Aug 12: The Help

Kathryn Stockett’s polarizing 2009 best-seller, The Help, provided a hard look at the complex bonds between black domestic servants in pre–civil rights Mississippi and the privileged white women who employed them. Tate Taylor’s film adaptation, out August 12, features Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Allison Janney, but it’s the cadre of black maids, led by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer (above, from left), who get the best lines and—ultimately—the last word.

Photo: courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures