The first mainstream film depicting the prejudices and injustices perpetrated against homesexuals in American society. Tom Hanks won an Academy Award for his role as a lawyer who contracts AIDS and is subsequently fired by his conservative law firm. He sues the firm with the help of a small town attorney played by Denzel Washington, who is homophobic and reticent to take the case in the beginning, but who over the course of the movie seems to come to terms with his own prejudice.