In 1973, Tyson earned an Oscar nod for her portrayal of a Depression-era sharecropper's wife in Sounder and won an Emmy the next year playing the title role in the telefilm The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She received an Emmy nod in 1977 for her impressive turn as Kunta Kinte's mother in the landmark miniseries "Roots" and chalked up a second Emmy in 1994 for her performance in the TV movie Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.
Tyson also played Coretta Scott King in the miniseries "King" and abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the TV movie A Woman Called Moses. Tyson was briefly wed to jazz legend Miles Davis.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane PittmanBased on the novel by Ernest J. Gaines, this highly acclaimed TV drama follows the life of Jane Pittman, a black woman born into slavery in the South during the 1850s who lives long enough to see the genesis of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. In 1962, 110-year-old Jane (Cicely Tyson) tells... Read More
The Heart Is a Lonely HunterAlan Arkin earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of John Singer, a deaf and mute man who comes to live in a small Southern town and ends up touching the lives of many, in this film based on the novel by Carson McCullers. Also given an Oscar nod for her performance was Sondra Locke, who plays... Read More
SounderCicely Tyson and Paul Winfield both earned Academy Award nominations for their performances in director Martin Ritt's poignant drama about the trials and tribulations of a family of black sharecroppers living in the deep South in the 1930s. Based on William H. Armstrong's Newberry Award-winning... Read More
A Woman Called MosesNarrated by Orson Welles, this 1978 made-for-TV movie stars Cicely Tyson as Harriet Tubman, who founded the Underground Railroad. At the risk of being recaptured, the abolitionist and former slave helped hundreds of enslaved African-Americans find their way to the freedom of the promised land: the... Read More
Heat WaveSet in the Watts section of Los Angeles in the summer of 1965, this tense account of racial tensions boiling over boasts a sterling cast, including Cicely Tyson, Blair Underwood, James Earl Jones and David Strathairn. Based on true events, the film chronicles a week of rioting -- triggered by a... Read More
The Help (2011) | PG-13 | |
PG-13 | ||
Relative Stranger (2009) | NR | |
Madea's Family Reunion (2006) | PG-13 | |
Idlewild (2006) | R | |
Fat Rose and Squeaky (2006) | NR | |
Because of Winn-Dixie (2005) | PG | |
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) | PG-13 | |
R | ||
The Rosa Parks Story (2002) | NR | |
Jewel (2001) | NR | |
A Lesson Before Dying (1999) | PG-13 | |
NR | ||
Mama Flora's Family (1998) | NR | |
R | ||
Riot (1997) | R | |
Hoodlum (1997) | R | |
NR | ||
The Grass Harp (1996) | PG | |
NR | ||
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) | NR | |
Heat Wave (1990) | NR | |
The Women of Brewster Place (1989) | NR | |
Bustin' Loose (1981) | R | |
A Woman Called Moses (1978) | NR | |
PG | ||
King (1978) | NR | |
Roots (1977) | NR | |
PG | ||
Wilma (1975) | PG-13 | |
Free to Be ... You and Me (1974) | NR | |
TV-PG | ||
Sounder (1972) | G | |
Neighbors (1971) | NR | |
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) | G | |
The Comedians (1967) | NR | |
A Man Called Adam (1966) | NR | |
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