Sergeant York is a 1941 American biographical film about the life of Alvin C. York, one of the most decorated American soldiers of World War I. Directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper in the title role, the film was a critical and commercial success, and became the highest-grossing film of 1941. In 2008, Sergeant York was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. He has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.
Norman Frederick Jewison was a Canadian filmmaker. He was known for directing films which addressed topical social and political issues, often making controversial or complicated subjects accessible to mainstream audiences. Among numerous other accolades, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director three times in three separate decades, for In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), and Moonstruck (1987). He was nominated for an additional four Oscars, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, and won a BAFTA Award. He received the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1999.
The Hurricane is a 1999 American biographical sports drama film directed and produced by Norman Jewison. The film stars Denzel Washington as Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, a former middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. The script was adapted by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon from Carter's 1974 autobiography The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender To 45472 and the 1991 non-fiction work Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Freeing of Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter by Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton.
Malcolm X is a 1992 American independent epic political drama film about the African-American activist Malcolm X. Directed and co-written by Spike Lee, the film stars Denzel Washington in the title role, alongside Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman Jr., and Delroy Lindo. Lee has a supporting role, while Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and future South African president Nelson Mandela make cameo appearances.
The Phil Silvers Show, originally titled You'll Never Get Rich, is a sitcom which ran on the CBS Television Network from 1955 to 1959. A pilot titled "Audition Show" was made in 1955, but it was never broadcast. 143 other episodes were broadcast – all half-an-hour long except for a 1959 one-hour live special. The series starred Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko of the United States Army.
Howard Ellsworth Rollins Jr. was an American stage, film, and television actor. He was best known for his role as Andrew Young in 1978's King, George Haley in the 1979 miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the 1981 film Ragtime, Captain Davenport in the 1984 film A Soldier's Story, and as Virgil Tibbs on the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1994).
Antwone Fisher is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by and starring Denzel Washington in his film directing debut. Washington stars in the film as the psychiatrist Jerome Davenport, alongside Hollywood newcomer Derek Luke, who plays the title role, and former model Joy Bryant, as Fisher's girlfriend. The film marked Luke's film debut.
Adolph Caesar was an American film and theater actor. Known for his signature deep voice, Caesar was a staple of off-Broadway as a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and as a voiceover artist for numerous film trailers. He earned widespread acclaim for his performance as Sgt. Vernon Waters in Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play, a role he reprised in the 1984 film adaptation A Soldier's Story, for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, and won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.
Robert Townsend is an American actor, director, comedian, and writer. Townsend is best known for directing the films Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), The Meteor Man (1993), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and various other films and stand-up specials. He is especially known for his portrayal of The WB's sitcom The Parent 'Hood 's main character Robert Peterson, the series he created and directed select episodes of ran from 1995 to 1999. Townsend is also known for his role as Donald "Duck" Matthews in his 1991 film The Five Heartbeats. He later wrote, directed and produced Making the Five Heartbeats (2018), a documentary film about the production process and behind the scenes insight into creating the film. Townsend is also known for his production company Townsend Entertainment which has produced films Playin' for Love, In the Hive and more. During the 1980s and early–1990s, Townsend gained national exposure through his stand-up comedy routines and appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Townsend has worked with talent including Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker, Beyoncé, Denzel Washington, Ayo Edebiri, and many more.
Street Smart is a 1987 American crime thriller film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Christopher Reeve, Morgan Freeman, Kathy Baker and Mimi Rogers. Reeve portrays an ambitious reporter who fabricates an interview with a pimp. When a real pimp who closely matches the fictional description (Freeman) is indicted for murder, both he and the prosecutor try to exploit the reporter for their own ends.
The Unknown Soldier is a Finnish war film directed by Edvin Laine that premiered in December 1955. It is based on The Unknown Soldier, a novel by Väinö Linna. The story is about the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union as told from the viewpoint of ordinary Finnish soldiers.
A Soldier's Play is a play by American playwright Charles Fuller. Set on a US Army installation in the segregation-era South, the play is a loose adaptation of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, and follows the murder investigation of the Sergeant in an all-black unit. The play uses a murder mystery to explore the complicated feelings of anger and resentment that some African Americans have toward one another, and the ways in which many black Americans have absorbed white racist attitudes.
The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) is a New York City-based theater company and workshop established in 1967 by producer-actor Robert Hooks, playwright Douglas Turner Ward, and theater manager Gerald S. Krone, with funding from the Ford Foundation. The company's focus on original works with themes based in the black experience with an international perspective created a canon of theatrical works and an audience for writers who came later, such as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.
The Guilt of Janet Ames is a 1947 American sentimental film noir directed by Henry Levin, based on a story by Lenore Coffee, and starring Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Luciano Catenacci was an Italian actor and production manager who worked on mainly Italian produced films during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Tanks a Million is a 1941 American comedy film film directed by Fred Guiol. It was the first of Hal Roach's Streamliners, short films under an hour designed for the lower half of a double feature. The two leading characters, whiz-kid sergeant Doubleday and his rival Sergeant Ames, would go on to feature in seven more films, though the series has no overall title.
Denzel Washington is an American actor known for his performance on stage and screen. Washington made his feature film debut in Carbon Copy (1981). In 1982, Washington made his first appearance in the medical drama St. Elsewhere as Dr. Philip Chandler. The role proved to be the breakthrough in his career. He starred as Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the drama A Soldier's Story (1984). The film was an adaptation of the Off-Broadway play A Soldier's Play (1981–1983) in which Washington had earlier portrayed the same character.
Target Zero is a 1955 American war and drama film directed by Harmon Jones and written by James Warner Bellah and Sam Rolfe.The film stars Richard Conte, Peggie Castle, Charles Bronson, Richard Wyler, L. Q. Jones and Chuck Connors. The film was released and published by Warner Bros. on November 15, 1955.
Hostiles is a 2017 American western drama film written and directed by Scott Cooper, based on a story by Donald E. Stewart. It stars Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Ben Foster, Stephen Lang, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Adam Beach, Q'orianka Kilcher, Jonathan Majors, and Timothée Chalamet appear in supporting roles. It follows a U.S. Army cavalry officer in 1892 who must escort a Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their home in Montana.
