Mississippi Burning (1988)

★ 7.7 2h 8m 1,904 votes IMDb
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Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.

Mississippi Burning

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Cast

Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman as Agent Rupert Anderson Died 2025 · San Bernardino, California, USA Eugene Allen Hackman (January 30, 1930 – c. February 18, 2025) was an American actor. Hackman made his credited film debut in the drama Lilith (1964). He later won two Academy Awards, his first for Be...
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe as Agent Alan Ward Age 70 · Appleton, Wisconsin, USA William James "Willem" Dafoe (born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various acc...
Frances McDormand
Frances McDormand as Mrs. Pell Age 68 · Gibson City, Illinois, USA Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American film, stage and television actress. McDormand began her career on stage and made her screen debut in the 1984 film Blood...
Brad Dourif
Brad Dourif as Deputy Clinton Pell Age 76 · Huntington, West Virginia, USA Bradford Claude "Brad" Dourif is an American film and television actor who gained early fame for his portrayal of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He has since appeared in a number of...
R. Lee Ermey
R. Lee Ermey as Mayor Tilman Died 2018 · Emporia, Kansas, USA Ronald Lee Ermey (March 24, 1944 – April 15, 2018) was a United States Marine Corps drill instructor and actor. Ermey often played the roles of authority figures, such as his breakout performance as...
Gailard Sartain
Gailard Sartain as Sheriff Stuckey Died 2025 · Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA Gailard Sartain (September 18, 1946 — June 17, 2025) was an American comedian and character actor. Graduated from the University of Tulsa with a BFA. A successful illustrator, Sartain's artistic cred...

Audience Reviews

kevin2019 10/10 Apr 19, 2024
"Mississippi Burning" has both insight and intelligence and it is an incredibly uncompromising scrutinization of how racism blighted American society and it is frightening to think the residents of Jessop in Mississippi possess minds much smaller than their town. This film also prompts you to seriously examine your own conscience in relation to the matter of the race issue, but how many people will actually be enthusiastically prepared to carry out such a thing? And how many of us will be shocked to discover something of Mayor Tilman in ourselves: we know all about what is going on and yet we choose to do nothing about it? That is the real lasting power of this superb film and that is why it will continue to have great longevity and deservedly so.
CinemaSerf 7/10 Apr 28, 2024
When three men go missing from their small-town Mississippi home, the FBI sends a team to investigate. "Anderson" (Gene Hackman) is very much the more hands-on of the pair leading the team, with "Ward" (Willem Dafoe) more inclined to play by the book. Their arrival exposes them to an open culture of racial hatred that's not only tolerated by the local sheriff "Stuckey" (Gailard Sartain) but enthusiastically supported by his deputy "Pell" (Brad Dourif). Their arrival only seems to empower the bigots as more Negro property is trashed or razed to the ground and the people themselves subjected to increasingly dangerous violence. The audience watching this know the local dynamic and who is pulling the strings, so the thrust of this rather potent look at the ghastliness going on here comes as we follow the differing styles of policing these men use to get to the bottom of things - and in a way that will make the equally complicit judicial system sit up and take note. With a media carnival only fanning the flames and tempers flying on both sides, the agents put into place a complex sting operation to turn the weapons of these intimidators into the very things that will hopefully entrap them. Hackman and Dafoe make for a formidable coupling in this well written and presented thriller that shines an unashamed light on the toxic attitudes of the white population whose concern for the missing men amounted to little more than "they got whet they deserved". Dourif is also on good form as his truly odious character emerges - not just against his black neighbours, but against his own wife (Frances McDormand) too. Alan Parker and Chris Gerolmo have created a palpably criminal scenario here and the ensemble deliver well that sense of fear, loathing and superiority. The photography captures well this increasingly menacing, dark and swamp-infested environment and by the denouement I did feel that this was all a perfectly plausible train of events in the mid-1960s USA.

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