Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film directed by Alan Parker and written by Chris Gerolmo. It was loosely based on the FBI investigation into the murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964. The film focuses on the professional relationship between two FBI agents portrayed by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe who investigate the murders.

In 1964, three civil rights workers who organize a voter registry for minorities in Jessup County Mississippi, go missing. The FBI sends two agents, Rupert Anderson Hackman and Alan Ward Dafoe to investigate. The pair find it difficult to conduct interviews with the local townspeople, as Sheriff Stuckey Sartain and his deputies exert influence over the public and are linked to a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.The wife McDormand of Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell Dourif, reveals to Anderson in a discreet conversation that the missing civil rights trio have been murdered, with their bodies buried in an earthen dam. Sheriff Stuckey deduces her confession to the FBI and informs Sheriff Pell, who beats her in retribution. Anderson and Ward devise a plan to indict members of the Klan for the murders. ........

Source: Wikipedia