Best movies like Hope & Redemption: The Lena Baker Story
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Plot Summary:
Based on true events, The Lena Baker Story recounts one African-American womans struggle to rise above the challenges of her life, to face the choices she makes, and to ultimately triumph over her...Lena Baker was the first and only woman to be sentenced to death by the electric chair in the state of Georgia and was executed in 1945. She was pardoned posthumously in 2005.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 405
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, independent film
Best tv shows and movies like Hope & Redemption: The Lena Baker Story (2008):
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Perry Mason: The Case of the Avenging Ace (1988)
Plot Summary:
Mason defends a man he had sentenced to prison when he was an appellate-court judge. Now, 18 months after the sentencing, a new witness turns up to prove the man's innocence. Mason steps in to defend the man.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 458
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, detective
Similar in 83%
Three Blind Mice (2001)
Plot Summary:
A lawyer defends a man he's known since serving together in Vietnam, who has been accused of murdering three Vietnamese immigrants. Now he'll have to fight against a tenacious District Attorney, and evidence connected to the man's wife.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 286
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, captivating, suspenseful, exciting, realistic
Similar in 77%
The Runaway (2000)
Plot Summary:
At the birth of two boys, one white and one black, a mysterious and powerful Conjure Woman (Maya Angelou) prophesies that they will start the change. Growing up as best friends in rural Georgia in the 1940s, the boys make a discovery that leads the town's new sheriff, Frank Richards (Dean Cain), to reopen the investigation of the unsolved murders of three black men. While the town would prefer that the truth remain hidden, the sheriff pursues the case, determined to see justice prevail. The Runaway is a stirring story of how friendship, determination and conviction can generate racial change in one heart or an entire town.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 322
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, captivating, suspenseful, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
Blind Faith (1998)
Plot Summary:
in 1957 an African-American criminal lawyer (Courtney B. Vance) defends his nephew, who faces the death penalty for murdering a white boy. Charles S. Dutton, Kadeem Hardison, Garland Whitt and Lonette McKee costar in this drama of racial and social tensions.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 662
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, independent film, serious, realistic
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Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills (1994)
Plot Summary:
About the 1989 murders of Carolco Entertainment chairman, Jose Menendez, and his wife, Kitty, who were killed by their sons, Lyle and Erik, in Beverly Hills, allegedly for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 394
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
Carolina Skeletons (1991)
Plot Summary:
After a long time in the army, an Afro-American soldier returns to his hometown, where, years ago, his brother was executed for the rape and murder of two white girls. The commando believes his brother to have been innocent and seeks a proof for that, but there are some people in the town who will stop at nothing to hide the secrets of their past.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 457
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, gloomy
Similar in 85%
Open Doors (1990)
Plot Summary:
Tommaso Scalia is a man who commits three murders: he killed his superior who sacked him, he kills the man who replaced him, and he kills his own wife. He wants a quick trial and an early execution, but an earnest, principled assistant judge looks for a way to save the murderer from being shot, because he does not belive in capital punishment. Although he manages to save the man initially, he will pay a high price for it.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 983
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 108 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, disturbing, suspense, political, rough, thought provoking, realistic, political drama
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Common (2014)
Plot Summary:
Multi-award-winning writer Jimmy McGovern's brand new film based on the UK's controversial joint enterprise law. Jimmy McGovern's gritty drama stars Nico Mirallegro as guileless 17 year old Johnjo O'Shea, who goes from innocent bystander to accessory to premeditated murder after giving a few friends a lift.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, serious, realistic, crime drama, bleak, gloomy
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Small Town Conspiracy (2002)
Plot Summary:
Crime - Set in Florida at the close of 1941, this film noir follows small-town police chief John Haleran's (Zen Gesner) investigation of the murder of a young Japanese girl, a case that leads to a top secret government conspiracy. With the help of retired cop Taylor (William Morgan Sheppard), Haleran discovers a connection between the victim and an imminent Japanese attack. - Zen Gesner, Jeannetta Arnette, William Morgan Sheppard.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 127
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, War
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, tense, bleak
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Blood Done Sign My Name (2010)
Plot Summary:
