Alfre Woodard Movies

Writer/director Caran Hartsfield's black comedy Bury Me Standing (2008) observes four family members in the wake of a 26-year-old relative's death from homicide. Mos Def and Alfre Woodard co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Alfre Woodard and Kathy Bates star in writer/director Tyler Perry's family drama about an upper-crust family and their working-class counterparts, who discover that scandal knows no social boundaries. Charlotte Cartwright (Bates) and Alice Pratt (Woodard) may be from different sides of the tracks, yet over the years they've managed to nurture a strong and healthy friendship. That friendship is put to the ultimate test, however, when their adult children begin to act out in ways that neither parent ever saw coming. Alice's daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan) is married to a trusting husband named Chris (Rockmond Dunbar), but lately she's been betraying that trust by sleeping with her boss, William (Cole Hauser), who just so happens to be Charlotte's son. William is married to Jillian (KaDee Strickland), and in addition to being unfaithful, he's also scheming to take over the role of COO at his mother's lucrative construction firm. Meanwhile, Alice's other daughter, Pam (Taraji P. Henson), and her husband, Ben (Perry), a faithful family man and construction worker, have both recognized that their family has strayed from the course of righteousness, and become determined to help their loved ones back on the right path. When paternity secrets, shady double dealings, and a series of other scandals become too much for Charlotte and Alice to take, the two women set out on a cross-country trip in order to clear their heads and devise a plan for saving their families. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

LeVar Burton writes, directs, and stars in this drama set in a hospice, and following two patients who realize how to live and love as they begin the dying process. Alfre Woodard and Seymour Cassel star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

For millennia, the strange and inexplicable disappearance of Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt, reigned as one of history's most formidable unsolved mysteries. Despite the royal's reputation as one of the most uncompromising and widely-loathed rulers in Egyptian history, questions abounded as to her final whereabouts. Now, with the special Nefertiti and the Lost Dynasty, National Geographic - which gained exclusive access to unidentified tombs prior to this release - sends an archaeological crew to the site of those burials and undertakes a series of on-camera tests to unearth and identify a series of remains, with the hope of locating Nefertiti's mummy and answering longstanding questions that may shed some light on why and how she vanished. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A woman discovers that when it comes to love, sometimes opposites really do attract in this romantic comedy-drama. Kenya (Sanaa Lathan) is a successful African-American lawyer in her mid-thirties whose personal life is not going as well as her career. While she's attractive and intelligent, Kenya has rather high standards and isn't willing to settle for a man who isn't everything she wants. While attending a party, Kenya is introduced to Brian (Simon Baker), a landscape architect who handles the gardening at her host's mansion. Brian is immediately and obviously attracted to Kenya, through she doesn't feel the same way at all. However, she likes his work and hires him to refurbish her garden; before long, he asks her out on a date, and against her better judgment she accepts. While Kenya and Brian have little in common, in time they hit it off, and a romance begins to blossom between them. However, Brian happens to be white, which ruffles some feathers among Kenya's friends and family, who try to find her a more suitable, African-American suitor. Also starring Mike Epps, Donald Faison, Blair Underwood, and Alfre Woodard, Something New was the first feature film for director Sanaa Hamri, who previously established herself by directing music videos. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV movie is a remake of the theatrical feature Conrack, using the original title of the source novel by Pat Conroy. Set in 1969, The Water Is Wide stars Jeff Hephner as Conroy, an idealistic young teacher whose first assignment is at a run-down school located on Yamacraw Island in South Carolina. The state's imperious school superintendent Henry Piedmont (Frank Langella) has written off the unkempt, illiterate black children of Yamacraw as thoroughly unteachable, while the school's authoritarian black principal Mrs. Brown (Alfre Woodard), evidently unwilling to buck the Anglo-Saxon establishment, insists that Conroy doggedly adhere to an established curriculum that has never worked with the students. Instead, Conroy utilizes compassion and humor as teaching tools, reaching out to his students through a variety of humanistic methods, including adopting the kids' own archaic Gullah dialect in order to teach them proper English. Not surprisingly, Mr. Piedmont and Mrs. Brown are dead set against Conroy's "radical" approach to teaching -- even when it is obviously working -- but fortunately, our hero has a strong ally in the form of deputy superintendent Bennington (James Murtaugh). Echoing elements from another Pat Conroy novel, The Great Santini, the young protagonist is plagued throughout the film by memories of his uncompromising Marine-officer father, who has instilled in Conroy a hatred (and fear) of all authority figures. Produced as part of CBS's Hallmark Hall of Fame series, The Water Is Wide was first broadcast on January 29, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There's intrigue aplenty as Desperate Housewives approaches the end of its first season. Still unaware that George (Roger Bart) is more than a passive observer vis-à-vis her husband's illness, Bree (Marcia Cross) falls for George's lie that Rex (Steven Culp) has been bragging about their kinky bedroom escapades; the confrontation that results between her and Rex leads to a drastic downturn in his health. Edie goes into "hell hath no fury" mode when Susan (Teri Hatcher) and Mike (James Denton) move in together. Lynette (Felicity Huffman) unintentionally causes Tom (Doug Savant) to lose his job in her efforts to foil her would-be romantic rival Annabel (Melinda McGraw). And when Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) learns how her birth-control prescription has been tampered with, she angrily tells Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) that he may not be the father, and he reacts in a manner that gets seven more years tacked on to his jail sentence. Alfre Woodard and Mehcad Brooks make their first series appearances as Betty and Josh Applewhite. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While the men of Barbershop and Barbershop 2 have plenty to mouth off about, they may have met their match in the female staff and clientele of a nearby beauty shop. Directed by Bille Woodruff, Beauty Shop revolves around these women led by Gina (Queen Latifah), who opened Beauty Shop to give all the females in the community, from a conservative Southern socialite (Andie MacDowell) to a poetry-reciting stylist, a place to talk about life, love, and the issues of the day, all while getting their hair done. Bryce Wilson puts in a supporting performance, as does Kevin Bacon, who plays the snooty owner of a rival salon. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

