Movies: Ossie Davis

A famous jazz trumpeter finds himself unable to cope with the problems of everyday life....

Harlem's African-American population is being ripped off by the Rev. Deke O'Malley, who dishonestly claims that small donations will secure parcels of land in Africa. When New York City police officers Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson look int...

Ray investigates the murder of a judge....

When a police department's burglary task force is facing the possibility of being shut down because of their low conviction rate decides to try a new approach to apprehending their targets. They take over a pawn shop where thieves go to unload their ...

An aspiring dancer and her two wicked sisters resent their mother's love for a foster daughter....

A rape case opens racial divisions in a small town. A black sheriff and his white deputy investigate allegations that a wealthy white businessman raped a black college student....

Inspired by a true story, this drama is set in 1965, not long after passage of the Civil Rights Act. Despite the Act, the African-American citizens of Bogalusa are still treated like third-class citizens, their fundamental rights as human beings pers...

Zachariah, makes a few mistakes and it is decided that he is to live as a human being for thirty days. Mordecai is his supervisor. Rebecca's husband died and Zachariah the soul collector, or, the angel of the death helped him to make the transition b...

Amid an escalating war in Iraq, rising terror levels and the threat of nuclear attack, a growing body of intellectuals, religious leaders and community organizers are getting tough with their questions about peace -- and that's no oxymoron. To shed l...

After breaking ties with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a man marked for death...and it was just a matter of time before his enemies closed in. Despite death threats and intimidation, Malcolm marched on - continuing to spread the word of equal...

Karen Garrett, a promising young doctor, is assigned to perform a difficult operation on Teach, an advanced android who has never "blanked" (had his memory erased.) She soon realizes that Teach is much more than an assignment, and is drawn to his des...

Jason Ross is an 11-year-old boy whose love for baseball exceeds his talent for the game. When cut from his little league team, Jason's undefeatable spirit leads him to try and create an expansion team. In searching for a new coach, Jason comes to be...

Spike Lee's filmmaking career is examined in this partial making-of for the film 25th Hour (2002). Interviews with cast members from this film and his past successes give us an idea what kind of dedicated person he truly is....

Big city judge Parke Denison is involved in a forced busing dispute at the climax of his long career. The friendship between two families -- one white, one black -- and their sons, who are buddies, provides the microcosm of this major social issue th...

A young ghetto kid despairs of ever getting out of that environment and making something of himself, until one day he gets a job as an assistant in a veterinarian's office, and working with all the animals begins to affect his outlook on life....

Purlie is a musical based on Ossie Davis' 1961 play Purlie Victorious. In the early days of the civil rights movement, a Southern plantation owner holds his sharecroppers in virtual slavery. Purlie comes home as a preacher who will shake things up a...

The Behind-the-Scenes documentary of the dramatic comedy Do the Right Thing....

North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It's not a military objective. It's The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And...

A look at the confluence of the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and blacklists with the post-war activism by African Americans seeking more and better roles on radio, television, and stage. It begins in Harlem, measures the impact of Paul Robeson and the cam...

On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation--and a defining moment in the history of the civil-rights movement. Spike...