In Memory of Cicely Tyson
by dan_dassow | created - 31 Jan 2021 | updated - 01 Feb 2021 | PublicWe are saddened by the death of Cicely Tyson who passed on January 28, 2021, at the age of 96. Tyson was discovered by a fashion editor at Ebony magazine, rising quickly to the top of the modeling industry and in 1957, she began acting in Off-Broadway productions. Her career spanned more than seven decades revolving around the African-American experience on stage, film and television.
Which of her performances do you consider most memorable? If you are unfamiliar with her work, which performance do you most wish to see?
After voting, please express your condolences here.
Please see IMDb’s Remembering Cicely Tyson gallery and video.
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1. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 110 min | Drama, History
Story of a black woman in the South who was born into slavery in the 1850s and lives to become a part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
Director: John Korty | Stars: Cicely Tyson, Eric Brown, Richard Dysart, Joel Fluellen
Votes: 2,506
2. Sounder (1972)
G | 105 min | Drama, Family
The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks, Carmen Mathews
Votes: 4,828 | Gross: $3.10M
3. The Trip to Bountiful (2014 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 102 min | Drama
Carrie Watts begrudgingly lives with her busy, overprotective son, Ludie, and pretentious daughter-in-law, Jessie Mae. No longer able to drive and forbidden to travel alone, she wishes for ... See full summary »
Director: Michael Wilson | Stars: Cicely Tyson, Vanessa Williams, Blair Underwood, Keke Palmer
Votes: 744
4. A Lesson Before Dying (1999 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 105 min | Drama
In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing of a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he ... See full summary »
Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Don Cheadle, Cicely Tyson, Mekhi Phifer, Irma P. Hall
Votes: 1,122
5. Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)
PG | 106 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
A mischievous dog befriends a lonely young girl in a new town and helps her make new friends.
Director: Wayne Wang | Stars: AnnaSophia Robb, Jeff Daniels, Eva Marie Saint, Cicely Tyson
Votes: 12,673 | Gross: $32.65M
6. Bustin' Loose (1981)
R | 94 min | Comedy, Drama
Failed parolee Joe Braxton has one last shot at redemption: by driving school kids from Philadelphia to Washington State.
Directors: Oz Scott, Michael Schultz | Stars: Richard Pryor, Cicely Tyson, Angel Ramirez Jr., Jimmy Hughes
Votes: 3,715 | Gross: $31.26M
7. A Fall from Grace (2020)
TV-MA | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Disheartened since her ex-husband's affair, Grace Waters feels restored by a new romance. But when secrets erode her short-lived joy, Grace's vulnerable side turns violent.
Director: Tyler Perry | Stars: Crystal Fox, Phylicia Rashad, Bresha Webb, Mehcad Brooks
Votes: 17,090
8. Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
PG-13 | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A couple's seemingly solid marriage begins to crumble when the wife discovers that her husband intends to divorce her.
Director: Darren Grant | Stars: Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris, Tyler Perry, Cicely Tyson
Votes: 15,853 | Gross: $50.63M
9. The Blue Bird (1976)
G | 99 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
A pair of peasant children, Mytyl (Patsy Kensit) and her brother Tyltyl (Todd Lookinland), are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness (Nedezhda Pavlova) by the Fairy... See full summary »
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, Cicely Tyson, Ava Gardner
Votes: 1,261 | Gross: $0.89M
10. Roots (1977)
TV-14 | 74 min | Biography, Drama, History
A dramatization of author Alex Haley's family line from ancestor Kunta Kinte's enslavement to his descendants' liberation.
Stars: LeVar Burton, Robert Reed, John Amos, Louis Gossett Jr.
Votes: 18,889
11. The Help (2011)
PG-13 | 146 min | Drama
An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African American maids' point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.
Director: Tate Taylor | Stars: Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard
Votes: 493,104 | Gross: $169.71M
12. Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
PG-13 | 130 min | Drama
Evelyn, an ordinary housewife, visits a nursing home and befriends the old lady Ninny. Together, they bond over stories from the past about two intrepid women of Whistle Stop Cafe.
Director: Jon Avnet | Stars: Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker
Votes: 83,735 | Gross: $82.42M
13. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)
G | 123 min | Drama
When deaf-mute Singer moves to a new town to be near his hospitalized friend, he makes an indelible impression on the lives of those around him.
Director: Robert Ellis Miller | Stars: Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, Chuck McCann, Peter Mamakos
Votes: 4,734
14. The Rosa Parks Story (2002 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 97 min | Biography, Drama
A seamstress recalls events leading to her act of peaceful defiance that prompted the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
Director: Julie Dash | Stars: Angela Bassett, Peter Francis James, Tonea Stewart, Von Coulter
Votes: 1,026
15. Always Outnumbered (1998 TV Movie)
R | 104 min | Drama
A former prisoner tries to save a neighbor youth from following him down the wrong path.
Director: Michael Apted | Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Daniel Williams, Bill Cobbs, Natalie Cole
Votes: 2,172
16. The Comedians (1967)
Approved | 150 min | Drama
A cynical Welsh hotel owner secretly romances a diplomat's wife in Haiti, under the violent reign of the despot "Papa Doc" Duvalier.
