Sidney Poitier Filmography

Tell Them Who You Are

Actors: Haskell Wexler, Mark S. Wexler, Peter Bart, James Becket, Verna Bloom

Synopsis: Mark Wexler is a successful photojournalist who has also distinguished himself as a documentary filmmaker, but in many ways he has spent much of his life in the shadow of his more famous father, Haskell Wexler. One of Hollywood's greatest cinematographers, Haskell is also known as a director (he Read More

The Last Brickmaker in America

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Piper Laurie, Bernie Casey, Cody Newton, Mert Hatfield

Synopsis: Actor Sidney Poitier returns to CBS, the same station which originally broadcast his leading role in 1999's The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn, this time adopting the part of a humble brickmaker in the made-for-television drama The Last Brickmaker in America. Without much pride in his job or Read More

Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey

Actors: Sidney Poitier

Synopsis: Ralph Bunche was arguably the most distinguished and honored African-American of his generation. Born in 1904, Bunche refused to accept the limitations American society presented to people of color, and at an early age he became an advocate for new possibilities for blacks. He graduated with Read More

Free of Eden

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Sydney Poitier, Phylicia Rashad

Synopsis: Made especially for the Showtime cable network, this touching drama stars Sidney Poitier and his daughter Sydney Poitier, respectively, as a prominent New York businessman and the feisty, troubled teen he mentors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light

Synopsis: Sydney Poitier's talent and sheer magnetism in such films as In the Heat of the Night and Raisin in the Sun broke color barriers during the height of segregation and permanently rearranged racial politics in America. This PBS documentary charts Poitier's life and career from his humble origins as Read More

The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Dianne Wiest, Mary-Louise Parker, George Newbern

Synopsis: Directed by Gregg Champion, The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn follows the story of small town carpenter and farmer Noah Dearborn (Sidney Poitier), whose family land comes under the scrutiny of greedy land developer (George Newbern. Though his humble character holds the respect of the tiny community Read More

David and Lisa

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Lukas Haas, Brittany Murphy, Debi Mazar, Allison Janney

Synopsis: Oprah Winfrey co-produced this psychological drama, a TV movie remake of the acclaimed black-and-white low-budget ($180,000) 1962 David and Lisa. The original earned $1 million in its first run and also earned Oscar nominations for director Frank Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry, who adapted Read More

Afro Promo

Synopsis: This humorous and insightful documentary is composed exclusively of movie trailers promoting films which depict the lives of African-Americans. From the patronizing promotion for 1946 Disney film, The Song of the South to the hip, tongue-in-cheek promo for Putney Swope, the range of attitudes from Read More

The Jackal

Actors: Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora, Tess Harper

Synopsis: In Moscow, after FBI deputy director Carter Preston (Sidney Poitier) and scarred Russian intelligence officer Valentina Koslova (Diane Venora) bring down a key figure in the Russian Mafia, they are threatened by the criminal's powerful brother who swears vengeance on the FBI and immediately hires Read More

Mandela and de Klerk

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, Tina Lifford, Ian Roberts

Synopsis: In an historical docudrama that was made for television, Sidney Poitier performs the role of Nelson Mandela, while Michael Caine plays the South African president Frederick Willem De Klerk, the man who instituted the reforms that would abolish apartheid, who released Nelson Mandela from nearly 30 Read More

To Sir with Love 2

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Daniel J. Travanti, Christian Payton

Synopsis: This made-for-TV sequel to the 1968 theatrical feature To Sir With Love stars Sidney Poitier, recreating his role as Mark Thackery, an American-born schoolteacher who in the original film had taken a post in a tough East Side London neighborhood. Thirty years have passed, and Thackery has been Read More

Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick

Actors: Alec Baldwin

Synopsis: Directed by the acclaimed Walter Hill and narrated by actor Alec Baldwin, this documentary profiles the adventurous, contentious, and very talented director William Wellman (1896-1975). Ambulance driver for the French Foreign Legion and decorated American pilot in World War I, Wellman later became Read More

