The Enduring Legacy of Sidney Poitier with Reginald Hudlin | On Film

Reginald Hudlin in conversation with TIFF after the World Premiere of SIDNEY at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. Hudlin's sweeping documentary portrait of the late, great Sidney Poitier surveys his films, life story, and litany of accomplishments as an artist and activist who forever changed what it means to be Black in America.

Both proud and playful, imposing and full of charm, Sidney Poitier’s presence on screen changed American cinema, and America too. The Poitier we know from In The Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner announced a new kind of Black actor on screen. His roles were leads rather than unthreatening supporting roles. His characters were educated. They made good money and wore better suits.

But a closer look at Poitier’s career as an actor, and later as a director, shows him pushing against the constraints of Black respectability that America so needed of him as the Civil Rights movement surged. He pushed until he broke free.

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