joanna Shimkus) falls in love with Higgs while helping him elude capture. Loosely based on the 1947 Carol Reed film "Odd Man Out."

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Clyde Williams and Billy Foster are a couple of blue-collar workers in Atlanta who have promised to raise funds for their fraternal order, the Brothers and Sisters of Shaka. However, their method for raising the money involves travelling to New Orleans and rigging a boxing match. Using hypnotism, they turn the scrawny underdog into a super-confident fighting machine. They bet heavily on him, he wins easily, and they return to Atlanta with their money. All is fine until the gangsters conned by these two figure out what happened show up in Atlanta with a grudge. Now Williams and Foster have to rig the fight again so the gangsters can get their money back or they'll be killed. Can they do it again...?

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Martin Bishop is the head of a group of experts who specialise in testing security systems. When he is blackmailed by Government agents into stealing a top secret black box, the team find themselves embroiled in a game of danger and intrigue. After they recover the box, they discover that it has the capability to decode all existing encryption systems around the world, and that the agents who hired them didn't work for the Government after all...

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Russian mobster Terek Murad has declared open season on the Russian militia and the United States FBI over the shooting of his brother in a Moscow nightclub. He hires "The Jackal" -- an elusive, nasty assassin -- to kill FBI Director Donald Brown. Present at the shooting of Murad's brother were FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston and Major Valentina Koslova of the Russian militia. Nearly no one has ever seen The Jackal, save for Declan Mulqueen, an imprisoned IRA sniper. Upon learning that the Director Brown is a target, Preston and Koslova enlist the services of the reluctant Mulqueen to track down the Jackal before he can assassinate Brown.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Lukas Haas portays David, a withdrawn but apparent near genius, who fears being touched. Brittney Murphy plays Lisa, a young woman seemingly suffering from split personalities who speaks only in rhymes and withdraws from anyone who doesn't speak to her likewise. Meeting in the psychiatric ward, the two's eyes lock and an obvious attraction is indicated. First each must learn to approach each other in their own sphere. Enter Sidney Poitier as a caring psychologist who helps David to come to terms with his emotional failure to deal with his father's death at an early age. Debi Mazar also appears as Lisa's case worker.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Sitting on 35 acres of Georgia land coveted by a shopping mall developer, 90+years-old Noah Dearborn is untainted by modern life. He's never heard of the Beatles, and his only interest is his woodworking, in which he excels. The girlfriend of one of the developers is a psychologist, and is asked to evaluate Noah for a possible move to have him declared incompetent. But she soon falls under his spell of a simple life and becomes his ally in his fight to keep his land.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

Lukas Haas portays David, a withdrawn but apparent near genius, who fears being touched. Brittney Murphy plays Lisa, a young woman seemingly suffering from split personalities who speaks only in rhymes and withdraws from anyone who doesn't speak to her likewise. Meeting in the psychiatric ward, the two's eyes lock and an obvious attraction is indicated. First each must learn to approach each other in their own sphere. Enter Sidney Poitier as a caring psychologist who helps David to come to terms with his emotional failure to deal with his father's death at an early age. Debi Mazar also appears as Lisa's case worker.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Writer:

Fullplot:

A man must cope with the loss of his wife and the obsolescence of his job before finding redemption by becoming a role model to an equally lost 13-year-old.

Basic Info:

Cast:

Fullplot:

Most people know the lasting legacy of Harry Belafonte, the entertainer. This film unearths his significant contribution to and his leadership in the civil rights movement in America and to social justice globally.