Bessie
"Survival began with a song"
The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.
"Survival began with a song"
The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.
Queen Latifah
Bessie Smith
Mo'Nique
Ma Rainey
Mike Epps
Richard
Tika Sumpter
Lucille
Michael Kenneth Williams
Jack Gee
Charles S. Dutton
William 'Pa' Rainey
Bryan Greenberg
John Hammond
Oliver Platt
Carl Van Vechten
Khandi Alexander
Viola
The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.
Tensions rise when the trailblazing Mother of the Blues and her band gather at a Chicago recording studio in 1927. Adapted from August Wilson's play.
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
In 1966, Helen Reddy landed in New York with her three year old daughter, a suitcase, and $230 in her pocket. Within weeks, she was broke. Within months, she was in love. Within five years, she was one of the biggest superstars of her time and an icon of the 1970s feminist movement who wrote a song which galvanized a generation of women to fight for change.
The story of R&B singer and actress Aaliyah; namely, the highs and lows of her career, her romantic pursuits, and the events leading up to her death in 2001 at the age of 22.
Longing to experience more of life, twentysomething preacher's daughter Angie strikes out on her own for the very first time and joins a traveling gospel show.
A Soweto schoolgirl named Sarafina is galvanized to protest apartheid after her teacher is arrested for her activism, leading her to join the student resistance movement.
Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.