Deep Cover (1992)

Starring:

• Laurence Fishburne
• Jeff Goldblum
• Victoria Dillard
• Gregory Sierra
• Clarence Williams III
• René Assa
• Alex Colon
• Roger Guenveur Smith
• Sydney Lassick
• Kamala Lopez
• Julio Oscar Mechoso
• Glynn Turman
• James T. Morris
• Sandra Gould

Storyline
Russell Stevens (Fishburne) is a police officer that is recruited by a drug enforcement agent to go undercover in Los Angeles to bring down a huge drug operation. While undercover, he is to rise in the ranks by working closely with David (Goldblum), a shady Jewish attorney who is connected with Barbosa (Sierra), a big-time kingpin that has ties with larger distributors and even a corrupt politician. As Stevens gets further involved in the street life, he comes at a crossroads between his duty as an officer of the law and surviving the underworld to stay alive.

One In A Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (1977)

Starring:

• LeVar Burton
• Madge Sinclair
• Paul Benjamin

Storyline
The film plays like a gritty documentary with nice character acting by LeVar Burton as Ron LeFlore. Without a doubt, the best Detroit Tiger film to date with great shots of old Tiger Stadium. Unlike the 1983 film Tiger Town, The Ron LeFlore Story doesn't get bogged down by Disney-esque sentimentality. A truly inspiring film. As has already been pointed out, this is an excellent made for TV classic. Sure, the film quality of this 70's movie is dated, but nothing beats a superb cameo appearance by the firey Billy Martin acting as himself.

Stranger Inside (2001)

Starring:

• Yolonda Ross
• Davenia McFadden
• Rain Phoenix

IMDB.com
Cheryl Dunye's gritty jail drama STRANGER INSIDE tells the story of Treasure, a young girl who's gone on the wrong side of the tracks of life and who gets reunited with her birth mother, Brownie, in jail. Instead of finding love and reassurance, though, she learns Brownie is a very dangerous and violent person who may even be using her for her interests while in jail, but Treasure is so determined to win Brownie over that all logic flies out the window, and even when in one chilling scene Brownie threatens to slice her, she still continues to come back. Social displacement and broken families are at the center of this very honest indie film which I caught on HBO recently, and there are never any moments of exploitation so common in women's prison pictures. In fact, this is an unsentimental study of the nature of violent people who even in their violence are still trying to make some sense out of their lives, and it takes actors not yet tainted by vanity and glamour to accept these roles. Yolonda Ross, Davenia McFadden, and Rain Phoenix all play their parts with verve, and even if the ending is somewhat downbeat and ambivalent, you won't forget Treasure. Highly recommended.