An African-American officer investigates a murder in a racially charged situation in World War II.

A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Poindexter "Fool" Williams, his brother Leroy, and their family face eviction from their rented home in South Central Los Angeles. Their landlords are a greedy, uncaring couple who live in a mansion that's as huge as it is eerie. Leroy has a plan to burglarize the mansion, but what the boys find inside is not what they expected.

The story of Carl Brashear, the first African-American U.S. Navy Diver, and the man who trained him.