Two men—one a wealthy white chief surgeon, the other a poor black lab technician—achieve a monumental medical breakthrough that earned one accolades...and the other a painful lesson in racism and unequal opportunity. Working in 1940s Baltimore on an unprecedented technique for performing heart surgery on "blue babies," Dr. Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and lab tech Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) form an impressive team. But even as the two invent a new field of medicine—saving thousands of lives in the process—social pressures threaten to undermine their collaboration and tear their friendship apart. Mary Stuart Masterson, Gabrielle Union. With Charles Dutton, Kyra Sedgwick. Directed by Joseph Sargent; written by Peter Silverman and Todd Philips.