Mississippi Burning

Few studio films from the late ’80s hit harder than Mississippi Burning, Alan Parker’s incendiary civil rights thriller loosely based on the 1964 murders of three activists in Mississippi. Gene Hackman is ferocious as a former small-town sheriff turned FBI agent, paired with Willem Dafoe’s buttoned-up idealist as they square off against the Klan in a town roiling with hate. Shot on location in Mississippi and Alabama and charged with a volatile sense of urgency, the film plays like a moral powder keg—bravura genre filmmaking pitched at full fury. Hotly debated on release for centering white investigators in a Black freedom struggle, it nonetheless helped spark a wave of Hollywood reckonings with American racism. Gripping, provocative, and rarely revived for the big screen today.