Children of the Dust

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Michael Moriarty, Joanna Going, Robert Guillaume, Regina Taylor

Synopsis: Friendship and racism in 1880s America is explored in this made-for-television drama. Sidney Poitier stars as Gypsy Smith, a bounty hunter who, much to the chagrin of the local white population, leads a group of black settlers to Oklahoma to form their own free community. The film shows how racial Read More

A Good Day To Die

Synopsis: A Native American struggles to find himself and maintain his cultural identity growing up with a White family in the Old West in this drama, originally produced as a TV miniseries. Gypsy Smith (Sidney Poitier), an African-American bounty hunter, helps lead a platoon of U.S. Cavalry soldiers on a Read More

Sneakers

Actors: Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, Dan Aykroyd, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, David Strathairn

Synopsis: In this tech-thriller from director Phil Alden Robinson, a group of five renegade computer hackers, led by Martin Bishop (Robert Redford), are hired by the government to steal a black box, containing a code-breaking machine, from the mathematician who invented the device. The government is able to Read More

Separate But Equal

Actors: Richard Kiley, Burt Lancaster, Sidney Poitier

Synopsis: Based on the ground-breaking Brown vs. the Board of Education case, the made-for-television Separate But Equal follows a young Thurgood Marshall (Sidney Poitier) as a lawyer who argues the racially-charged lawsuit before the Supreme Court. When the black students of Clarendon County, South Read More

Ghost Dad

Crew: Director

Actors: Bill Cosby, Kimberly Russell, Denise Nicholas, Ian Bannen, Christine Ebersole, Salim Grant

Synopsis: Bill Cosby mugs so uncontrollably that it looks as if he may be the victim of a muscular disorder in the inane and unfunny Ghost Dad. Cosby plays Elliot, a workaholic widower with three children -- Danny (Salim Grant), Amanda (Brooke Fontainbe), and the teenage Diane (Kimberly Russell). Elliot is Read More

Little Nikita

Actors: Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Richard Jenkins, Caroline Kava, Richard Bradford, Loretta Devine, Richard Lynch

Synopsis: Jeff Grant (River Phoenix) is a San Diego teen who discovers his father Richard (Richard Jenkins) and mother Elizabeth Grant) are KGB agents. When he applies to the Air Force Academy, a routine FBI check leads to the shocking news. Soon the suburb of Fountain Grove becomes the focus of Read More

Shoot to Kill

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Tom Berenger, Kirstie Alley, Clancy Brown, Richard Masur

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier makes his long-overdue return to films in the 1988 thriller Shoot to Kill. Poitier plays an FBI agent, on the trail of an elusive killer. Reluctantly teamed with tracker Tom Berenger, the citified Poitier braves the wilds of the Pacific Northwest in search of his quarry. For Berenger Read More

The Spencer Tracy Legacy

Fast Forward

Crew: Director

Actors: John Scott Clough, Don Franklin, Irene Worth, Tamara Mark, Cindy McGee, Tracy Silver

Synopsis: In yet another rubber-stamped, mid-'80s teen dancing film, hot on the success of Flashdance, a group of high schoolers called the "Adventurers Eight" from Sandusky, Ohio (known by Midwest teens for its large amusement park), decide to undertake a journey to New York City to enter the Big Showdown Read More

Hanky Panky

Crew: Director

Actors: Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Kathleen Quinlan, Richard Widmark, Robert Prosky

Synopsis: Gene Wilder stars as Michael Jordon, an architect on the run from false murder charges, who hooks up with Kate Hellman (Gilda Radner), the sister of a recent suicide victim. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Stir Crazy

Crew: Director

Actors: Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, JoBeth Williams, Georg Stanford Brown, Craig T. Nelson, Miguel Angel Suarez

