A young black man named Bigger Thomas takes a job working for a highly influential Chicago family, a decision that will change the course of his life forever.
Acting
Ashton Sanders embodies Bigger's panic with devastating restraint.
Direction
Rashid Johnson's modernized Richard Wright keeps the claws in.
Director
Rashid Johnson
Ashton Sanders
Bigger Thomas
Margaret Qualley
Mary Dalton
Nick Robinson
Jan Erlone
KiKi Layne
Bessie Mears
Bill Camp
Henry Dalton
Sanaa Lathan
Trudy Thomas
Elizabeth Marvel
Mrs. Dalton
David Alan Grier
Marty
Lamar Johnson
Jackson
Jerod Haynes
Gus
Aaron Moten
Tony
Stephen McKinley Henderson
Mr. Green
Barbara Sukowa
Peggy
Ashleigh Morghan
Jasmine
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Johnson relocates Wright's 1940 novel to 2019 Chicago, keeping the Black Lives Matter era's surveillance state but losing the original's Communist politics entirely.
Suzan-Lori Parks wrote the screenplay; she kept the novel's infamous rat opening but made Bigger a punk drummer—Johnson's addition, linking rebellion to sound.
US
