Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film directed by Alan Parker and written by Chris Gerolmo that is loosely based on the 1964 murder investigation of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi. It stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as two FBI agents investigating the disappearance of three civil rights workers in fictional Jessup County, Mississippi, who are met with hostility by the town's residents, local police, and the Ku Klux Klan.
Thomas Jacob Black is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for roles in family and comedy films, in addition to his voice work in animated films. His awards include an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and nominations for three Golden Globe Awards.
Home Alone 3 is a 1997 American family comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell in his directorial debut, written and co-produced by John Hughes, and starring Alex D. Linz and Haviland Morris. A standalone sequel to Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), it follows Alex Pruitt, an 8-year-old boy who defends his home from a dangerous band of international criminals working for a terrorist organization. It is the third film in the Home Alone franchise, and the first not to feature actor Macaulay Culkin, director Chris Columbus, or composer John Williams; Gosnell had previously served as editor on the first two Home Alone films. It is also the final film in the Home Alone franchise to receive a theatrical release.
Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent coming of age teen comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, and Sean Covel, written by Jared and Jerusha Hess, and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Jon Heder in the role of the titular character, a nerdy high-school student who deals with several dilemmas: befriending an immigrant who wants to be class president, awkwardly pursuing a romance with a fellow student, and living with his quirky family.
Michael Christopher White is an American writer, actor, and producer for television and film. He has won numerous awards, including the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for the 2000 film Chuck & Buck, which he wrote and starred in. He has written the screenplays for films such as School of Rock (2003) and has directed several films that he has written, such as Brad's Status (2017). He was a co-creator, executive producer, writer, director, and actor on the HBO series Enlightened. White is also known for his appearances on reality television, competing on two seasons of The Amazing Race and later becoming a contestant and runner-up on Survivor: David vs. Goliath. He created, writes, and directs the ongoing HBO satire comedy anthology series The White Lotus, for which he has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Jared Lawrence Hess and Jerusha Elizabeth Hess are husband-and-wife American filmmakers best known for their work on Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Nacho Libre (2006) and Gentlemen Broncos (2009), all of which they co-wrote and which were directed by Jared. For their film Ninety-Five Senses, they were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short.
Jonathan Joseph Heder is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the title character of the 2004 comedy film Napoleon Dynamite. He has also appeared in the films Just Like Heaven, The Benchwarmers, School for Scoundrels, Blades of Glory, Mama's Boy, When in Rome, and as Roy Disney in Walt Before Mickey. He also provided voice work for the animated films Monster House, Surf's Up, and Pinocchio, as well as the Napoleon Dynamite animated series.
Nacho Libre is a 2006 sports comedy film written by Jared and Jerusha Hess and Mike White, and directed by Jared Hess. It stars Jack Black as Ignacio, a Catholic friar and secret lucha libre fan who moonlights as a luchador to earn money for the orphanage where he works. The film is loosely based on the story of Fray Tormenta, a real-life Mexican Catholic priest who had a 23-year career as a masked luchador to support the orphanage he directed. The film was produced by Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, and Black & White Productions.
Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez is a Mexican Catholic priest who founded and supported an orphanage for 23 years as a lucha libre wrestler. While performing, he wore a red and yellow mask and used the ring name Fray Tormenta. He made only sporadic in-ring appearances in the 2000s before retiring completely from wrestling in July 2011, but he still wears his mask even in his duties as a priest.
Gentlemen Broncos is a 2009 American comedy film written by Jared and Jerusha Hess and directed by Jared Hess.
J. Edgar is a 2011 American biographical drama film based on the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, directed, produced and scored by Clint Eastwood. Written by Dustin Lance Black, the film focuses on Hoover's life from the 1919 Palmer Raids onward. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role along with Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, and Judi Dench, and features Adam Driver in his film debut.
Napoleon Dynamite is an American adult animated sitcom created by Jared and Jerusha Hess for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is based on the 2004 indie film of the same name, which both Hesses directed and co-wrote. Mike Scully helped develop the series. Set in the small town of Preston, Idaho, it follows the adventures of the titular 16-year-old boy, who thinks he is skilled at everything, In Canada Napoleon Dynamite aired on Teletoon at Night on August 22, 2015 to December 26, 2018 and is Rated PG for violence, Napoleon Dynamite aired on Teletoon's nighttime programming block Teletoon at Night.
Masterminds is a 2016 American crime comedy film based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery in North Carolina. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, it stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis.
Bright is a 2017 American urban fantasy action film directed by David Ayer and written by Max Landis. The film is set in an alternate present in which humans and mythical creatures co-exist and details an LAPD police officer and his orc partner confronting racism and police corruption while protecting a magic wand and the elf girl who wields it. Noomi Rapace, Édgar Ramírez, and Ike Barinholtz also star.
The Insufferable Groo is a 2018 American documentary directed by Scott Christopherson and produced by Jared Hess, Jared Harris, and Eric Robertson. The film follows the work of Utah filmmaker Stephen Groo as he creates the film Unexpected Race and seeks to have Jack Black play a role in his film.
Backtrace is a 2018 American action crime film directed by Brian A. Miller, and starring Sylvester Stallone, Matthew Modine and Ryan Guzman. The film was released as video on demand and limited theatrical release by Lionsgate Premiere on December 14, 2018 in the United States.
Richard Jewell is a 2019 American biographical drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood and written by Billy Ray. It is based on the 1997 Vanity Fair article "American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell" by Marie Brenner and the 2019 book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen. The film depicts the July 27 Centennial Olympic Park bombing and its aftermath, as security guard Richard Jewell finds a bomb during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and alerts authorities to evacuate, only to later be wrongly accused of having placed the device himself. The film stars Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell, alongside Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, and Olivia Wilde.
Judas and the Black Messiah is a 2021 American biographical crime drama film directed and produced by Shaka King, who wrote the screenplay with Will Berson, based on a story by the pair and Kenny and Keith Lucas. The film is about the betrayal of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late-1960s Chicago, by William O'Neal, an FBI informant. Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Lil Rel Howery, Algee Smith, Dominique Thorne, and Martin Sheen also star.
Trek: The Movie is a 2018 comedy film. It was written and produced by David Howard and directed by Alan Peterson. The film is distributed by Excel Entertainment Group—the distributors of 17 Miracles, The Work and the Glory, and The Cokeville Miracle.
Samuel D. Pollard is an American film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. His films have garnered numerous awards such as Peabodys, Emmys, and an Academy Award nomination. In 2020, the International Documentary Association gave him a career achievement award. Spike Lee, whose films Pollard has edited and produced, described him as being "a master filmmaker." Henry Louis Gates Jr. characterizes his work in this way: "When I think about his documentaries, they add up to a corpus — a way of telling African-American history in its various dimensions."