Synopsis: After the excellent audience response to their teaming in Silver Streak, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor reunited for this zany comedy. Wilder and Pryor play a couple of out-of-work numbskulls who take a promotional job that requires them to dress up like gigantic woodpeckers. Unfortunately, a pair Read More

Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist

A Piece of the Action

Crew: Director

Actors: Hope Clarke, Bill Cosby, Ja'net DuBois, Jason Evers, Frances Foster

Synopsis: Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, co-stars of the comic capers Uptown Saturday Night and Let's Do It Again, team up again for this socially conscious comedy-adventure. This time out, Poitier and Cosby play Manny Durrell and Dave Anderson, Windy City con artists with a long history of cheating crooks Read More

The Wilby Conspiracy

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, Nicol Williamson, Prunella Gee, Persis Khambatta

Synopsis: The Wilby Conspiracy is set in South Africa, at a time when Apartheid was the order of the day. Political activist Shack Twala (Sidney Poitier) finds an unlikely -- and reluctant -- ally in the form of the British Keogh (Michael Caine). Both Twala and Keogh are scrutinized by racist police Read More

Let's Do It Again

Crew: Director

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Calvin Lockhart, John Amos, Jimmie "J.J." Walker

Synopsis: A pair of blue-collar buddies use hypnosis to turn a wimpy boxer into a champ in this crime comedy, which reunites actor/director Sidney Poitier and comedian Bill Cosby, stars of the similarly themed Uptown Saturday Night. Clyde Williams (Poitier) and Billy Foster (Cosby) want to help raise funds Read More

Uptown Saturday Night

Crew: Director

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Calvin Lockhart, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor

Synopsis: Uptown Saturday Night is a delightful comedy directed by and starring Sidney Poitier. Steve Jackson (Sidney Poitier) is a factory worker. One evening, when boredom gets the best of him, Steve and his pal Wardell (Bill Cosby) decide to go to an underground gambling club to have some fun. While they Read More

A Warm December

Crew: Director

Actors: Earl Cameron, Yvette Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Esther Anderson

Synopsis: The second directorial effort from Academy award-winning actor Sidney Poitier, this romantic drama is about widowed American doctor Matt Younger (Poitier) who travels to London with his daughter, Stefanie (Yvette Curtis). There, he meets Catherine (Esther Anderson), the daughter of African Read More

Buck and the Preacher

Crew: Director

Actors: Ruby Dee, Cameron Mitchell, Denny Miller, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier makes his directorial debut with the 1972 Western Buck and the Preacher, set during the end of the Civil War. Poitier stars as Buck, an ex-Army soldier who is scouting sites for the former slaves that want to settle out West. The villainous Deshay (Cameron Mitchell) rounds up his Read More

The Organization

Actors: Lani Miyazaki, Sidney Poitier, Barbara McNair, Gerald O'Loughlin, Sheree North, Fred Beir

Synopsis: Police detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) returns to finds himself in hot water with the police over his acceptance of help from a neighborhood anti-drug group. The group has done some things which are far from textbook legal, such as stealing and destroying a large shipment of drugs. Though Read More

Brother John

Actors: Bradford Dillman, Beverly Todd, Sidney Poitier, Will Geer

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier stars as John Kane, a heavenly emissary who pays a visit to the Alabama town where he was born. Making it his mission to purge the community of all hatred and prejudice, "Brother John" is nothing less than the Messiah returned to earth. Trouble is, he's black, and it's Alabama-so Read More

They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Martin Landau, Barbara McNair, Anthony Zerbe, Juano Hernandez, George Spell

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier reprises his role as Virgil Tibbs in this crime drama, a story unrelated to that of the earlier film In the Heat of the Night. Once again, he is a veteran homicide detective and is currently investigating the murder of a prostitute. The primary suspect is San Francisco political Read More

King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis

Synopsis: Having tackled every known film subject in his long career, from musicals to murder mysteries, Sidney Lumet tries his hand at documentary in King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis. Lumet co-directed and co-produced the film with another Hollywood luminary, Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Beyond Read More

