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02/08/1967 Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller 1h 49m
76
User score

They got a murder on their hands. They don’t know what to do with it.

Overview

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.

  1. Norman Jewison

    Director

Top billed cast

  1. Sidney Poitier

    Virgil Tibbs

  2. Rod Steiger

    Police Chief Bill Gillespie

  3. Warren Oates

    Deputy Sam Wood

  4. Peter Whitney

    Deputy Courtney

  5. Lee Grant

    Mrs. Leslie Colbert

  6. Anthony James

    Ralph

  7. William Schallert

    Mayor Schubert

  8. Scott Wilson

    Harvey Oberst

  9. Larry Gates

    Eric Endicott

  10. View more

Full Cast & Crew

Reviews

A review by GenerationofSwine
Written by GenerationofSwine on 2023-01-11
I have a love/hate thing for how this ended. It looked good but it was too dark... visually. I think they were going for a source lighting thing and failed a bit. It was realistically dark but not Hollywood viewer in mind dark.

Anyway the bad is out of the way, the good is the performance, it was really Oscar worthy in the truest sense, and the evolution of both the lead character and the supporting cast right down to the town around him was legendary. Subtle, but legendary.

It even had a sense of humor, little jokes in it that were probably added to break the tension, but added in a...read the rest
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Status
Released

Original Language
English

Budget
$2,000,000.00

Revenue
$27,379,978.00

Keywords