In the Heat of the Night

In the Heat of the Night (1967) is Norman Jewison's crime drama, available to watch online on iFILM. A man is pulled off a train bench in Sparta, Mississippi, for the crime of being Black and carrying cash. He turns out to be Virgil Tibbs, a homicide detective from Philadelphia.

Police chief Bill Gillespie, played by Rod Steiger, would love to pin a rich industrialist's murder on the stranger. Instead he's stuck with Sidney Poitier's Tibbs, the sharpest investigator either man will ever meet, and the case forces them to work side by side. The famous slap Tibbs returns to a plantation owner landed like a thunderclap in 1967. "They call me Mister Tibbs" became a line people quoted for decades.

The picture took five Oscars, Best Picture among them, plus an acting win for Steiger, while Quincy Jones' score and the tight cutting set the template for a generation of cop thrillers. Strip away the era and it's two men who can't stand each other learning to chase the same killer. Stream In the Heat of the Night (1967) online on iFILM.