A drama based on the true story in which a black Vietnam-era veteran is allegedly murdered by a local white businessman who is later exonerated. The plot focuses on the role of a local high school teacher and the civil unrest that followed the acquittal.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 635
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, serious, captivating, realistic, thought provoking, tense, bleak, contemplative, entertaining
Similar in 90%
Heat Wave (1990)
Plot Summary:
A rookie black journalist investigates the tensions of the Watts section of Los Angeles in the bloody summer of 1965.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 213
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, disturbing
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Crime of the Century (1996)
Plot Summary:
In 1932, the nation was shocked when the 14-month-old son of Charles Lindberg was kidnapped, held for ransom, and murdered. Two years later, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested, convicted, and executed. This film dramatizes the investigation against Hauptmann, the trial, and the execution, painting a picture of a corrupt police force under pressure to finger a killer framing an innocent man by manufacturing evidence, paying-off and blackmailing witnesses, and covering up exculpatory evidence.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 888
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (1976)
Plot Summary:
Fact-based story of the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr., son and namesake of the famed pilot, and ensuing trial of accused and convicted killer, Bruno Hauptmann.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 501
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 148 min
Plot tags: rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
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Execution of Justice (1999)
Plot Summary:
The story of an assassin who killed a mayor in the 1970's in what was known as the "Twinkie Defense".
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 274
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, controversial, surprise ending, queer cinema
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Sins of the Father (2002)
Plot Summary:
In 1965 a bomb was planted in a Church in Alabama, killing four black girls. Thirty years later, Tom Cherry breaks his silence to discredit his father's alibi for the night in question.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 448
Genere: Drama, Crime
Country: USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: rough, emotional, realistic, disturbing, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating
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Citizen Verdict (2003)
Plot Summary:
Marty Rockman, the notorious producer of the hit reality-TV show "So Sue Me", has a brand new concept: "Citizen Verdict". Each week a real criminal case will be tried before the American people, but this time they're also the jury. If the defendant is voted guilty in a death penalty case, Rockman will televise the execution. When an escalation in violent crime and terrorism hits the state of Florida, Governor Tyler, desperate to be seen as a tough-on-crime Republican leader in the upcoming Presidential race, decides to give Rockman his chance and "Citizen Verdict" goes into production in Tampa. Selected by phone-in vote, the show's first contestant is Ricky Carr -- a man accused of the rape and murder of popular celebrity-chef Dolly Hamilton. The case is a surefire ratings winner. But when an investigation begins, it becomes apparent that Ricky may be innocent of murder.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 491
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: serious, disturbing, thought provoking, bleak, realistic, clever, cynical, biting, suspense
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Howard Beach: Making a Case for Murder (1989)
Plot Summary:
In December, 1986, 3 black men ran into car trouble in Howard Beach, a middle-class neighborhood in New York City. Unable to start their car, they sought refuge in a nearby restaurant. What happened later that night shocked the entire city.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 117
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing, controversial
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Heavens Fall (2006)
Plot Summary:
Successful New York attorney Sam Leibowitz travels to the South in 1933 to defend nine young black men accused of raping two women on an Alabama freight train.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: serious, sincere, disturbing, independent film, uplifting, emotional, realistic
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One Angry Juror (2010)
Plot Summary:
Based on the true story of Sarah Walsh, a tough New Orleans attorney who serves on a murder trial jury and does some investigating of her own.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 279
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, realistic, tense, independent film
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Color of Justice (1997)
Plot Summary:
Four young black men kill a white woman, the D.A. is very cautious in how to proceed.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 228
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, suspenseful
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The Glass Shield (1994)
Plot Summary:
J.J. is a rookie in the Sheriff's Department and the first black officer at that station. Racial tensions run high in the department as some of J.J.'s fellow officers resent his presence. His only real friend is the other new trooper, the first female officer to work there, who also suffers similar discrimination in the otherwise all-white-male work environment. When J.J. becomes increasingly aware of police corruption during the murder trial of Teddy Woods, whom he helped to arrest, he faces difficult decisions and puts himself into grave personal danger in the service of justice.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: France, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: tense, harsh, rough, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, neo noir, thought provoking