Director: Peter Glenville | Stars: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guinness, Peter Ustinov
Votes: 2,305 | Gross: $5.20M
17. Last Flag Flying (2017)
R | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, a former Navy Corpsman Larry "Doc" Shepherd re-unites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Nealon and Reverend Richard Mueller, to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Steve Carell, J. Quinton Johnson
Votes: 28,594 | Gross: $0.97M
18. Idlewild (2006)
R | 121 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
At a sexy, sizzling nightclub, pianist Percival lives life by the rules, while Rooster, the club's flashy lead performer, struts his stuff on the stage. But all changes when greed, fame and murder threaten to destroy them and the joint.
Director: Bryan Barber | Stars: André 3000, Big Boi, Terrence Howard, Paula Patton
Votes: 5,764 | Gross: $12.55M
19. Hoodlum (1997)
R | 130 min | Crime, Drama
Black gangsters in 1930 Harlem fights Dutch Schultz who is trying to horn in on their numbers racket.
Director: Bill Duke | Stars: Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Vanessa Williams, Andy Garcia
Votes: 12,579 | Gross: $23.46M
20. How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020)
TV-14 | 43 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A group of ambitious law students and their brilliant criminal defense professor become involved in a twisted murder plot that promises to change the course of their lives.
Stars: Viola Davis, Billy Brown, Jack Falahee, Aja Naomi King
Votes: 166,810
21. House of Cards (2013–2018)
TV-MA | 50 min | Drama
A Congressman works with his equally conniving wife to exact revenge on the people who betrayed him.
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Michel Gill, Robin Wright, Kate Mara
Votes: 531,146
22.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999– )
Episode:
Hell
(2009)
TV-14 | 60 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A former African child refugee's throat is slashed, and SVU connects the case to two former Ugandan war criminals--one a ruthless killer, the other a sympathetic former child soldier trying to change his life.
Director: David Platt | Stars: Christopher Meloni, Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer, Ice-T
Votes: 743
23. King (1978)
271 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stretching from his days as a Southern Baptist minister up to his assassination in Memphis in 1968.
Stars: Paul Winfield, Cicely Tyson, Tony Bennett, Roscoe Lee Browne
Votes: 444
24. Mama Flora's Family (1998)
TV-PG | 175 min | Drama
Mama Flora reflects on her life from the 1910s through to the 1970s while trying to help her granddaughter get her life right and be a better mother for her son, all while bringing the family she has left back together.
Stars: Cicely Tyson, Erika Alexander, Blair Underwood, Queen Latifah
Votes: 625
25. A Woman Called Moses (1978)
240 min | Biography, Drama
A film about the life and career of the African American abolitionist and slave escape leader, Harriet Tubman.
Stars: Cicely Tyson, Jason Bernard, Clifford David, Judyann Elder
Votes: 415
26. The Women of Brewster Place (1989)
Not Rated | 178 min | Drama
A multi-generational story of the lives of several black women who call an inner-city tenement home.
Stars: Oprah Winfrey, Mary Alice, Olivia Cole, Robin Givens
Votes: 1,401
27. Sweet Justice (1994–1995)
60 min | Drama
A young attorney goes to work with her late mother's best friend, a civil-rights activist, much to her conservative father's displeasure.
Stars: Melissa Gilbert, Cicely Tyson, Ronny Cox, Greg Germann
Votes: 81
28. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (1994)
113 min | Drama, War
The movie, adapted from Allan Gurganus' 1989 book of the same name, chronicles the life of Lucy Marsden, a ninety-nine-year-old North Carolina woman who, at the age of fourteen, married a ... See full summary »
Stars: Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, Amber Brooke, Anne Bancroft
Votes: 582
29. The River Niger (1976)
R | 105 min | Drama
An intimate look at life in the ghetto: Johnny Williams is a house painter who moonlights as a poet, struggling to financially and emotionally support his cancer-ridden wife Mattie. But ... See full summary »
Director: Krishna Shah | Stars: Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett Jr., Glynn Turman
Votes: 296
30. A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich (1977)
PG | 107 min | Drama
A troubled boy (Larry B. Scott) becomes addicted to heroin, and his mother (Cicely Tyson) and foster father (Paul Winfield) help him fight it.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Larry B. Scott, Helen Martin
Votes: 378
31. The Marva Collins Story (1981 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 100 min | Biography, Drama
In this touching story, a dedicated African-American teacher in an inner-city school in the midwestern United States facing tough odds helps inner-city children to succeed. Meanwhile, she ... See full summary »
Director: Peter Levin | Stars: Cicely Tyson, Morgan Freeman, Rodrick F. Wimberly, Mashaune Hardy
Votes: 306
32. The Road to Galveston (1996 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 93 min | Drama
Jordan Roosevelt, at 65, found herself alone, destitute, and depressed. Up against the wall, she took heart from the suggestion of a friend, a blind woman who was a nurse: enter a foster ... See full summary »
Director: Michael Toshiyuki Uno | Stars: Cicely Tyson, Piper Laurie, Tess Harper, James McDaniel
Votes: 112
33. Relative Stranger (2009 TV Movie)
G | 88 min | Drama
After the death of his father, a former football star reunites with the family that he abandoned years earlier.
Director: Charles Burnett | Stars: Eriq La Salle, Cicely Tyson, Michael Michele, Michael Beach
Votes: 190
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