Till (film)

In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till lives with his mother, Mamie, in Chicago. Before Emmett leaves to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi, Mamie warns him to be extra careful around white people. At a train station, the Tills meet with Mamie's uncle, Mose "Preacher" Wright, and Emmett's cousin, Wheeler Parker. After picking cotton on a sharecropper plantation, Emmett and his cousins purchase candy at the Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market. At the cash register, Emmett tells Carolyn Bryant that she looks like a movie star before showing her a photograph of a white girl in his wallet. Carolyn follows Emmett outside of the store, where he whistles at her. Disgusted, Carolyn retrieves a pistol from her vehicle as Till and his relatives flee from the store.

In the early hours of August 28, Carolyn's husband, Roy, and his half-brother, John William "J. W." Milam, arrive at Wrights' house and force themselves inside. They locate Till inside one of the bedrooms and force him to put on his clothes before kidnapping him. Till's great-aunt Elizabeth offers the men money, but Milam refuses. Before leaving, Milam holds Wright hostage with a gun. Inside one of the other vehicles, Carolyn identifies Till and the Bryants drive off into the night. Emmett is then badly beaten, fatally shot, and his body is dumped into the Tallahatchie River.

Back in Chicago, Mamie is informed of Emmett's kidnapping. Her cousin, Rayfield Mooty, arranges her to meet with William Huff, the counsel for the NAACP chapter in Chicago. At his office, Huff inquires about Mamie's past marriages as her personal history will be questioned. Meanwhile, the police locate Till's corpse along the river. Upon hearing the news, Mamie collapses in shock. Despite Mooty's reservations, Mamie asks for Emmett's body to be transferred back to Chicago. Shortly after, his coffin arrives on train, and Mamie cries in anguish upon seeing it. After seeing Emmett's mutilated corpse on an autopsy table, Mamie has an open casket funeral for Emmett to reveal what had been done to him. Emmett's killing and funeral garner national headlines across America.

Milam and Bryant are charged for their actions in relation to Till's killing. Accompanied by her father, Mamie travels to Mound Bayou to help represent Emmett for the trial. At the Regional Council, headed by T. R. M. Howard, Howard asks Mamie to consider her future after the trial as her activism can help galvanize federal support for voting rights toward Black Americans. On the first day of the trial, the defense team requests a recess after learning of another witness, to which the judge agrees and adjourns.

During the recess, the prosecution locates Willie Reed, who was an eyewitness to Till's killing. The next day, Wright and Reed give their testimonies, and the former identifies Milam as the culprit who held his family at gunpoint. Next, Mamie goes before the trial, testifying she could identify the corpse as her son. The defense then cross-examines Mamie, as she had told the "colored press" she warned Emmett on how to conduct himself in Mississippi. Later, on the witness stand, Carolyn Bryant testifies that Emmett grabbed her by the waist[7] and told her that he had previous interracial romance. Angered, Mamie leaves the courtroom sure that she already knows the verdict.

After about an hour, the all-white and all-male Mississippi jury[8] acquits Milam and Bryant of Till's killing. Later, at a NAACP rally in Harlem, Mamie criticizes the Mississippi criminal justice system for victim blaming and the United States for failing in its promise for equal justice. She returns home and fondly remembers Emmett as she imagines him in his room.

The post-credits state that Mamie's actions galvanized the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

• Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till[9]
• Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till, Mamie's deceased son.[10]
• Kevin Carroll as Rayfield Mooty, a member of Civil Rights activism organization NAACP.[11]
• Frankie Faison as John Carthan, Mamie's father and Emmett's grandfather.[11]
• Haley Bennett as Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old Southern shopkeeper whose accusations led to Emmett's murder.[12]
• Jayme Lawson as Myrlie Evers, an NAACP member and Medgar Evers's wife.[11]
• Tosin Cole as Medgar Evers, an NAACP member and Myrlie's husband.[11]
• Sean Patrick Thomas as Gene Mobley, Mamie's boyfriend and eventual husband who is also a father figure to Emmett.[11]
• John Douglas Thompson as Mose "Preacher" Wright, Emmett's uncle and Elizabeth's husband.[11]
• Roger Guenveur Smith as T.R.M. Howard, the head of the Regional Council.[11]
• Whoopi Goldberg as Alma Carthan, Mamie's mother and Emmett's grandmother.[9]
• Keisha Tillis as Elizabeth Wright, Emmett's aunt and Mose's wife.
• Marc Collins as Wheeler Parker, Emmett's oldest cousin.
• Diallo Thompson as Maurice Wright, Emmett's cousin.
• Tyrik Johnson as Simeon "Simmy" Wright, Emmett's youngest cousin.
• Keith Arthur Bolden as William Huff, the leader of the NAACP chapter in Chicago.
• Darian Rolle as Willie Reed, a black man who was an eyewitness to Emmett's murder.
• Sean Michael Weber as Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband and one of the men who kidnapped and murdered Emmett.
• Eric Whitten as John William "J.W." Milam, Roy's half-brother and one of the men who kidnapped and murdered Emmett.[11]

Writer and director Chinonye Chukwu

On August 27, 2020, it was announced that Chinonye Chukwu would write and direct a feature film based on the life of Mamie Till-Mobley and her fight for justice after the lynching of her 14-year-son, Emmett Till. Produced by Orion Pictures, the film uses 27 years' worth of research by Keith Beauchamp, whose efforts led to the reopening of Till's case by the United States Department of Justice in 2004. Simeon Wright, Till's cousin and an eyewitness of the event, served as a consultant to the project until his death in 2017. Chukwu's screenplay is based on a draft she previously co-wrote with Beauchamp and producer Michael Reilly.[13] In July 2021, Danielle Deadwyler and Whoopi Goldberg joined the cast.[9] Jalyn Hall was cast as Emmett Till that August.[10] Filming began in Bartow County, Georgia, in September 2021.[14] By the end of the year, Frankie Faison, Jayme Lawson, Tosin Cole, Kevin Carroll, Sean Patrick Thomas, John Douglas Thompson, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Haley Bennett were confirmed to star.[11][12]

During post-production, the musical score was composed by Abel Korzeniowski.[15]

The film received a limited release in the United States on October 14, 2022, and Canada on October 21, 2022, before a wide release on October 28, 2022, by United Artists Releasing under the Orion Pictures label.[16] Outside of the US, it was distributed by Universal Pictures,[17] including its release in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2023. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 1, 2022, and was screened at the 66th BFI London Film Festival on October 15, 2022, and at the 31st Philadelphia Film Festival that same month.[18][19][20] The distributor also invited high school students to special screenings of the film in New York's Alice Tully Hall; showings of the film and questionnaires with the filmmakers were simultaneously shared online.[21] The film was also screened for US President and First Lady Joe and Jill Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 16, 2023.

US President Joe Biden at a viewing of Till at The White House on February 16, 2023.

Till is the second last film by United Artists Releasing under the banner of Orion Pictures, following the shutdown of the predecessor company by Amazon Studios due to the lack of box office like Bones and All and Women Talking (also being the last film) as a result of general public no longer supporting prestige films released during the late-2022 awards season period, and the decision of the Amazon Studios' Air in theatres in 2023 following the 96th Academy Awards buzz. Women Talking is also a last film following the Amazon's acquisition of Orion Pictures.[22]

The film was released for VOD platforms on November 22, 2022, followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on January 17, 2023.[23]

• Emmett Till
• 1956 Sugar Bowl
• Civil rights movement
• Civil rights movement in popular culture
• Women of the Movement, television series also released in 2022

• Till at IMDb