Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.
Eugene, an aspiring writer from Brooklyn, is drafted into the US Army during the final months of World War II. For his basic training, the Army sends him to Camp Shelby in Mississippi, where toil, bad food, and antisemitic jibes await. Eugene takes refuge in his sense of humor and in his diary, but they won't protect him in a battle of wills with an unstable drill sergeant.
A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
Two men in 1930s Mississippi become friends after being sentenced to life in prison together for a crime they did not commit.
Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.
A young reporter and his niece discover a beautiful and enchanting creature they believe to be the real little mermaid.
Offbeat Civil War drama in which a wounded Yankee soldier, after finding refuge in an isolated girls' school in the South towards the end of the war, becomes the object of the young women's sexual fantasies. The soldier manipulates the situation for his own gratification, but when he refuses to completely comply with the girls' wishes, they make it very difficult for him to leave.
In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them. On their journey they come across many comical characters and incredible situations. Based upon Homer's 'Odyssey'.
Erik, a loner, finds a friend in Dexter, an eleven-year-old boy with AIDS. They vow to find a cure for AIDS together and save Dexter's life in an eventful summer.
Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional three thousand dollars in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game that begins in a few days, so he joins forces with a woman gambler with a marvellous southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.
Two convicts—a white racist and an angry black man—escape while chained to each other.
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.
Two documentary filmmakers go back in time to the pre-Civil War American South, to film the slave trade.
A shy boy is unable to make friends in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1942, until his parents give him a terrier puppy for his ninth birthday. The dog, which he names Skip, becomes well known and loved throughout the community and enriches the life of the boy, Willie, as he grows into manhood. Based on the best-selling Mississippi memoir by the late Willie Morris.
A mischievous young boy, Tom Sawyer, witnesses a murder by the deadly Injun Joe. Tom becomes friends with Huckleberry Finn, a boy with no future and no family. Tom has to choose between honoring a friendship or honoring an oath because the town alcoholic is accused of the murder. Tom and Huck go through several adventures trying to retrieve evidence.
In turn-of-the-century Mississippi, an 11-year-old boy comes of age as two mischievous adult friends talk him into sneaking the family car out for a trip to Memphis and a series of adventures.
In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.
Carnelle Scott is a restless Mississippi girl looking for a life change. She decides to enter a beauty pageant, which her cousin had won years before. Despite a lack of support from those close to her Carnelle remains determined. She enlists the help of a seamstress to outfit her for the competition, while rebuffing the advances of predatory men, as she aims to bring home the crown.