One of the last major stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Sidney Poitier passed away on January 6, 2022, at the age of 94. However, the Bahamian-American star’s legacy still lives on with classic movies like In the Heat of the Night, To Sir With Love, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and The Defiant Ones.
Dabbling in various genres like comedies, crime movies, Westerns, and musicals, Poitier made history in 1964 as his lead performance in Lilies of the Field made him the first Black American to win the Oscar for Best Actor. Since then, he maintained a largely successful acting career until his retirement from the profession in the 1990s.
10 Sneakers (1992) – 7.1
One of Sidney Poitier’s final movies, Sneakers finds him as a retired CIA officer who joins the titular team of “sneakers” (security hackers). The movie’s storyline involves a security specialist and his team tasked with recovering an item that is related to his mysterious past.
The crime comedy opened to positive reception among critics and audiences alike. Even though Sneakers might not be as memorable as Poitier’s other movies, it still gave him a chance to star alongside ’80s and ’90s movie stars like Robert Redford, River Phoenix, Dan Aykroyd, and Ben Kingsley.
9 No Way Out (1951) – 7.2
Sidney Poitier stars as a good-natured doctor in No Way Out as he confronts not only the trials and tribulations of his stressful job but also the bigotry of some of his patients. The movie is also reflective of the normalized workplace racism persistent at the time.
Despite earning rave reviews, No Way Out is a mixed bag when it comes to Sidney Poitier’s filmography. While the movie is notable for marking Poitier’s feature film debut, it has also polarized viewers in terms of its graphic…
