Movie Drama
He Had the Lightest Touch in a Heavy Town.
The unintentional shooting by police of a star basketball player has profound personal, political and community repercussions in this acclaimed adaptation of the novel Hog Butcher by Ronald Fair. This was one of the more thoughtful urban dramas produced at the height of the "blaxploitation" craze. Also released under the title Hit the Open Man, it features the screen debut of Laurence Fishburne, who was barely a teenager at the time.
Similiar movies
Cooley High
In the mid-1960s, a group of high school friends who live on the Near North Side of Chicago enjoy life to the fullest...parties, hanging out, meeting new friends. Then life changes for two of the guys when they are falsely arrested in connection with stealing a Cadillac. We follow their lives through to the dramatic end of high school.
The Learning Tree
The story, set in Kansas during the 1920's, covers less than a year in the life of a black teenager, and documents the veritable deluge of events which force him into sudden manhood. The family relationships and enmities, the fears, frustrations and ambitions of the black teenager in small-town America are explored with a strong statement about human values.
One on One
Henry Steele is a basketball phenom at his small town high school, but when he matriculates to a big city university on a scholarship, soon realizes that he has few skills outside the sport. Expected by his coach to contribute significantly to the team, Henry is overwhelmed by the demands on his time, the "big business" aspect of college sports, and the fact that he never fully learned to read. Things look bleak for Henry when Janet Hays, a pretty graduate student, is assigned as Henry's tutor. Her intellect and strength lift Henry out of his doldrums just in time to battle the coach, who attempts to rescind Henry's scholarship.
Hoop Dreams
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
Pride
In this uplifting film based on a true story, coach Jim Ellis (Terrence Howard) shocks the community and changes lives when, aided by a local janitor (Bernie Mac), he sets out to form Philadelphia's first black swim team. But the odds are against them as they battle rigid rules, racism and more.
Hurricane Season
Based on true events amid the wreckage and chaos dealt by Hurricane Katrina; one basketball coach in Marrero, Louisiana just will not give up. Coach Al Collins, gathers other players from hard-hit schools and builds a team actually worthy enough to go to the state playoffs.
Brotherly Love
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
A Lesson Before Dying
In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.
Ruby Bridges
When six-year-old Ruby Bridges is chosen to be the first African-American to integrate her local elementary school, she is subjected to the true ugliness of racism for the first time.
Soul of the Game
Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson are the greatest players in the Colored leagues, and everyone expects that one of them will make the leap to the Major Leagues, now that there is talk of integration. But, unexpectedly, it's the rookie with the army record, Jackie Robinson, that gets tapped to be the first.
Sunset Park
A school teacher takes over a talented, but undisciplined high school basketball team and turns them into a winning team.
Believe in Me
In a conservative small town, a young man's wish to coach high school basketball are tweaked by a school board decision that makes him the new coach of the girls' team.
Halls of Anger
An all-black inner city school has to become an integrated school. Few dozen white kids are transfered there, but the black students are aggressively opposed to this. The school then approaches a tough black teacher for help.
Similiar TV Shows
Friday Night Lights
The trials and triumphs of life in the small town of Dillon, Texas, where high school football is everything.
L.A. Law
L.A. Law is an American television legal drama series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994. Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it contained many of Bochco's trademark features including a large number of parallel storylines, social drama and off-the-wall humor. It reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s, and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot-topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights, homophobia, sexual harassment, AIDS, and domestic violence. The series often also reflected social tensions between the wealthy senior lawyer protagonists and their less well-paid junior staff. The show was popular with audiences and critics, and won 15 Emmy Awards throughout its run, four of which were for Outstanding Drama Series.
The Escape Artist
A chilling and bloody legal thriller that explores the line between law and justice. Will Burton, a talented junior barrister of peerless intellect and winning charm, specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners. He is in high demand as he has never lost a case. But when his talents acquit the notorious prime suspect in an horrific murder trial, that brilliance comes back to bite him with unexpected and chilling results, not to mention a shocking twist.
Show Me a Hero
Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing to be built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.
Basketball: A Love Story
'Basketball: A Love Story' is a series of 62 interconnected short stories that creates a vibrant mosaic of the game, featuring 165 exclusive interviews. The cast encompasses basketball's most prominent figures and explores the complex nature of love as it relates to the game.
Shut Up and Dribble
An inside look at the changing role of athletes in our fraught cultural and political environment, through the lens of the NBA.
Basketball or Nothing
Follow the lives of the Chinle High basketball team in Arizona's Navajo Nation on a quest to win a state championship and bring pride to their isolated community.
America Beyond the Color Line
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's chair of Afro-American Studies, travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty
A fast-break series chronicling the professional and personal lives of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of sports’ most revered and dominant dynasties — a team that defined an era, both on and off the court.
The Crossover
The coming-of-age story of basketball prodigy twins Filthy (aka Josh) and JB who learn that even though they have so much that binds them together growing up is all about discovering what makes us unique.
Bill Russell: Legend
Winningest NBA champion and civil rights icon Bill Russell builds a larger-than-life legacy on and off the court in this 2-part biographical documentary.
Goliath
Three-part documentary series examining the historic life, career and impact of Wilt Chamberlain. One of the greatest and most misunderstood athletes of all time, Chamberlain changed the game of basketball, breaking records and racial barriers along the way while conforming to his own standards on and off the court. From his unparalleled athleticism to his pioneering achievements, Wilt Chamberlain was an icon who lived his life on an epic scale.
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.