The Defiant Ones
“One of the great ones!”
Stanley KramerCast
Tony Curtis 
Sidney Poitier 
Theodore Bikel 
Charles McGraw 
Lon Chaney Jr. 
Claude Akins Cara Williams
Credits
Written by: 
Nedrick Young
Plot
Two escaped convicts, the white Joker Jackson and the black Noah Cullen, are chained together and forced to flee across the Southern countryside, even though they hate each other. As a posse and a pack of dogs close in, they must depend on one another to survive. Written by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith.
Sinekatalog’s take
A tense chase film that gets its message across through two physically linked men rather than speeches. Poitier and Curtis are both excellent, and the ending is simple and moving.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.
Ratings
IMDb: 7.5 / 10 (20,447 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.