Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film directed by Alan Parker, and written by Chris Gerolmo. It is loosely based on the FBI's investigation into the 1964 Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner murder case in Mississippi. The film stars Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as two FBI agents assigned to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights workers in fictional Jessup County, Mississippi. The investigation is met with hostility and backlash by the town's residents, local police and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).