Sidney Poitier's Best Co-Stars Ranked

On January 6, 2022, at the age of 94, Sidney Poitier, one of the most talented and influential actors of all time, passed away. He leaves behind a legacy that contains some of the greatest films of all time. He was the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for 1963's "Lilies of the Field." Some of his other standout films include "Porgy and Bess," "A Patch of Blue," and "A Raisin in the Sun," for which he reprised the role he originated on Broadway.

Following his death, Hollywood stars mourned the cinematic legend, showing the breadth of his work's influence on the American experience over the generations. Throughout his career, Poitier shared the screen with an incredible roster of co-stars, from established legends to up-and-coming talent — many of whom would become A-list stars in their own right. Here are some of our favorite actors who acted alongside Sidney Poitier.

"The Wilby Conspiracy," a 1975 action thriller set in South Africa's Apartheid era, stars Sidney Poitier as Shack Twala, a revolutionary who becomes embroiled in the eponymous conspiracy: A plot by the government to take out the Black Congress Party leader, Wilby Xaba (Joe De Graft). Michael Caine co-stars as Jim Keogh, a tough-guy engineer who winds up joining the cause of freedom and justice, assisting Twala in his fight to save Wilby from the oppressive regime. Prunella Gee and Rutger Hauer co-star.

Based on the novel by Peter Driscoll, "The Wilby Conspiracy" combines exciting action sequences with a deeply political story, allowing viewers to learn about South Africa's troubled political history while seeing Poitier and Caine kick some butt along the way. Michael Caine was already an established star by 1975 thanks to movies like "The Italian Job" and "Get Carter," though today's audiences probably know him for his numerous collaborations with Christopher Nolan, including playing Alfred in his Batman trilogy.

Four years before "Sneakers," Poitier and River Phoenix collaborated on 1988's "Little Nikita," a Cold War thriller about a teenager who learns his parents are Russian sleeper agents. Poitier plays the FBI agent working on the case and trying to discover the truth. Together, the two actors have great chemistry together, despite their obvious generation gap; the fact that Phoenix is able to keep up with the great Sidney Poitier is a tribute to the teenager's tremendous talent. Poitier described River as "raw talent," and that working with him was "very invigorating." Unfortunately, the film was a commercial bomb, only grossing $1.7 million at the box office, a mere fraction of its budget of $12 million. Regardless, Phoenix was already a major star by 1988, though his star would only grow larger and larger until his death in 1993.

Though only barely out of his 20s, Phoenix had struggled with drugs for years, though the public was largely unaware of his inner demons, since he had always advocated for healthy lifestyle choices like veganism and environmentalism, among other humanitarian causes. On October 31, 1993, at the age of 23, Phoenix died outside of The Viper Room in Los Angeles. His autopsy found high levels of morphine and heroin in his blood. In 2020, Phoenix's younger brother, Joaquin, named his son River, after his late sibling.

One of Poitier's first big film roles can be seen in "Blackboard Jungle," an Oscar-nominated film about a high school teacher (Glenn Ford) who has to straighten out his classroom of juvenile delinquents. While its content is relatively benign by today's standards, it was groundbreaking in its depiction of high school students as rough and rowdy hell-raisers. The film's use of Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock" is widely credited with jumpstarting the rock and roll revolution that changed American culture forever.

Though he was already 28 years old when the film was made, Sidney Poitier is convincing as a high school delinquent. Glenn Ford, one of the biggest movie stars of his time, plays the teacher. Even though nearly 70 years have passed since its release, "Blackboard Jungle" remains relevant and entertaining today. It's a teen-oriented movie that doesn't talk down to its target audience, and that sensibility transcends any of the film's more dated elements. The way Ford takes Poitier's character under his wing and effectively makes him head of the class was a transgressive move by the filmmakers during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, and the scene where Ford's character breaks down the class' racial barriers by deconstructing the hateful language his students use to insult each other remains as timely as ever.

The sequel to "In the Heat of the Night" moves the action from Mississippi to San Francisco. While it's a decidedly lesser film than its predecessor, audiences looking for a crowd-pleasing turn from Poitier were not disappointed by the provocatively-titled, "They Call Me Mister Tibbs!," which takes its title from the iconic line of dialogue from the original movie. This time, the story involves a political referendum on urban renewal and co-stars Martin Landau as a street preacher, local advocate, and murder suspect. He's a mysterious presence throughout the film, with his moral grandstanding at odds with the crime he is suspected of, but the chemistry between him and Poitier is notable. The ending, in which the character has a heart-to-heart discussion with Detective Tibbs before making a shocking choice, helps elevate the film beyond its contemporaries.

Landau had already made a name for himself thanks to his tenure on the original television version of "Mission: Impossible," but he wouldn't become a bona fide movie star until much later in his career. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, the first of which was in 1988 for "Tucker: A Man and His Dream." He'd finally win in 1994 for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood," starring Johnny Depp.

One of Poitier's best known films is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," in which he plays Dr. John Prentice, a Black man in love with a white woman, played by Katharine Houghton. When she takes him to meet her parents, they are taken aback by his race, triggering the central conflict and drama of the movie: Can love and trust overcome prejudice? Like so many of Poitier's films, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was groundbreaking in its frank approach to relevant themes, breaking down barriers with grace and humor. To that end, an often-forgotten fact about "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is that it's hilarious. This isn't an Oscar-bait drama about forbidden love, but a heartwarming romantic comedy about the absurdities of racism.

Katharine Hepburn plays Prentice's would-be mother-in-law, Christina, and she brings a mature grace to her performance. Being wiser than her more bigoted and old-fashioned husband, she quickly warms up to the idea of John Prentice becoming her son-in-law, and overtly approves of his prospective marriage to her daughter.

Hepburn is one of the most celebrated actors of all time, and holds the record for the most Academy Awards by a single actor, with four of the prized golden statues to her name, including one for this very film.

Sidney Poitier had a great 1967; he starred in three films that year, and all three are all-time classics: "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "To Sir, With Love," and "In the Heat of the Night," the latter of which introduced audiences to no-nonsense big city cop Detective Virgil Tibbs. The film was a huge hit and was nominated for seven Oscars, winning five, including Best Picture and Best Actor, but not for Sidney Poitier; instead, the honor went to Rod Steiger.

Steiger built his career as a character actor, playing tough guys like Al Capone, or broken big brother archetypes like in "On the Waterfront." For "In the Heat of the Night," he essentially combines these two modes as Chief Bill Gillespie, an old, bigoted authority figure who is prone to temper tantrums and has to rediscover what it means to be a good cop. He surely didn't expect that rediscovery to arrive in the form of Sidney Poitier's Detective Tibbs.

In terms of acting, Steiger and Poitier bring out the best in each other; it's a shame their incredible dynamic only lasted for this single film, since Steiger didn't appear in either of the two sequels. However, the dynamic between the characters was revisited for the TV series, "In the Heat of the Night," which ostensibly acts as a sequel/adaptation of the original film, but with new actors: Howard Rollins as Tibbs, and "All in the Family's" Carroll O'Connor as Gillespie.