DIRECTOR: Daniel Petrie
PRODUCERS: Philip Rose, David Susskind
PRODUCTION CO: Columbia
PHOTOGRAPHY: Charles Lawton Jr
EDITOR: William A. Lyon, Paul Weatherwax
MUSIC: ​Laurence Rosenthal
WITH: Sidney Poitier (Walter Lee Younger), Ruby Dee (Ruth Younger), Claudia McNeil (Lena Younger), Diana Sands (Beneatha Younger), Stephen Perry (Travis Younger), John Fiedler (Mark Lindner), Ivan Dixon (Joseph Asagai), Louis Gossett Jr. (George Murchison), Joel Fluellen (Bobo), Roy Glenn (Willie Harris), Louis Terrel (Herman)

​FESTIVALS: ​Cannes

REVIEW

“Groundbreaking when first released in 1961… a wealth of future plays, films, and TV productions have taken their lead from this socially conscious drama about a struggling African-American family.”

– Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

“Lorraine Hansberry’s immortal A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be performed on Broadway. Two years later, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. The original stars – including Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee – reprise their roles as members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred… Vividly rendering Hansberry’s sharp observations on generational conflict and housing discrimination, Petrie’s film captures the high stakes, shifting currents, and varieties of experience within black life in midcentury America.”

– Criterion.com

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Wellington     
Monday, 28 February, 6.15pm 

Whanganui  
Monday, 14 March, 7.00pm

New Plymouth
Wednesday, 25 May, 6pm

Dunedin  
Wednesday, 6 July, 7:30pm

Hamilton  
Monday, 18 July, 8.00pm

Nelson     
Tuesday, 26 July, 6.00pm

​Queenstown  
Tuesday, 6 September, 8.15pm

Palmerston North
Wednesday, 21 September, 6pm

Auckland  
Monday, 21 November, 6.15pm

CLASSIC & CULT CINEMA selection >>