The Lost Man

Actors: Joanna Shimkus, Sidney Poitier

Synopsis: Jason Higgs (Sidney Poitier) is an angry black man who plans to rob a factory payroll. With the help of his accomplices Dennis (Al Freeman Jr.) and his white girlfriend Cathy (Joanna Shimkus), a racially motivated demonstration diverts attention from the crooks while they rob the safe. Jason is Read More

For Love of Ivy

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Abbey Lincoln, Beau Bridges, Nan Martin, Lauri Peters

Synopsis: When it was released in 1968, For Love of Ivy was the first mainstream Hollywood film to depict a mature romantic relationship between a black man and woman. Sidney Poitier stars as Jack Parks, a trucking executive who runs an illegal travelling casino out of one of his vehicles. Abbey Lincoln Read More

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton, Beah Richards, Roy E. Glenn, Sr., Isabel Sanford, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Old-line liberals Matt and Christina Drayton (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) have raised their daughter Joey (Katharine Houghton) to think for herself and not blindly conform to the conventional. Still, they aren't prepared for the shock when she returns home from a vacation with a new Read More

To Sir, With Love

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts, Judy Geeson, Suzy Kendall, Lulu, Adrienne Posta

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier, who in 1955 played a student in a tough inner-city high school, portrays a teacher assigned to a similar institution in To Sir, With Love. Unable to find work as an engineer, Poitier accepts a teaching post in London's East End slums. To reach his sullen, rebellious students Read More

In the Heat of the Night

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, James Patterson, Scott Wilson

Synopsis: The winner of the 1967 Oscar for Best Picture (as well as four other Oscars), In the Heat of the Night is set in a small Mississippi town where an unusual murder has been committed. Rod Steiger plays sheriff Bill Gillespie, a good lawman despite his racial prejudices. When Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier Read More

Duel at Diablo

Actors: James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bibi Andersson, Dennis Weaver, Bill Travers

Synopsis: Frontier scout Jess Remsberg (James Garner) is crossing the desert when he spots a dead army scout and group of Apaches pursuing someone -- it turns out to be a white woman, Ellen Grange (Bibi Andersson); he gets her away from them and returns her to her home and her husband Willard (Dennis Read More

The Slender Thread

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas, Steven Hill, Ed Asner

Synopsis: Sidney Pollack marked his feature film directing debut with this taut suspense drama, based upon an actual incident reported in Time Magazine. Sidney Poitier stars as Alan Nuell, a student volunteer at a medical clinic in Seattle who answers the phone to find Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft) on the Read More

A Patch of Blue

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman, Wallace Ford, Ivan Dixon

Synopsis: Shelley Winters won an Academy Award for her searing performance as Rose-Ann d'Arcy in A Patch of Blue. The star, however, is not Winters but Elizabeth Hartman, cast as d'Arcy's blind, sensitive daughter, Selina. A venomous prostitute, Rose-Ann treats both Selina and grandfather Ole Pa (Wallace Ford Read More

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Actors: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Robert Loggia, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, Charlton Heston

Synopsis: Filmmaker George Stevens chose Monument Valley, Utah for his exterior sequences in The Greatest Story Ever Told, this ($20 million) adaptation of Fulton Oursler's best-selling book. The "Greatest Story" is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ, played herein by Max Von Sydow. The large supporting Read More

The Bedford Incident

Actors: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, James MacArthur, Martin Balsam, Wally Cox, Donald Sutherland

Synopsis: The Bedford Incident was an attempt by Columbia Pictures -- which had previously made Dr. Strangelove and released Fail-Safe -- to tap the well of public anxiety surrounding nuclear weapons and the Cold War one more time. Reporter Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) is allowed aboard a navy ship on Read More

Lilies of the Field

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Stanley Adams, Isa Crino, Dan Frazer, Francesca Jarvis

