Before Women Had Wings

Watch Movie

Before Women Had Wings

"In a world of abuse and violence, one person gave her hope"

1997

1h 36m

6.4(7 votes)

Drama

TV Movie

Overview

An adaptation of Connie May Fowler's 1996 novel tracing the unlikely friendship between a young white girl, daughter of an alcoholic mother and a no-good father, and a tender-hearted but reclusive black woman in the rural South of the '60s.

Links & Resources

IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

9 featured cast members

Starring

Ellen Barkin

Glory Marie Jackson

Tina Majorino

Avocet Abigail 'Bird' Jackson

Oprah Winfrey

Zora Williams

Julia Stiles

Phoebe Jackson

Burt Young

Louis Ippolito

John Savage

Billy Jackson

William Lee Scott

Hank Jackson

Louis Crugnali

L.J. Ippolito

David Hart

Sheriff

Creative team

Directed by: Lloyd Kramer
Written by: Lloyd Kramer
Connie May Fowler
Produced by: Jay Benson
Oprah Winfrey

Similar Movies

5.5

2011

Yelling To The Sky

As her family falls apart, seventeen year old Sweetness O'Hara is left to fend for herself in a neighborhood where her survival is uncertain.

Movie

6.9

2024

In the Summers

On a journey that spans the formative years of their lives, two sisters navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Movie

6.1

2015

Queen & Country

In this sequel to Hope and Glory (1987), Bill Rohan has grown up and is drafted into the army, where he and his eccentric best mate, Percy, battle their snooty superiors on the base and look for love in town.

Movie

7.5

2000

Almost Famous

In 1973, a precocious 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist lands a dream assignment from Rolling Stone to tour with a rising rock band, embarking on a coming-of-age journey as he discovers the exhilarating and heartbreaking realities behind rock stardom.

Movie

7.7

1986

Platoon

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Movie

7.0

1973

American Graffiti

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

Movie

7.2

1984

The Karate Kid

New Jersey teen Daniel LaRusso moves to Los Angeles with his mother, and soon strikes up a relationship with Ali. He quickly finds himself the target of bullying by a group of thugs, led by Ali's ex-boyfriend Johnny, who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo under ruthless sensei John Kreese. Fortunately, Daniel befriends Mr. Miyagi, an unassuming repairman who just happens to be a martial arts master himself. Miyagi takes Daniel under his wing, training him in a more compassionate form of karate for self-defense and, later, preparing him to compete against the brutal Cobra Kai.

Movie

8.0

1995

Before Sunrise

An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.

Movie

7.8

2004

Before Sunset

Nine years later, Jesse travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine. After his reading in Paris, Celine finds him, and they spend part of the day together before Jesse has to again leave for a flight. They are both in relationships now, and Jesse has a son, but as their strong feelings for each other start to return, both confess a longing for more.

Movie

7.1

2002

8 Mile

For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.

Movie

7.5

1979

Azhiyatha Kolangal

A managing director in Madras receives a letter from a childhood friend and begins to reminisce about his adolescent years, when he was growing up with his two friends in a village...

Movie

8.0

1959

The 400 Blows

For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.

Movie

7.9

1973

Amarcord

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.

Movie

8.1

1921

The Kid

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

Movie

6.8

2005

Get Rich or Die Tryin'

A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.

Movie

8.1

1963

8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Movie

4.8

1997

Sixth Happiness

Waris Hussein’s acclaimed drama is based on the autobiography of Firdaus Kanga, who stars in the lead role of Brit, a young man born with brittle bone disease, which causes him to have never grown beyond four feet tall. The film follows his sexual awakening whilst his family simultaneously disintegrates all around him. An extremely moving drama confronting stereotypes around disability, sexuality and race, featuring a powerhouse performance from Kanga.

Movie

5.1

2004

Against the Ropes

A fictional story inspired by North America's most famous female boxing promoter, Jackie Kallen. Her struggle to survive and succeed in a male dominated sport.

Movie

7.0

1992

A River Runs Through It

The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.

Movie

7.5

2022

Last Film Show

A 9-year-old boy in a remote village in India begins a lifelong love affair with cinema when he bribes his way into a rundown movie palace and spends a summer watching movies from the projection booth.

Movie

Recommended Movies

6.3

2000

Cheaters

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

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

7.4

1999

Tuesdays with Morrie

A journalist finds himself questioning his own life when his best friend, a dying man, offers him some very powerful wisdom and advice for coping in relationships, careers and society.

Movie

6.3

2012

TalhotBlond

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Movie

6.3

2018

My Dinner with Hervé

An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.

Movie

6.4

1999

Introducing Dorothy Dandridge

An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.

Movie

6.5

2011

Girl Fight

Inspired by a true story, Girl Fight recounts the harrowing story of a 16-year-old, stellar high school student whose life spirals downward when her former friends conspire to upload onto the Internet a shocking video of them beating her up.

Movie

6.3

2022

Rogue Agent

Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.

Movie

Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault

7.1

1996

Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault

A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.

Movie

6.8

2004

Iron Jawed Angels

Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.

Movie

6.1

2007

Mansfield Park

Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford

Movie

6.6

1983

The Lords of Discipline

Will arrives for his last year at Military Academy, in the Deep South USA, in the 1960's. A black student, Pearce, has been accepted, for the first time and Will is asked to keep an eye out for the inevitable racism. The racists come in the form of The Ten, a secret group of the elite students. They want Pearce to leave on his own free will, but are prepared to torture him to make it 'his free will'. Will is forced to help Pearce and he is prepared to risk his own career to do so.

Movie

6.8

2002

The Christmas Shoes

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Movie

6.4

2015

Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors

"Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors" is based on the inspiring true story of living legend Dolly Parton's remarkable upbringing. This once-in-a-lifetime movie special takes place inside the tight-knit Parton family as they struggle to overcome devastating tragedy and discover the healing power of love, faith and a raggedy patchwork coat that helped make Parton who she is today. The film is set in the Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains in 1955. It is neither a biopic nor a musical about Dolly's whole life and performing career, but rather a family-oriented faith-based story about the incidents in her and her family's life around the time she was nine years old.

Movie

7.6

2019

Love You to Death

Inspired by a true story, this film tells the shocking tale of a mother and daughter who are nothing like they seem, their tumultuous relationship ending in a brutal murder.

Movie

5.8

2008

Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal

Based on a true story. Five high school cheerleaders, including the daughter of the school principal, run amok -- and teachers, parents and administrators allow them to get away with a wide range of scandalous behavior. Known as the "Fab Five," the girls disregard school rules, drink alcohol and post suggestive pictures on the Internet. But when the new cheerleading coach attempts to discipline them, her superiors ask her to resign.

Movie

6.9

2011

Locke & Key

Three children become the caretakers of a New England mansion that is home to a bevy of secrets and magic.

Movie

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story

7.3

2003

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

Movie

6.4

2017

Cocaine Godmother

At the age of 17, Griselda Blanco, made her way to the U.S. with a fake passport with her first husband Carlos. Living in Queens with her three sons, Griselda became enticed by the money the drug world offered, and quickly became embroiled with local drug runners. Griselda masterminded the use of beautiful women, the elderly and children as the mules and created false-bottom suitcases to smuggle cocaine from Colombia.

Movie

6.5

2014

Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B

The story of R&B singer and actress Aaliyah; namely, the highs and lows of her career, her romantic pursuits, and the events leading up to her death in 2001 at the age of 22.

Movie