A veteran FBI agent (Gene Hackman) and his younger partner (Willem Dafoe) come at odds with one other, while in a Southern county at odds with itself, while investigating the murder of three civil rights activists in 1964 Mississippi.
Why it is one of the best Frances McDormand movies: Loosely based on the real-life murder of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, late director Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning is a powerful tale that attempts to shed light the true roots of bigotry, which is analyzed in Frances McDormand’s heartbreaking performance as the wife of a racist deputy sheriff.