An unlikely band of scientists and soldiers join forces to save the world from certain destruction in this action-drama. As the world is struck with a variety of inexplicable phenomena -- attacks by enormous swarms of birds in London, the explosion of the Colosseum in Rome, a potentially deadly malfunction which forces the Space Shuttle into a Los Angeles riverbed, and the simultaneous deaths of 32 people with pacemakers in Boston -- a team of top scientific minds from around the globe is assembled to determine what has thrown the world into such a frenzy. Dr. John Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) makes the startling discovery that the Earth's electromagnetic forces have begun to collapse, thanks to a sudden lack of movement of the molten ore at the center of the Earth. If the planet is to be saved, the core of the Earth needs a jump start, and Keyes assembles a team to burrow to the center of the planet and bomb the insides back into action. Joining Keyes on this dangerous, last-chance mission are the brilliant but arrogant Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), French arms expert Dr. Serge Levesque (Tchéky Karyo, maverick researcher "Brazz" Brazzleton (Delroy Lindo), geeky computer genius Rat (DJ Qualls), and two no-nonsense military types, Commander Richard Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca Childs (Hilary Swank). However, as the crew digs deeper into the Earth, the more they discover what they haven't been told about their mission and what's really been causing the worldwide chaos. The Core was originally scheduled for release in the fall of 2002, but the movie didn't reach theaters until the spring of 2003 as special-effects experts perfected the film's more spectacular scenes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A pair of misfit siblings travel across time and space to save their father from enslavement in this made-for-TV adaptation of the classic children's novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Meg Murry (Katie Stuart), a tomboy who fits in with neither the kids nor the teachers at her New England middle school, feels bereft when her scientist father vanishes, leading to unsavory speculation from small-town gossips. But thanks to Charles Wallace (David Dorfman), her gifted but idiosyncratic younger brother, Meg befriends Mrs. Who (Alison Elliott), Mrs. Whatsit (Alfre Woodard), and Mrs. Which (Kate Nelligan) -- three cosmic beings who lead Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe (Gregory Smith) on a journey to the sinister planet Camazotz, where Dr. Murry (Chris Potter) has been captured by the coercive power known as IT. Afflicted by hubris and naïveté, young Charles Wallace falls under IT's thrall, forcing Meg, Calvin, and their allies on a dangerous flight across time and space. But thanks to the healing touch of a kindly monster known as Aunt Beast (Ellen Dubin), Meg is able to face her own insecurities and attempt a final rescue of her loved ones. Originally broadcast May 10, 2004, on ABC, A Wrinkle in Time was released as an installment of the long-running Wonderful World of Disney. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Among the tasks undertaken by the WPA's Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s was to transcribe the memories of those former African-American slaves who were still living. The result was a massive collection of notes, documents, and recordings, all of which found their way into the Library of Congress. Co-produced by the Library and the HBO cable channel, Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives features a truly impressive array of black actors and actresses verbally recreating the reminiscences of those who lived under the yoke of slavery. The performers themselves appeared in modern dress, standing before a neutral background as they read from the transcripts, while directors Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon complemented the words with vivid and disturbing images culled from contemporary photographs of the years 1850-1935. Tied in with a traveling museum exhibit of photos and recordings, Unchained Memories was telecast during Black History Month, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by actress Rosanna Arquette, this candid documentary is not only about the iconoclastic and somewhat reclusive film star Debra Winger (who does not even appear onscreen until an hour into the film), but also about the trials and tribulations of actresses in Hollywood who have reached "that certain age." In the course of her "search," Arquette interviews several of her colleagues, among them Whoopi Goldberg, Diane Lane, Teri Garr, Holly Hunter, Vanessa Redgrave, Charlotte Rampling, Meg Ryan, and Sharon Stone, all of whom have their own personal horror stories about insensitive producers and casting directors who tend to think of over-40 (and sometimes over-30) actresses as being suitable only for mother, "other woman," and "hero's girlfriend" roles -- when they bother to cast these actresses at all. The women also discuss the difficulties in balancing a successful career and a private life. Test-marketed on the film festival circuit throughout 2002, Searching for Debra Winger received its largest audience when it aired over the Showtime cable channel on August 18, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide