NYPD Detective John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) is called in to investigate the racially motivated murder of Trey Howard (Mekhi Phifer), committed by Walter Wade, Jr. (Christian Bale), the son of a wealthy real estate tycoon. Shaft briefly meets a potential eyewitness to the murder, Diane Palmieri (Toni Collette), but she disappears soon after and cannot be found for the trial. Wade is released on bail and flees to Switzerland.
In early 20th century Shanghai, Chen Zhen returns to Jingwu School to marry his fiancée. However, tragic news awaits him: his master Huo Yuanjia has died, apparently from illness. Chen is deeply saddened and traumatised by the sudden demise of his teacher. During the funeral, people from a Japanese dojo in Hongkou District arrive to taunt the Jingwu students. Wu En, the Japanese dojo's grandmaster Hiroshi Suzuki's translator and adviser, taunts Chen by slapping him on the cheek several times, and dares him to fight him. Then the Japanese students, along with Wu, leave. Shortly thereafter, Chen goes to the Hongkou dojo alone to engage in a fight. Chen defeats all of them, including the students' master.
Today
The film begins with commentary by passenger Detective Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) having suffered a car accident with his partner Ria (Jennifer Esposito). He mentions that the denizens of Los Angeles have lost their "sense of touch." Ria and the driver of the other car, Kim Lee, exchange racially charged insults. When Waters exits the car, he arrives at a police investigation crime scene concerning the discovery of "a dead kid."
The film tells the story of Jackie Robinson and, under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey, Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American player to break the baseball color barrier. The story focuses mostly on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers season and somewhat on Robinson's 1946 season with the Montreal Royals, which emphasize his battles with racism.
Le film commence par un extrait de Autant en emporte le vent, montrant les ravages de la guerre de Sécession durant le siège d'Atlanta. Le Dr Kennebrew Beauregard présente ensuite la rhétorique raciste sudiste.
Tracy Turnblad is an overweight high school student living in Baltimore, Maryland ("Good Morning Baltimore"). She and her classmate Penny Pingleton watch the The Corny Collins Show, a local teen dance television show, together ("The Nicest Kids in Town").
The film begins with Cassius Clay, Jr. (Will Smith) before his championship debut against then heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. In the pre-fight weigh-in Clay heavily taunts Liston (such as calling Liston a "big ugly bear"). In the fight Clay is able to dominate the early rounds of the match, but halfway through the fight Clay complains of a burning feeling in his eyes (implying that Liston has tried to cheat) and says he is unable to continue. However, his trainer/manager Angelo Dundee (Ron Silver) gets him to keep fighting. Once Clay is able to see again he easily dominates the fight and right before round seven Liston quits, therefore making Cassius Clay the second youngest heavyweight champion at the time after Floyd Patterson. Clay spends valued time with Malcolm X (Peebles) and the two decide to take a trip to Africa.
FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) is elated to learn that his stepson, Trent Pierce (Brandon T. Jackson), has been accepted to attend Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. However, Trent is uninterested and instead wants Malcolm to sign a recording contract for him since he is underage. When Malcolm refuses, Trent's best friends encourage him to ambush Malcolm on the job in order to obtain the signature. Malcolm, in an attempt to capture Russian gang member Chirkoff (Tony Curran), uses an informant named Canetti to deliver a flash drive to the gang, while Trent attempts to ambush Malcolm on the job. Canetti (Max Casella) reveals that the flash drive is empty and a duplicate is hidden with a friend at the Georgia Girls School for the Arts.
The screenplay of Gandhi is available as a published book. The film opens with a statement from the filmmakers explaining their approach to the problem of filming Gandhi's complex life story:
The film tells the story of middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, whose conviction for a Paterson, New Jersey triple murder was set aside after he had spent nearly 20 years in prison. Narrating Carter's life, the film concentrates on the period between 1966 and 1985. It describes his fight against the conviction for triple murder and how he copes with nearly twenty years in prison.
In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) accepts his Nobel Peace Prize. Four African-American girls are shown walking down the stairs of the 16th Street Baptist Church until an explosion explosion set by the Ku Klux Klan kills them. In Selma, Alabama, Annie Lee Cooper attempts to register to vote but is prevented by the white registrar. King meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson and asks for federal legislation to allow black citizens to register to vote unencumbered. Johnson says he has more important projects.
Joanna Drayton's unannounced early return from a Hawaii holiday causes a stir when she brings to her childhood upper-class home her new fiancé, John: a widowed, black physician. Joanna's parents - newspaper publisher Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) and his wife, art gallery owner Christina Drayton (Katharine Hepburn) – are liberals who have instilled in her the idea of racial equality. But to her surprise, Joanna's parents are deeply upset that she is planning to marry a black man. The Draytons' black maid, Tille (Isabel Sanford), is just as horrified, suspecting that John is trying to "get above himself" by marrying a white woman. What was intended to be a sit-down steak dinner for two turns into a meet-the-in-laws dinner party, and during the pre-dinner period, John, Joanna and her parents have to work through their differences.
Malcolm X divides the life of the African-American activist Malcolm X into three sections. The first section deals with the troubled childhood of Malcolm Little, whose father, a preacher, was murdered by the Black Legion and whose mother was institutionalized for insanity. Malcolm grows up and gets a job as a Pullman porter, calling himself Detroit Red. Getting involved with a Harlem gangster named West Indian Archie with whom he has a falling out, Malcolm flees to Boston and decides to become a burglar. He and his best friend, Shorty (played by Spike Lee) are arrested by the police and Malcolm is sentenced to a ten-year prison term. The second section follows Malcolm's life in prison, where a fellow inmate, Baines, introduces him to the teachings of the Nation of Islam.
Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a widower, and his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), are corrections officers in a local state prison. They reside in Georgia with Hank's ailing father, Buck (Peter Boyle), a racist whose wife committed suicide.
Amistad is the name of a slave ship traveling from Cuba to the U.S. in 1839. It is carrying a cargo of Africans captured in Sierra Leone who have been sold into slavery in Cuba, taken on board, and chained in the cargo hold of the ship. As the ship is crossing from Cuba to the U.S., Cinqué, a leader of the Africans, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. The mutineers spare the lives of two Spanish navigators to help them sail the ship back to Africa. Instead, the navigators deceive the Africans and sail north to the east coast of the United States, where the ship is stopped by the American navy and the 44 living Africans imprisoned as runaway slaves. In an unfamiliar country and not speaking a word of English, it seems like they are doomed to die for killing their captors. A lawyer named Baldwin, hired by the abolitionist Tappan and his black associate Joadson (a fictional character) decides to take their case, arguing that the Africans had been captured in Africa to be sold in the Americas illegally, and therefore were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. With help from James Covey, who speaks both Mende and English, Baldwin is able to start communicating with Cinque. The judge rules in favor of the Africans, but the case is eventually appealed to the Supreme Court. At this point, former U.S. President John Quincy Adams makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for their release, and is successful.