Similar in 86%
The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988)
Plot Summary:
The Murder of Mary Phagan, a 1987 two-part TV miniseries made by Orion Pictures Corporation and distributed by National Broadcasting Company (NBC), is a dramatization of the story of Leo Frank, a factory manager charged and convicted with murdering a 13-year-old girl, a factory worker named Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia in 1913. The trial was sensational and controversial. After Frank's legal appeals had failed, the governor of Georgia in 1915 commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. In 1915 Frank was kidnapped from prison and lynched by a small group of prominent men of Marietta, Georgia. The film features Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Rebecca Miller, Charles Dutton, Peter Gallagher, Cynthia Nixon, Dylan Baker, and William H. Macy.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 806
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 251 min
Plot tags: tense, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic
Similar in 84%
A Lesson Before Dying (1999)
Plot Summary:
In the 1940's 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.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: powerful, sincere, uplifting, thought provoking, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic
Similar in 86%
Gideon's Trumpet (1980)
Plot Summary:
True story of Clarence Gideon's fight to be appointed counsel at the expense of the state. This landmark case led to the Supreme Court's decision which extended this right to all criminal defendants.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Biography, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative
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Rosewood (1997)
Plot Summary:
Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Action, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: disturbing, depressing, political, social, cult classic, tense, rough, thought provoking, touching, serious
Similar in 79%
Act of Vengeance (1986)
Plot Summary:
In 1969, an administrator runs against the corrupt president of the United Coal Miners Union, and becomes the target of a murder plot.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 797
Genere: Biography, Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: sincere, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, captivating, realistic, disturbing, contemplative
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The Conspirator (2010)
Plot Summary:
Mary Surratt is the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln. As the whole nation turns against her, she is forced to rely on her reluctant lawyer to uncover the truth and save her life.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 30000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: political, factual, period piece, emotional, suspense, thought provoking, serious, captivating, historical drama, gothic
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The Laramie Project (2002)
Plot Summary:
"The Laramie Project" is set in and around Laramie, Wyoming, in the aftermath of the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard. To create the stage version of "The Laramie Project," the eight-member New York-based Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, recording hours of interviews with the town's citizens over a two-year period. The film adaptation dramatizes the troupe's visit, using the actual words from the transcripts to create a portrait of a town forced to confront itself.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: sincere, thought provoking, bleak, captivating, disturbing, clever, controversial, talky, lgbt cinema, sexual
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Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)
Plot Summary:
Ghosts of Mississippi is a drama covering the final trial of the assassin, Bryon De La Beckwith, of the 60s civil rights leader Medgar Evers. It begins with the murder and the events surrounding the two initial trials which both ended in a hung jury. The movie then covers District Attorney, Bobby DeLaughters transformation and alliance with Myrlie Evers, wife of Medgar Evers, of the, as he becomes more involved with bringing Beckwith to trial for the third time 30 years later. Some of the characters are played by the actual participants in this story.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 12000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: USA
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: inspirational, talky, factual, intense, compassionate, sincere, thought provoking, serious, political, political thriller
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Sucker Free City (2004)
Plot Summary:
The film follows three young men as they are drawn into lives of crime. Nick (Crowley) uses his entry-level corporate job to commit credit card fraud and deals drugs on the side. K-Luv (Mackie) is a member of the "V-Dubs", an African-American street gang. Lincoln (Leung) is a rising figure in the Chinese mafia. Gentrification forces Nick's family to move out of their home in the Mission District into Hunter's Point where they are harassed by the V-Dubs. K-Luv's side business of selling bootleg compact discs leads him to enlist Nick's help to bootleg CDs and to negotiate a truce with Lincoln. Lincoln conducts an affair with his boss' daughter Angela (Carpio), a Stanford student engaged to a medical student classmate.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, tense, bleak, crime drama