Sounder

Sounder follows a Black sharecropping family in the Depression-era South whose lives are upended when the father, Nathan Lee, is sent to a work camp for stealing food to feed his wife and children. His eldest son, David, must take on a man's responsibilities while still a boy, tending the fields, helping his mother Rebecca hold the household together, and searching for a way to reach his father. The family's hunting dog, Sounder, gives the film its title and its recurring thread of loyalty and loss.

Martin Ritt directed the film, the seventh in the chronological list of his features, arriving between The Molly Maguires and The Front. Lonne Elder III wrote the screenplay, and Robert B. Radnitz produced. Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield play the parents, with Kevin Hooks as David, and the cast runs to thirty credited roles, among them Taj Mahal as Ike, Janet MacLachlan as Camille Johnson and Carmen Mathews as Mrs. Boatwright.

Released in September 1972 and running 105 minutes, the film drew a critics' rating of 8 out of 10 from 22 reviews. On IMDb it holds 7.5 out of 10 from around 5,300 votes, and on TMDB it stands at 7.5 out of 10 from 58 votes, so viewers and critics land in much the same place on it.