In the Heat of the Night

“They got a murder on their hands. They don’t know what to do with it.”

Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is a Philadelphia homicide detective, passing through Sparta, Mississippi, when police pick him up for a murder he had nothing to do with. Police Chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) wants the case closed quickly, and he does not want Tibbs anywhere near it. Norman Jewison puts the two men in the same car and the same rooms, where one wrong move in a town that wants him gone could cost Tibbs his life.