Movies: William Greaves

In Manhattan's Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It's a confrontation between a couple: he demands to know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot ...

After ex-con Joe Braxton violates his probation, he is given a second chance. All he has to do is drive a group of special kids across the country....

A light-skinned African-American family are "passing" in an all-white New England town. When the truth comes out, the more prejudiced neighbors demand their expulsion from the community....

A crooked real estate tycoon tricks a trusting young woman out of her small candy store. When he is found dead, the girl is suspected of the crime....

Directed by African American William Greaves and narrated by actor Ricardo Montalban, Where Dreams Come True is a 1979 NASA film highlighting the contributions of women and minorities and encouraging more to consider a career at the agency. The docum...

A movie about making movies about making movies. In 1968, William Greaves shot several pairs of actors in a scene in which a woman confronts her husband and ends their relationship. In "Take 2 1/2," Greaves starts with 1968 takes of one of these pair...

Produced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, this film traces the ongoing struggle for equality by the Spanish-speaking residents of the United States. Through a fictitious scenario and real discussions with a range of individuals, includ...

This 1959 documentary short is a frank portrait of the daily operations inside the Montreal General Hospital’s emergency ward....

A look at the destruction that follows the breaking of long-neglected dikes and the measures being taken to prevent future problems....

Unsuccessful gambler 'Dollar Bill' Burton lives in a crummy New York basement room with old friend Bob and a new roommate, friendly blues singer 'Alabama' Lee. But, tired of being broke, Dollar Bill gets more steady employment...doing illegal errands...

The Salvation Army in action. Band rehearsals, personal reminiscences of an Army officer, and an unrehearsed "coming to Christ" in the Army Citadel make for a revealing film study of men and women dedicated to a life of service to humanity....

This film explores freedom of speech in the United States of America...

Designed for class instruction and career education, and to prove that space exploration isn’t just for the boys. The film interviews women employed in the space transportation programs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and ...

A report on the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered Black voices from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Bar...

A short documentary subject made for National Educational Television's Black Journal television program documenting a political rally in Newark, the 1970 mayoral campaign of Ken Gibson, and an African-American voter registration drive with special mu...

Few remember the name, much less the historical achievements, of Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche. Yet, this African American mediator and United Nations diplomat was the first person of color anywhere in the world to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace....

The film questions whether the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s effectively changed the Black community, and American society more widely, and examines the notion of Black power itself. Greaves interviewed major Black leaders, such as Franklin Thom...

Ali the Fighter was made in 1975, when the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight was still fresh in everyone's minds. Filmmaker William Greaves frames Ali's rise to glory, beginning with his "Cassius Clay" days back in Louisville....

An architect whose iconic buildings defined a newly independent Cambodia struggles to come to terms with the reckless development that threatens his legacy....

Joe Louis, portraying himself, is a good influence on a group of Harlem youths who are tempted to "go bad" by a gangster known as Caper, an older brother of one of the youths....