George Wallace (1997)

John Frankenheimer's made-for-television biopic stars Gary Sinise as controversial politician George Wallace. The film picks up Wallace's life in the mid-1950s when, as a circuit court judge and protégé of Governor "Big Jim" Folsom's, he hopes to succeed his mentor in the office. But when he runs for governor in 1959, his denunciation of the Ku Kux Klan is instrumental in his defeat. It spurs a decision to become a staunch advocate of segregation, a position that finally wins him the 1963 Alabama gubernatorial race. His opposition to an integrated South continues in the celebrated "stand in the schoolhouse door" on June 11, 1963, as he tries to block the first two black students attempting to integrate the University of Alabama. Martin Luther King's Selma to Montgomery march, an effort to end voting-rights discrimination, leads Wallace to call out state troopers who use tear gas, billy clubs, and fire hoses on the marchers. After failing to get an amendment to the state constitution allowing him to seek a second term, Wallace supports his wife, Lurleen (Mare Winningham), to take his place. This surprisingly complex profile of a man justifiably vilified for his opposition to civil rights is driven home by Sinise's portrayal of the vulnerability beneath the more familiar public face.