Bessie

May 16, 2015

1h 47m

★ 6.3

Survival began with a song

Overview

The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.

Genres

Drama

Music

TV Movie

Production Companies

The Zanuck Company

Flavor Unit Entertainment

HBO Films

Bessie Trailers

Cast

Bessie Smith

Queen Latifah

Ma Rainey

Mo'Nique

Richard

Mike Epps

Lucille

Tika Sumpter

Jack Gee

Michael Kenneth Williams

William 'Pa' Rainey

Charles S. Dutton

John Hammond

Bryan Greenberg

Carl Van Vechten

Oliver Platt

Viola

Khandi Alexander

Clarence

Tory Kittles

Young Bessie

Kamryn Johnson

Chorus Guy

Rikki McKinney

Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country, during which Axel challenges Eyal's values.

7.6

Billy Elliot

Sep 28, 2000

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

7.6

All About My Mother

Apr 16, 1999

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

7.1

Open Hearts

Sep 6, 2002

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

6.4

Italian for Beginners

Dec 7, 2000

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

7.4

Bad Education

Mar 19, 2004

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school.

7.8

Brokeback Mountain

Oct 22, 2005

In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.

7.0

The Secret Life of Words

Dec 15, 2005

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

7.4

Lost in Translation

Sep 18, 2003

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.

3.3

We Are Fine

Sep 8, 2014

A boy makes a discovery at the seaside.

5.6

Alice, Darling

Dec 30, 2022

Pushed to the breaking point by Simon, her psychologically abusive boyfriend, Alice becomes an unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends while on vacation. As she rediscovers the essence of herself and gains some much-needed perspective, she slowly starts to fray the cords of codependency that bind her. However, Simon's vengeance is as inevitable as it is shattering, and once unleashed, it tests her strength, her courage, and the bonds of deep-rooted friendships.

6.0

Annalyn

Oct 23, 2012

Agnes is not satisfied with her life. She wants a change, but her relationship with her single parent father and dominant girlfriend inhibit her to do something about it. When the father introduces his new wife, Annalyn, everything changes. The same-aged Filipino stepmother helps Agnes see a new path. Soon emerges something that no one could have foreseen.

6.5

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

Nov 8, 2002

The strange comedy film of two close brothers; one, Wilbur, who wants to kill himself, and the other, Harbour, who tries to prevent this. When their father dies leaving them his bookstore they meet a woman who makes their lives a bit better yet with a bit more trouble as well.

6.2

Maybe... Maybe Not

Oct 5, 1994

The heterosexual man Axel is thrown out of his girlfriends home for cheating and ends up moving in with a gay man. Axel learns the advantages of living with gay men even though they are attracted to him and when his girlfriend wants him back he must make a tough decision.

7.4

Boys Don't Cry

Sep 2, 1999

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

7.4

The Piano

May 18, 1993

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

7.0

Together

Aug 25, 2000

Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.

4.7

Kissing Drew

Jul 17, 2013

Inside a drab middle school in 1992, a sexually-confused eighth-grader attempts to regain his dignity after being bullied by a sex-obsessed 'cool kid' whom he privately fantasizes about.