A White House butler (Forest Whitaker) has a front row seat for history made in race relations.

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Forest Whitaker is Cecil Gaines – who went from working in cotton fields in the 1910s to serving the leaders of America in the White House as a butler. Along the way, he experiences first hand the development of attitudes and laws in favor of equality among all US citizens, especially African Americans, as he waits on each president over a period of 50 years.

Although The Butler takes on a huge chunk of American history in just over two hours, it manages to do justice to the complexity of the subject matter. The movie succeeds largely to its stellar cast: Whitaker as the stoic butler who continuously suppresses his frustration with impressive tenacity; talk show impressaria Oprah Winfrey as his longsuffering wife, stuck between his conservative views and the revolutionary aspirations of one of their sons; as well as Robin Williams, John Cusack and Alan Rickman as the presidents he serves.