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SIDNEY, APPLE TV+

SIDNEY POITIER, who died in January this year, was one of Hollywood’s most influential figures, not just on-screen — he was the first black man to win the Best Actor Oscar, for 1963’s Lilies Of The Field — but throughout his life, as a civil rights figurehead. This moving documentary profile, produced by Oprah Winfrey, starts at the beginning of his rags-to-riches tale, as Poitier himself recalls his early life in the Bahamas (for which he would later become the ambassador to Japan). After his parents’ tomato farm went under, Sidney was sent to stay with an older brother in Miami; then — after a brush with the Klu Klux Klan — he made his way to New York, finding work with a black theatre company. Sidney got his big break when he was spotted by a studio scout while performing as an understudy to Harry Belafonte, and would go on to make more than 50 films as both actor and director. Friends and admirers including Robert Redford, Denzel Washington, Barbra Streisand, Halle Berry and Morgan Freeman help to paint a picture of a remarkable and much-missed man.