Norman D. Golden II

When a pint-sized 8-year-old kid witnesses a murder he offers to help the police, if they make him a cop, too. Saddled with this streetwise sidekick, a hardboiled cop is forced to take his new partner seriously as they race the clock to bring the bad guys to justice.

The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.

Two fishing fanatics get in trouble when their fishing boat gets stolen while on a trip.

The devastating story of brothers Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, children of the Chicago ghetto, is powerfully told here by a Wall Street Journal reporter who first met the boys in 1985 when they were 10 and 7, respectively. Their family includes a mother, a frequently absent father, an older brother, and younger triplets. We witness the horrors of growing up in an ill-maintained housing project tyrannized by drug gangs and where murders and shootings frequently occur.

Irish immigrant Tommy Shaughnessy leaves 19th-century New York City for Kansas and becomes a small-town sheriff.

Made especially for the HBO cable network, this well-wrought feature is comprised of three short stories by three noted black American authors, each of which is directed by a respected black director.

The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.