Mississippi Burning (1988)

Mississippi Burning (1988) is a tense, hard-hitting crime drama set in 1964 Mississippi, where the disappearance of three civil rights workers draws two very different FBI agents into a hostile, racially divided town. Agent Alan Ward insists on following procedure, while Rupert Anderson, a former local sheriff, blends insider knowledge with willingness to bend the rules. As they probe deep into the sheriff’s office, the Ku Klux Klan and complicit local authorities violently intimidate the Black community, and the town’s conspiracy of silence forces the FBI to adopt increasingly fraught tactics to uncover the truth. Watching the film, you’ll experience a slow-building, suspenseful investigation punctuated by moments of brutal violence and moral urgency. The story delivers both a procedural tension—clues, interrogations and strategic risk-taking—and an emotional weight as it confronts systemic racism, community complicity, and the human cost of hatred. Expect atmospheric period detail, intense performances, and scenes that are likely to provoke anger, sorrow and reflection about justice and responsibility. The film is as much about the search for truth as it is about the price paid by those who try to expose entrenched injustice.

Actors: Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand

Director: Alan Parker

Runtime: 128 min

Genres: Crime, Drama, History

7.5 /10 65 /100 7.8 /10 7.3 /10