Scottsboro: An American Tragedy Movie Review

This PBS production dramatizes the horrifying events in northern Alabama that led to the trial, retrial, reretrial, and rereretrial of nine black men accused of raping two white women. Now a famed case among law students, the climate of Scottsboro during the Great Depression is brought to vivid life by Anker and Goodman's storytelling, plus McDormand and Tucci's great narration. Interviews with those still living (not many) and archive footage and photographs fill the scenes. But the story sells itself -- Scottsboro truly was An American Tragedy of injustice, and the history lessons provided here are far more somber than any you'll read in the history books. Nominated for Best Documentary at the 2001 Oscars.