A SOLDIER'S STORY | Denzel Washington Stars

The Negro Ensemble Company's Pulitzer Prize-winning production 'A Soldier's Play' (1981) comes vividly to life in this first-rate screen adaptation.

Actor Adolph Caesar -- in a stellar, Oscar-nominated performance -- plays the unforgiving and vindictive Sgt. Waters, a black non-commissioned officer obsessed with perfection within his race. After abusing his men and authority, few are surprised when Waters is found murdered on the segregated base. Dispatched to uncover who killed him, Lt. Davenport (Howard Rollins, Jr.) must navigate lines of racial conflict, the interference of superiors and the testimonies of a half dozen men to get to the truth.

In one of his earliest film roles, Denzel Washington shines as Private Peterson, an insubordinate soldier with his own fraught history with the dead commanding officer.

Trust me, movie lover. This one's a winner!