Curator Watchlist
Ghosts of Mississippi
A solid, earnest courtroom drama with strong performances and real historical weight, but it’s also hampered by a familiar white-savior framing and a narrow perspective on the central civil-rights story.
Curator Watchlist
A solid, earnest courtroom drama with strong performances and real historical weight, but it’s also hampered by a familiar white-savior framing and a narrow perspective on the central civil-rights story.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 2h 10m
Director: Rob Reiner
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, James Woods
A Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to bring a white supremacist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.
Rob Reiner
Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, James Woods
A solid, earnest courtroom drama with strong performances and real historical weight, but it’s also hampered by a familiar white-savior framing and a narrow perspective on the central civil-rights story.
Ghosts of Mississippi is the kind of mid-90s prestige drama that knows how to move efficiently through a true-story legal case. Rob Reiner keeps it polished and accessible, and the cast gives it enough gravity to land as a serious piece of civic-minded filmmaking. The courtroom material is sturdy, and the film does a decent job of making the long arc of justice feel emotionally legible.
At the same time, the movie’s perspective is its biggest limitation. It frames a civil-rights atrocity through the conscience and persistence of a white prosecutor, which dilutes the power of the story it’s trying to tell. That tension is hard to ignore, especially given how much richer the film might have been if it centered the Evers family more directly.
Even so, it remains watchable as a straightforward, well-acted legal drama with historical significance. It’s not the definitive film on this subject, but it is a competent and often affecting one, especially if you’re in the mood for earnest, issue-driven studio filmmaking from the era.
Stein Rutledal · 154 likes
Crazy how this film predicted what James Woods would be like in 20 years
Zā (Vanity Rex) (1★) · 92 likes
I can't believe this white man solved racism!! Anyway. I can't believe we had to watch this white savior film in my sociology of racial minorities class. Like what the hell. The movie was obviously more about the struggles of this white man rather than the racism of the time period. Sure, it's a factor, but I really don't see it as a main point. We only see what Alec Baldwin's character thinks of what's going on. We hardly get… more
madmonsterparty (4★) · 73 likes
Ghosts of Mississippi manages to bring together many of the trademarks that you'd expect out of a Rob Reiner movie. Pretty good on an intelligence level but probably stronger on an emotional level. It manages to be both a movie that's really good at creating a universe where it's easy to like and sympathize with it's main characters (like Alec Baldwin as the prosecutor and Whoopi Goldberg as the widow), but never really trending into overly sentimental territory or overly… more
Peter Raleigh · 59 likes
I’m going long on this competent but ultimately misbegotten film not because it deserves it, but because it makes me think about Oppenheimer, and about the questions of framing and perspective that have dominated the online debate over that film's rhetoric and moral positioning. So, first, Ghosts of Mississippi: a film about the murder of Medgar Evers with virtually nothing - nothing - to say about Medgar Evers. There's a scene in the film where Medgar's brother says what a… more
Manoj Panicker (2.5★) · 54 likes
Word has it that Quentin Tarantino's biggest regret in his life is not getting the chance to play Byron De La Beckwith. A highly demanding role where you get to say the N word at least ten times per minute. ----------------------------------------------------------- We face a moral crisis as a country and as a people. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality. - John F. Kennedy Back… more
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civil rights, racial injustice, courtroom drama, true crime, historical memory, legal advocacy, white savior critique, institutional racism
courtroom drama, civil rights, racial injustice, true story, historical drama, legal thriller, 1990s prestige, American South, social justice, biographical