In the Heat of the Night

Director: Norman Jewison (1967), Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, three Golden Globes including Best Picture, Grammy Award for Best Original Score (Quincy Jones).

Passing through the backwoods town of Sparta, Mississippi, Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs becomes embroiled in a murder case. He forms an uneasy alliance with the bigoted police chief, who faces mounting pressure from Sparta’s hostile citizens to catch the killer and run the African American interloper out of town. One of the most enduring Hollywood films of the civil rights era. “It’s a pleasure, all too rare, to watch two splendid actors pitted against each other with equal force such as Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger in the exceptional murder mystery, In the Heat of the Night.” —Wanda Hale, New York Daily News