Fury

Joe Wilson, a wrongly jailed man thought to have died in a blaze started by a bloodthirsty lynch mob, is somehow alive...but dead to all he ever stood for and perhaps ever will be, because Joe aims to ensure his would-be executioners meet the fate that he miraculously escaped. Spencer Tracy is Joe, Sylvia Sidney is his bride-to-be, and Fury lives up to its volatile name with its searing indictment of mob justice and lynching. In his first American film, director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, The Big Heat) combines a passion for justice and a sharp visual style into a landmark of social-conscience filmmaking. In the 49 years before this movie's release, some 6,000 people in the U.S. were victims of lynch mobs. The Fury over those tragedies -- and over other injustices to come -- remains.

• drama
• thriller