The Best 32 films of Sidney Poitier.
by jacobyjhn-18-315763 | created - 22 Aug 2011 | updated - 25 Jan 2015 | PublicThe wonderful Sidney Poitier made his fim debut auspiciously in the 1950 Joe Mankiewicz drama, No Way Out. At 23 years old, Mr. Poitier showed acting brillliance beyond his years. This brilliance continued over a 50 year film career. Sid Poitier has always had a quiet dignity and elegance and his performances have been consistently excellent. This list was a labor of joy and is meant as a tribute to the great Sidney Poitier. Here are 32 of his very best!
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1. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A black Philadelphia police detective is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case.
Director: Norman Jewison | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant
Votes: 83,578 | Gross: $24.38M
2. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Approved | 108 min | Comedy, Drama
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African-American fiancé.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Votes: 48,939 | Gross: $56.70M
3. Lilies of the Field (1963)
Unrated | 94 min | Drama
A travelling handyman becomes the answer to the prayers of nuns who wish to build a chapel in the desert.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino
Votes: 13,582
4. The Defiant Ones (1958)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama
Two chained-together escaped convicts, White and Black, must learn to get along in order to elude capture.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Cara Williams, Theodore Bikel
Votes: 17,843
5. Separate But Equal (1991)
PG | 190 min | Drama, History
A dramatization of the American court case that destroyed the legal validity of racial segregation.
Stars: Sidney Poitier, Burt Lancaster, Richard Kiley, Cleavon Little
Votes: 785
6. A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
Approved | 128 min | Drama
A substantial insurance payment could mean either financial salvation or personal ruin for a poor black family.
Director: Daniel Petrie | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands
Votes: 9,572
7. A Patch of Blue (1965)
Unrated | 105 min | Drama, Romance
A blind, uneducated white girl is befriended by a black man who becomes determined to help her escape her impoverished and abusive home life by introducing her to the outside world.
Director: Guy Green | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman, Wallace Ford
Votes: 9,537
8. Edge of the City (1957)
Approved | 85 min | Drama
The growing friendship of two NYC longshoremen is threatened by a notably repellent punk.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden, Kathleen Maguire
Votes: 3,588
9. The Bedford Incident (1965)
Approved | 102 min | Drama, Thriller
An American destroyer Captain is determined to confront a Soviet submarine caught violating territorial waters. Perhaps too determined.
Director: James B. Harris | Stars: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, James MacArthur, Martin Balsam
Votes: 5,978
10. The Jackal (1997)
R | 124 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An imprisoned I.R.A. fighter is freed to help stop a brutal, seemingly "faceless" assassin from completing his next job.
Director: Michael Caton-Jones | Stars: Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora
Votes: 124,190 | Gross: $54.93M
11. No Way Out (1950)
Passed | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier
Votes: 6,282
12. Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Approved | 101 min | Crime, Drama
A new English teacher at a violent, unruly inner-city school is determined to do his job, despite resistance from both students and faculty.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Margaret Hayes
Votes: 9,881
13. To Sir, with Love (1967)
Approved | 105 min | Drama
Idealistic engineer-trainee and his experiences in teaching a group of rambunctious white high school students from the slums of London's East End.
Director: James Clavell | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson, Christian Roberts, Suzy Kendall
Votes: 20,424 | Gross: $42.43M
14. The Slender Thread (1965)
Passed | 98 min | Drama
College volunteer Alan is working alone at the crisis center one evening when he receives a telephone call from suicidal caller Inga Dyson.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas, Steven Hill
Votes: 2,479
15. Porgy and Bess (1959)
Not Rated | 138 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A woman whose past is scorned by nearly everyone around her meets a man who'd love her regardlessly- if only everyone else would allow them to.
Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey
Votes: 1,915
16. Shoot to Kill (1988)
R | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
An F.B.I. Agent teams up with a tracker to pursue a murderer after he vanishes into the mountains and infiltrates a hiking group.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Tom Berenger, Kirstie Alley, Clancy Brown
Votes: 14,947 | Gross: $29.30M
17. The Organization (1971)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Crime, Drama
In San Francisco, Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs helps a group of idealistic vigilantes expose a drug ring controlled by powerful businessmen.
