Turner Classic Movies honors civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy all day on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday January 20) with 24 hours’ worth of films dealing with racism and the fight for racial justice.
Here’s a breakdown of TCM’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day schedule and what to expect in these powerful stories.
Turner Classic Movies Martin Luther King Jr. Day Marathon 2025 Schedule
Kicking things off is 1965’s A Patch of Blue, starring Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters (who won an Oscar for her role as Rose-Ann D’Arcey), about a Black man who befriends a blind white girl. The Learning Tree (1969, 8am/7c) centers on a poor Black 14-year-old in Kansas learning about love and racial injustice and stars Kyle Johnson. At 10am/9c, the Oscar-nominated Sounder (1972), starring Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson, chronicles the life of the eldest son of a hardworking family of sharecroppers in the Depression-era South.
At noon/11am c, Lost Boundaries (1949) centers on a Black family passing as white; Juano Hernandez stars in 1949’s Intruder in the Dust (2/1c) as a Black man unjustly accused of murder. The film version of A Raisin in the Sun (1961) follows (3:30/2:30c); then at 5:45/4:45c, it’s the inspiring Emmy-winning The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), about a woman (an outstanding Tyson) born into slavery who becomes part of the Civil Rights Movement.
At night, tune in for three films in which MLK’s widow, Coretta Scott King, appears or is a character, beginning with 1972’s Nationtime (8/7c), a documentary about the historic National Black Political Convention that same year. The 1970 doc I Am Somebody, about 400 Black women going on strike, is next, followed by 2001’s Boycott (10:15/9:15c), starring Jeffrey Wright and Carmen Ejogo.
MLK Day Movie Marathon, Monday, January 20, 6am/5c, Turner Classic Movies