The Great Debaters

The Great Debaters (2007) is a drama you can watch online on iFILM. Denzel Washington both directs and stars as Melvin Tolson, a teacher who turns argument into a weapon.

Set in Texas in 1935, the film follows tiny Wiley College, a school for Black students where Tolson builds a debate team from scratch and drills it relentlessly. Four young people learn to win with words while segregation and the threat of lynching shadow every trip they take. Each podium they step up to is riskier than any exam. Slowly, an unknown squad from the rural South works its way toward a showdown with the debaters of one of the country's most prestigious universities. Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett and a teenage Denzel Whitaker round out the team.

The script draws on the real Wiley team that was long kept off the national stage. Forest Whitaker plays the worried preacher father of one of the students. Produced under Oprah Winfrey's banner, the film argues for the power of language without ever sloganeering. Stream The Great Debaters (2007) online on iFILM.