A Lesson Before Dying

A young man's destiny becomes a teacher's journey.

A Lesson Before Dying — Plot

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.

• Release date
• May 22, 1999
• Runtime
• 101 min
• Genres
• Drama
• Director
• Joseph Sargent

A Lesson Before Dying — Cast

Don Cheadle Grant Wiggins Cicely Tyson Tante Lou Mekhi Phifer Jefferson Irma P. Hall Miss Emma Brent Jennings Reverend Ambrose Lisa Arrindell Vivian Baptiste Dana Ivey Edna Guidry Frank Hoyt Taylor Sheriff Guidry