The Piano Lesson

1930's Pittsburgh, a brother comes home to claim "my half of the piano", a family heirloom; but his sister is not wanting to part with it. This is a glimpse of the conditions for African-Americans as well as some of the attitudes and influences on their lives. But whether he is able to sell the piano so that he can get enough money to buy some property and "no longer have to work for someone else" involves the story (or lesson) that the piano has to show him.

Cast

Charles S. Dutton

as Boy Willie

Alfre Woodard

as Berniece Charles

Carl Gordon

as Doaker

Tommy Hollis

as Avery

Lou Myers

as Wining Boy

Courtney B. Vance

as Lymon

Zelda Harris

as Maretha

Rosalyn Coleman

as Grace

Tommy Lafitte

as Ace

Lynne Innerst

as Miss Ophelia

Reviews

Similar Movies

The Piano

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

⭐ 7.4

The Piano Lesson

A brother and sister's battle over a prized heirloom piano unleashes haunting truths about how the past is perceived — and who defines a family legacy.

⭐ 6.1

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter brings home a fiancé who is black.

⭐ 7.6

The Cider House Rules

Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?

⭐ 7.1

The Piano Teacher

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

⭐ 7.3

Rent

This rock opera tells the story of one year in the life of a group of bohemians struggling in late 1980s East Village, New York, USA. The film centers around Mark and Roger, two roommates. While a tragedy has made Roger numb to new experiences, Mark begins capturing their world through his attempts to make a personal movie. In the year that follows, they and their friends deal with love, loss, and working together.

⭐ 6.8

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

⭐ 6.9

Four Minutes

Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.

⭐ 6.8

Cherry-Red

Anna and Marie are two women who could possibly love each other. Marie wants to be open to this new overwhelming feeling, even if she has to throw away all that she has ever held to be right. Anna on the other hand, enjoys the attention from this gentle soft girl Marie, who seems to love her, not in spite of but also because of her sharp edges. It could all be so easy if it weren't for Zoe, the woman who has been at Anna's side for years.

⭐ 5.5

A Good Person

Allison's life falls apart following her involvement in a fatal accident. The unlikely relationship she forms with her would-be father-in-law helps her live a life worth living.

⭐ 7.0

Mr. Jones

The story about the relationship between a manic depressive man, Mr. Jones, and the female doctor who takes more than a professional interest in his treatment.

⭐ 5.8

The Piano Player

A tale about the relationship between a businessman who launders money for a Mafia figure and his gangster bodyguard.

⭐ 4.1

Reflections

Mihajlo, an introvert piano teacher starts romance with a pretty careerist who teaches modeling at the university in Belgrade where they both work. His feelings are awakened after a long period, but this relationship makes him see the flashbacks, as well as yet unseen images that remind him of his troubled childhood - as if he experienced this already. When their university wins a contest to hold public TV performance, Mihailo fails to play the piano on the decisive night and she dumps him. The boiling point is about to come.

⭐ 6.7

Le Pion

Humiliated and down on his luck, a superintendent turns his life around when he decides to write a book.

⭐ 6.3

The Collector of Brains

A young pianist is shocked when she witnesses a strange chess tournament with a robot. Could there be a gruesome secret behind this exhibition?

⭐ 6.0

The Room

A man explains how he was obsessed when he was younger by a mysterious room and an extraordinary rarefied piano music that drifted through its open window during the night. Forty years later, returning to his home town after having spent most of his life abroad, in "a bunch of different places", he asks one of his friends to rent a room for him. As chance would have it, it turns out to be the same room which attracted him when he was a young man. What drew him again to this room?

⭐ 6.5

Idlewild

A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Prohibition-era South, out of the hands of gangsters who want to take it over.

⭐ 5.7

Laurel Canyon

When an uptight young man and his fiancée move into his libertine mother's house, the resulting clash of life attitudes shakes everyone up.

⭐ 6.0

When We Were Kings

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

⭐ 7.7