Poitier gained fame for his leading roles in films such as The Defiant Ones (1958), for which he became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

[9][10] Poitier broke ground playing strong leading African American male roles in films such as Porgy and Bess (1959), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), and A Patch of Blue (1965).

[11] Poitier made his directorial film debut with Buck and the Preacher (1972), followed by A Warm December (1973), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and Stir Crazy (1980).

[17] He was the youngest of seven children[18] born to Evelyn (née Outten) and Reginald James Poitier, Afro-Bahamian farmers who owned a farm on Cat Island.

[28] At age fifteen, in 1942, he was sent to Miami to live with his brother's large family, but Poitier found it impossible to adjust to the racism in Jim Crow era Florida.

Poitier confessed to a psychiatrist that he was faking his condition, but the doctor was sympathetic and granted his discharge under Section VIII of Army regulation 615–360 in December 1944.

[36] Determined to refine his acting skills and rid himself of his noticeable Bahamian accent, he spent the next six months dedicating himself to achieving theatrical success.

On his second attempt at the theater, he was noticed and given a leading role in the Broadway production of Lysistrata, through which, though it ran a failing four days, he received an invitation to understudy for Anna Lucasta.

[37][38] In 1947, Poitier was a founding member of the Committee for the Negro in the Arts (CNA),[39] an organization whose participants were committed to a left-wing analysis of class and racial exploitation.

[41] In 1952, he was one of several narrators in a pageant written by Alice Childress and Lorraine Hansberry for the Negro History Festival put on by the leftist Harlem monthly newspaper Freedom.

[42] His participation in such events and CNA generally, along with his friendships with other leftist Black performers, including Canada Lee and Paul Robeson, led to his subsequent blacklisting for a few years.

[46] His performance in No Way Out, as a doctor treating a white bigot (played by Richard Widmark, who became a friend), was noticed and led to more roles, each considerably more interesting and more prominent than those most African-American actors of the time were offered.

[47] In 1951, he traveled to South Africa with the African-American actor Canada Lee to star in the film version of Cry, the Beloved Country.

[50] Wellman was a big name, he had previously directed the famous Roxie Hart (1942) with Ginger Rogers and Magic Town (1947) with James Stewart.

"[50] Poitier later praised Wellman for inspiring his thoughtful approach to directing when he found himself taking the helm from Joseph Sargent on Buck and the Preacher in 1971.

[56] Poitier acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun alongside Ruby Dee on the Broadway stage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1959.

[61] Also in 1961, Poitier starred in Paris Blues alongside Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Louis Armstrong, and Diahann Carroll.

[64] His satisfaction at this honor was undermined by his concerns that this award was more of the industry congratulating itself for having him as a token and it would inhibit him from asking for more substantive considerations afterward.

[65] Poitier worked relatively little over the following year; he remained the only major actor of African descent and the roles offered were predominantly typecast as a soft-spoken appeaser.

[75][76] Art Murphy of Variety felt that the excellent Poitier and outstanding Steiger performances overcame noteworthy flaws, including an uneven script.

[85] In 1972, he made his feature film directorial debut, the Western Buck and the Preacher, in which Poitier also starred, alongside Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee.

Along with Barbra Streisand and Paul Newman, Poitier formed First Artists Production Company so actors could secure properties and develop movie projects for themselves.

[90] His most successful comedy was Stir Crazy (1980; not a First Artists production), starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, which for many years was the highest-grossing film directed by a person of African descent.

[96] In the 1990s, he starred in several well received television movies and miniseries such as Separate but Equal (1991), To Sir, with Love II (1996), Mandela and de Klerk (1997), and The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn (1999).

[122] Upon Poitier's death, many people released statements honoring him, including then-President Joe Biden, who wrote in part: "With unflinching grandeur and poise – his singular warmth, depth, and stature on-screen – Sidney helped open the hearts of millions and changed the way America saw itself."

"[128] Harry Belafonte, Morgan Freeman, Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, Lupita Nyong'o, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey, Octavia Spencer, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Esposito, Quincy Jones, Michael Eisner, Ron Howard and others also paid tribute.

[152] The former US president Barack Obama said Poitier had "[advanced] the nation's dialogue on race and respect" and "opened doors for a generation of actors".

[161] Documentaries The play and film, Six Degrees of Separation, is about a young Black man named Paul, who cons a white, wealthy Manhattan couple living in a swanky home overlooking Central Park.

Paul shows up at their home claiming to be friends with the couple's children at Harvard, but indicates he is in town to meet his father, Sidney Poitier.

Paul charms the couple with glowing tales of his celebrity father, whom he indicates is in New York directing a film version of the Broadway musical, Cats.