Director: Don Medford | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Barbara McNair, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Sheree North
Votes: 2,160 | Gross: $1.50M
18. They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970)
GP | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In San Francisco, a high-priced call girl is murdered and the case is assigned to Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Martin Landau, Barbara McNair, Anthony Zerbe
Votes: 4,370 | Gross: $5.12M
19. Paris Blues (1961)
Approved | 98 min | Drama, Music, Romance
During the 1960s, two American expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong
Votes: 3,961 | Gross: $1.30M
20. Cry, the Beloved Country (1951)
103 min | Drama
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 ... See full summary »
Director: Zoltan Korda | Stars: Canada Lee, Sidney Poitier, Charles Carson, Joyce Carey
Votes: 994
21. Mandela and de Klerk (1997 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 114 min | Drama
On June 12, 1964, Nelson Mandela, along with numerous political detainees, was sentenced to life imprisonment in what remains the most sensational treason trial in the history of South ... See full summary »
Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, Tina Lifford, Gerry Maritz
Votes: 678
22. Little Nikita (1988)
PG | 98 min | Drama, Thriller
An F.B.I. Agent works to uncover an All-American family as Soviet sleeper Agents, and gets caught up in friendship with their unaware son.
Director: Richard Benjamin | Stars: Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Richard Jenkins, Caroline Kava
Votes: 6,020 | Gross: $1.73M
23. Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
PG | 104 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
At Madame Zenobia's illegal nightclub, when Steve Jackson and Wardell Franklin get robbed of their wallets containing a winning lottery ticket, they set out to recover it.
Director: Sidney Poitier | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Flip Wilson
Votes: 2,815 | Gross: $4.57M
24. Buck and the Preacher (1972)
GP | 102 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A wagon master and a con-man preacher help freed slaves dogged by cheap-labor agents out West.
Directors: Sidney Poitier, Joseph Sargent | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Cameron Mitchell
Votes: 2,688 | Gross: $3.03M
25. Duel at Diablo (1966)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
In Apache territory, a supply Army column heads for the next fort, an ex-scout searches for the killer of his Indian wife, and a housewife abandons her husband in order to rejoin her Apache lover's tribe.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bibi Andersson, Dennis Weaver
Votes: 4,261
26. The Lost Man (1969)
M | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A gang of black militants plots to rob a factory to finance their "revolutionary struggle".
Director: Robert Alan Aurthur | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Joanna Shimkus, Al Freeman Jr., Michael Tolan
Votes: 221
27. The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
G | 260 min | Biography, Drama, History
An all-star, large scale epic movie that chronicles the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Directors: George Stevens, Jean Negulesco | Stars: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Charlton Heston, Michael Anderson Jr.
Votes: 11,931 | Gross: $15.47M
28. Something of Value (1957)
Approved | 113 min | Drama, War
In British Colonial Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising, Peter and Kimani, who grew up together, find themselves on the opposite sides.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter, Wendy Hiller, Juano Hernandez
Votes: 1,307
29. All the Young Men (1960)
Approved | 87 min | Action, Drama, War
During the Korean War, a platoon leader dies, leaving his inexperienced black Sergeant in charge of his squad of belligerent and racist white men.
Director: Hall Bartlett | Stars: Alan Ladd, Sidney Poitier, James Darren, Glenn Corbett
Votes: 653
30. Pressure Point (1962)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama
A black prison psychiatrist is assigned the distasteful task of helping a paranoid American Nazi charged with sedition.
Director: Hubert Cornfield | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin, Peter Falk, Carl Benton Reid
Votes: 2,025
31. Sneakers (1992)
PG-13 | 126 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A security pro finds his past returning to haunt him when he and his unique team are tasked with retrieving a particularly important item.
Director: Phil Alden Robinson | Stars: Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier, Jo Marr
Votes: 62,548 | Gross: $51.43M
32. Red Ball Express (1952)
Approved | 83 min | Action, Drama, War
Story of the military truck drivers who kept the Allied armies supplied in Europe during World War II.
Director: Budd Boetticher | Stars: Jeff Chandler, Alex Nicol, Charles Drake, Judith Braun
Votes: 810
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