Separate but Equal

Watch Movie

Separate but Equal

"The true story behind the most important legal battle of our time."

1991

3h 6m

6.5(14 votes)

History

TV Movie

Drama

Overview

A dramatization of the events of Brown vs. Board of Education, the American court case that destroyed the legal validity of racial segregation.

Links & Resources

IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Sidney Poitier

Thurgood Marshall

Burt Lancaster

John W. Davis

Richard Kiley

Chief Justice Earl Warren

Cleavon Little

Robert L. 'Bob' Carter

Gloria Foster

Vivian 'Buster' Marshall

John McMartin

Governor James F. Byrnes

Mark Hammer

Associate Justice Stanley Forman Reed

Graham Beckel

Josiah C. Tulley

Jeffrey Wright

William Coleman

Ed Hall

Reverend J.A. Delaine

Creative team

Directed by: George Stevens Jr.
Written by: George Stevens Jr.

Similar Movies

7.1

1995

Murder in the First

A young, inexperienced public defender is assigned to defend an inmate accused of committing murder while behind bars.

Movie

4.8

2008

Gospel Hill

Gospel Hill tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist. Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the former sheriff who never got to the bottom of the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic Gospel Hill.

Movie

2015

I Will Dance

Follows the young people of Selma, Alabama's RATCo (Random Acts of Theatre Company) as they journey to New York City to share their story of hope, resilience, and overcoming.

Movie

2019

Obaida

OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.

Movie

1990

Animals on Trial

Part of BBC Arena's Animal Night, this film chronicles a strange era in history when animals were put on trial in human courts.

Movie

5.2

2025

Fireflies at El Mozote

A boy seeks revenge after surviving El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, where government forces killed his family and destroyed his village - the deadliest civilian massacre in modern Latin America.

Movie

6.4

1993

Sommersby

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.

Movie

10.0

2005

Looking for Angelina

Looking for Angelina is based on one of the most important murder trials in Canada. Angelina Napolitano murdered her husband with an axe and was sentenced to be executed...

Movie

6.6

2024

Nickel Boys

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.

Movie

7.1

1979

...And Justice for All

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

Movie

6.7

1998

Final Justice

Merle Hammond, a sleazy attorney, uses corrupt tactics and convinces a jury to acquit his client who is a killer. Gwen, the murdered victim's sister, plots revenge against the attorney. Out of desperation, she kidnaps and tortures him in an attempt to make him confess to his unscrupulous tactics. The cards twist when he escapes and puts her on trial for his kidnapping.

Movie

7.0

1997

The Rainmaker

Fresh out of law school and desperate for work, idealistic rookie Rudy Baylor takes on a powerful insurance company accused of denying a dying boy’s claim. Teaming up with a scrappy, unlicensed paralegal, he finds himself in a David-versus-Goliath courtroom battle that tests his ethics, courage, and belief in justice.

Movie

6.9

1991

Defending Your Life

Is there love after death? After he dies suddenly, the hapless advertising executive Daniel Miller finds himself in Judgment City, a gleaming way station where the newly deceased must prove they lived a life of sufficient courage to advance in their journey through the universe. As the self-doubting Daniel struggles to make his case, a budding relationship with the uninhibited Julia offers him a chance to finally feel alive.

Movie

6.6

1987

Suspect

When a Supreme Court judge commits suicide and his secretary is found murdered, all fingers point to Carl Anderson, a homeless veteran who's deaf and mute. But when public defender Kathleen Riley is assigned to his case, she begins to believe that Anderson may actually be innocent. Juror Eddie Sanger, a Washington lobbyist, agrees, and together the pair begins their own investigation of events.

Movie

6.4

2022

The Shadow of the Day

In 1938 Italy, after Jews are banned from public life, fascist-abiding restaurateur Luciano nonetheless believes he can still live by his own rules. Everything changes when Anna, a girl with a dangerous secret, begins working at his business.

Movie

6.9

2022

The Power of Women

Seeking the truth in a human grey area. Lawyer Annabelle Martinelli has specialized in sexual offences and represents victims of domestic violence. Shoe salesperson Doreen Markowitz seeks her support after pressing charges against her husband Leon for assault and sexual violence. The opposing lawyer is Annabelle's ex-boss John Quante, a cunning and unscrupulous divorce lawyer. Annabelle is convinced that her client has been systematically intimidated, beaten and forced to have sex. But the evidence is thin. One of several cases she has to deal with which put her professional distance to the test.

Movie

7.5

1982

The Verdict

Frank Galvin is a down-on-his-luck lawyer and reduced to drinking and ambulance chasing, when a former associate reminds him of his obligations in a medical malpractice suit by serving it to Galvin on a silver platter—all parties are willing to settle out of court. Blundering his way through the preliminaries, Galvin suddenly realizes that the case should actually go to court—to punish the guilty, to get a decent settlement for his clients... and to restore his standing as a lawyer.

Movie

7.5

1979

Mrs. R's Daughter

When a young woman is brutally raped and beaten, her mother sets out to find justice for her.

Movie

7.8

1959

Anatomy of a Murder

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

Movie

7.4

2009

Law Abiding Citizen

A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.

Movie

Recommended Movies

6.9

2016

Confirmation

Judge Clarence Thomas' nomination to the United States' Supreme Court is called into question when former colleague, Anita Hill, testifies that he had sexually harassed her.

Movie

7.4

2006

Glory Road

In 1966, Texas Western coach Don Haskins led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship.

Movie

6.9

1995

Indictment: The McMartin Trial

The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.

Movie

6.7

2023

The Last Rifleman

A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.

Movie

6.7

2016

Girl in the Box

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Movie

7.6

1990

The Long Walk Home

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.

Movie

7.1

2002

The Rosa Parks Story

A seamstress recalls events leading to her act of peaceful defiance that prompted the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.

Movie

6.7

2020

A Call to Spy

The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.

Movie

6.7

2016

All the Way

Lyndon B. Johnson's amazing 11-month journey from taking office after JFK's assassination, through the fight to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and his own presidential campaign, culminating on the night LBJ is actually elected to the office – no longer the 'accidental President.'

Movie

6.1

2022

Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher

At the turn of the 19th century, Pugilism was the sport of kings and a gifted young boxer fought his way to becoming champion of England.

Movie

6.3

2017

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.

Movie

6.1

2015

Field of Lost Shoes

A group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute must confront the horrors of an adult world when they are called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley.

Movie

6.3

2024

Firebrand

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

Movie

6.2

1994

Against the Wall

In 1971, a warden at Attica Penitentiary is caught up in a hostage crisis when inmates take over the prison to demand better living conditions.

Movie

7.4

2019

Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.

Movie

7.0

1983

The Scarlet and the Black

Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.

Movie

7.1

2017

The Miniaturist

A woman moves to live with her new husband in 17th century Amsterdam, but soon discovers that not everything is what it seems.

Movie

7.5

1989

Glory

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

Movie

8.0

1961

Judgment at Nuremberg

In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.

Movie

7.7

2020

The Trial of the Chicago 7

What was supposed to be a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with the police. What followed was one of the most notorious trials in history.

Movie