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier plays Homer Smith, an aimless ex-GI who takes a temporary handyman job at a Southwestern farm maintained by five German nuns. It is the cherished dream of the Mother Superior (Lilia Skala) to build a chapel (or, as she says, a "shapel"). She is convinced that the personable Homer Read More

The Long Ships

Actors: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Russ Tamblyn, Rosanna Schiaffino, Beba Loncar, Oscar Homolka

Synopsis: In this elaborately mounted seafaring adventure, Rolfe (Richard Widmark) is a Viking leader with the cunning and devious mind of a pirate. Rolfe tells others sailors of "The Mother of Voices," a mammoth bell made of gold and as tall as three men, but he adds enough incorrect details to throw them Read More

Pressure Point

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin, Peter Falk, Carl Benton Reid, Mary Munday

Synopsis: Unable to get through to a particularly hostile patient, psychiatrist Peter Falk goes to gray-haired senior shrink Sidney Poitier for advice. This prompts Poitier to recall his experiences during World War II. While working on behalf of the government, Poitier was assigned the case of psycho Nazi Read More

Paris Blues

Actors: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong, Diahann Carroll

Synopsis: The second film of director Martin Ritt with both Paul Newmanand Sidney Poitier, it's set in a city that has long been a haven for black musicians eager to escape the racism of the U.S. Newman is Ram Bowen, a trombone player who makes his living in a jazz group, which also includes tenor man Eddie Read More

A Raisin in the Sun

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon

Synopsis: While this original movie version of Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning play may have dated somewhat, it was groundbreaking when first released in 1961, and a wealth of future plays, films, and TV productions have taken their lead from this socially conscious drama about a struggling Read More

All the Young Men

Actors: Alan Ladd, Sidney Poitier, James Darren, Glenn Corbett, Mort Sahl

Synopsis: Set right near the 38th Parallel, the dividing line between North and South Korea, this conventional wartime tale focuses on the relationships of some GI's caught without reinforcements in an old farmhouse. Although the house offers some protection, the men are outnumbered and little by little Read More

Porgy and Bess

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Pearl Bailey, Brock Peters

Synopsis: A stellar line-up of African-American actors and musical stars helped to bring DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin's classic operetta to this screen in this lavishly-produced adaptation. Porgy (Sidney Poitier) is a crippled man living in the shantytown of Catfish Row who has fallen in love with Bess (Dorothy Dandridge Read More

The Defiant Ones

Actors: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, Cara Williams, Lon Chaney, Jr.

Synopsis: Convicts Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier escape from a chain gang. Curtis' character, John "Joker" Jackson, hates blacks, while Poitier's character, Noah Cullen, hates whites. However, the men are manacled together, forced to rely on each other to survive. Captured at one point by a lynch-happy Read More

Virgin Island

Actors: John Cassavetes, Virginia Maskell, Sidney Poitier, Isabel Dean, Colin Gordon

Synopsis: Based on Robb White's novel 3DOur Virgin Island3D (the film's original title), this harmless location-filmed comedy boasts an unusually impressive cast. With their combined life savings of $85, fiercely independent archeologist Evan (John Cassavetes) and his wife Tina (Virginia Maskell) purchase Read More

Edge of the City

Actors: John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden, Kathleen Maguire, Ruby Dee

Synopsis: Edge of the City is a modern morality play, acted out in the railyards of New York. AWOL soldier John Cassavetes takes a job as a railroad worker, where he is taunted and bullied by supervisor Jack Warden, a union functionary appointed by the Mob. Cassavetes befriends his African-American Read More

Something of Value

Actors: Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter, Sidney Poitier, Wendy Hiller, Juano Hernandez

Synopsis: The literalism of writer-director Richard Brooks serves him well in this meticulously faithful adaptation of the Robert Ruark novel Something of Value. Filmed on location in Africa, this is the story of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, as seen through the eyes of a handful of protagonists. Virtually Read More

Band of Angels

Actors: Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo<