"A clear masterpiece held together by visual splendor and idiosyncratic performances."—Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com

"Establishes a new way of seeing Black characters on screen...to see Nickel Boys is to experience the collapse of expectations for how these kinds of stories can be told."—Aisha Harris, NPR

"There are few American films that come close to what it accomplishes, as either film or adaptation. Nickel Boys suggests a miracle, with the makings of a classic."—Jourdain Searles, The Film Stage

A Blue Carpet Dash Film

Oscar-nominated director RaMell Ross (Hale County This Morning, This Evening) poetically adapts Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel for his narrative debut. Elwood Curtis’s college dream shatters alongside a two-lane Florida highway. Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he’s sentenced to the netherworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory sunk deep in the Jim Crow South. He encounters another ward, the seen-it-all Turner. The two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview. Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appear worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King’s burnished oratory. Despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood strives to hold onto his humanity, awakening a new vision for Turner.