Before the Conversation - Nickel Boys (2024) Screening 9/2/26

One Book, One Denver. Denver Public Library presents a complimentary screening of Nickel Boys as part of One Book One Denver, based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize – winning novel.

The film follows Elwood Curtis, an idealistic teenager who believes deeply in justice, and Turner, a guarded pragmatist who has learned to focus on survival. When the two meet at Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school in Jim Crow era Florida, their contrasting perspectives become the foundation of a friendship that challenges, protects, and changes them both. 

The film has been widely praised for its immersive first-person perspective and inventive approach to bringing Whitehead’s novel to the screen.

This is one of three conversations focused on One Book One Denver. Look for the postings for the conversation with the director of The Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross, on September 10th and an evening with the author, Colson Whitehead, on September 25th.