Film

A Raisin in the Sun

Name: A Raisin in the Sun
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 1961
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon

This is Sidney Poitier at his most raw and coiled, reprising the Broadway role that made him a star, in Lorraine Hansberry's landmark play about a Chicago family deciding what to do with a life-insurance windfall. It plays like theatre — close quarters, big speeches, four generations of hurt in one apartment — but the performances, especially Claudia McNeil and Ruby Dee, give it enormous heat. For anyone who wants American drama with real teeth.

TMDb rating

7.7

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Poitier again, this time walking into a white family's living room rather than fighting for his own — a fascinating companion piece on race, respectability and who gets to belong where.

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Spielberg's sweeping, emotional epic of one Black family across decades, full of the same grief, resilience and hard-won hope, but stretched over a whole life rather than one apartment.

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