This powerful tale centers on the struggles of three characters: Charles Eastman, a young, Dartmouth-educated, Sioux doctor; Sitting Bull, the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of their identity, their dignity and their sacred land - the gold-laden Black Hills of the Dakotas; and Senator Henry Dawes, one of the men responsible for the government policy on Indian affairs.

While Eastman and schoolteacher Elaine Goodale work to improve life for the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant for kinder Indian treatment. Epic in scope, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee is a new Western classic.

The story of the conflict between slave-traders and Jesuits during the colonisation of South America by Spain and Portugal. In 1750 Jesuit priest Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) arrives in the Amazon to build a mission for the Guarani Indians. He comes into conflict with slave trader Mendoza (Robert De Niro), who kills or captures many of the tribe but escapes punishment due to the fact that he is an aristocrat. However, it transpires that even Mendoza has a conscience when he comes to Gabriel asking for penance.