Passing through the backwoods town of Sparta, Mississippi, Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) becomes embroiled in a murder case. He forms an uneasy alliance with the bigoted police chief (Rod Steiger), who faces mounting pressure from Sparta’s hostile citizens to catch the killer and run the African American interloper out of town. Director Norman Jewison splices incisive social commentary into this thrilling police procedural with the help of Haskell Wexler’s vivid cinematography, Quincy Jones’s eclectic score, and two indelible lead performances—a career-defining display of seething indignation and moral authority from Poitier and an Oscar-winning masterclass in Method acting from Steiger. Winner of five Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, In the Heat of the Night is one of the most enduring Hollywood films of the civil rights era.
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Interview with director Norman Jewison
- Interview with actor Lee Grant
- Segment from a 2006 American Film Institute interview with actor Sidney Poitier
- Interview with Aram Goudsouzian, author of Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon
- Audio commentary featuring Norman Jewison, Lee Grant, actor Rod Steiger, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler
- Turning Up the Heat: Movie-Making in the ’60s, a program about the production of the film and its legacy, featuring Haskell Wexler, Norman Jewison, producer Walter Mirisch, and filmmakers John Singleton and Reginald Hudlin
- Quincy Jones: Breaking New Sound, a program about Jones’s innovative soundtrack, including the title song sung by Ray Charles, featuring interviews with Quincy Jones, lyricists Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, and musician Herbie Hancock
- Trailer
- An essay by critic K. Austin Collins