In the Heat of the Night

Plot

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Director: Norman Jewison

Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Peter Whitney, Lee Grant

Related Movies

• 
  The Debt Collector (2026)

  ✗ Skip it

  Action · Thriller · Crime

  Tormented by past mistakes and a terminal diagnosis, an ex-debt collector returns to the underworld to protect the victims of a violent organization.
• 
  The Furious (2026)

  ✓ Watch it

  Action · Crime · Thriller

  After a criminal network kidnaps Wang Wei's daughter and the corrupt police refuse to assist him, Wei sets out on his own to locate her. Navin, a tenacious journalist whose wife has mysteriously vanished, is his only ally. In this explosive martial arts showdown, the unlikely duo fights the kidnappers ruthlessly driven by a furious vengeance.
• 
  72 HOURS (2026)

  ✗ Skip it

  Comedy · Crime

  To save his career, a 40-year-old ad exec joins a crew of twentysomethings for a wild Miami bachelor party after they mistakenly add him to a group chat.
• 
  The Godfather Part II (1974)

  ✓ Watch it

  Drama · Crime

  In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
• 
  The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

  ✓ Watch it

  Drama · Crime

  Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
• 
  The Godfather (1972)

  ✓ Watch it

  Drama · Crime

  Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.