A Lesson Before Dying

May 22, 1999

1h 41m

★ 5.0

A young man's destiny becomes a teacher's journey.

Overview

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.

Genres

Drama

Production Companies

Spanky Pictures

Ellen M. Krass Productions

HBO Films

A Lesson Before Dying Trailers

Cast

Grant Wiggins

Don Cheadle

Tante Lou

Cicely Tyson

Jefferson

Mekhi Phifer

Miss Emma

Irma P. Hall

Reverend Ambrose

Brent Jennings

Vivian Baptiste

Lisa Arrindell

Edna Guidry

Dana Ivey

Sheriff Guidry

Frank Hoyt Taylor

Henri Pichot

Stuart Culpepper

Farrell Jarreau

Von Coulter

Clarence

Elijah Kelley

Louis Washington

Wynton Yates

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