Each month ShowNews presents a film at Academy Cinemas picked by a special film industry guest. For March, the chosen film is the winner of five Academy Awards, including for Best Picture: IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT – one of the most enduring Hollywood films of the civil rights era. Picked by Academy Cinemas regular Phillip McKinnon.

Happy Hour drinks from 7:00pm.
Screening 8:00pm.

Directed by Norman Jewison
Starring Warren Oates, Rod Steiger, Lee Grant, Sidney Poitier, Larry Gates
Rated M
110 minutes

‘Passing through the backwoods town of Sparta, Mississippi, Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) becomes embroiled in a murder case. He forms an uneasy alliance with the bigoted police chief (Rod Steiger), who faces mounting pressure from Sparta’s hostile citizens to catch the killer and run the African American interloper out of town.
Director Norman Jewison splices incisive social commentary into this thrilling police procedural with the help of Haskell Wexler’s vivid cinematography, Quincy Jones’s eclectic score, and two indelible lead performances—a career-defining display of seething indignation and moral authority from Poitier and an Oscar-winning masterclass in Method acting from Steiger.’