Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
A prison-camp convict learns that his younger brother will soon be joining him behind bars.
Sharecropper's son Marvin tries to help his community overcome poverty and ignorance.
After graduating from Harvard University, Peter Siner returns to his small Tennessee hometown, where he hopes to start a school for black children.
In 1850s Louisiana, the willfulness of a tempestuous Southern belle threatens to destroy all who care for her.
This short film chronicles the importance of cotton to the economy and culture of America's Old South.
In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.
A man of humble beginnings and honest intentions rises to power by nefarious means. Along for the wild ride are an earnest reporter, a heretofore classy society girl, and a too-clever-for-her-own-good political flack.
A fading southern belle moves in with her sister in New Orleans where her ferocious brother-in-law takes stabs at her sanity.
In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.
A woman adored by the people around her ultimately struggles to be happy with herself.
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
An aging, reclusive Southern belle plagued by a horrifying family secret descends into madness after the arrival of a lost relative.
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
A veritable master of the trade, con man Mordecai Jones has taken part in his fair share of scams. When he happens upon a young army deserter, Curley, Jones decides to pass on his knowledge of swindling to the likable novice. As the two blaze through the rural South, Curley meets Bonnie Lee Packard, a girl of privilege, who helps the two crooks evade the local sheriff. But Curley soon questions his newfound profession.
A Kentucky slave fights for his freedom from cruel overseer whose mistress eventually joins Davis and the other slaves in their revolt.
Racial tensions threaten to explode when a black man is elected sheriff of a small, racially divided town in the Deep South.
Undertaker L.B. Jones, the richest black man in his county of Tennessee, is divorcing his wife for infidelity with a white policeman. Taking a stand against racism, he is greeted with a hostile bunch of Southern bigots and other various stereotypes.
An enigmatic man (Sidney Poitier) returns to his Alabama hometown as his sister is dying of cancer and incites the suspicion of notable town officials.