Compounds, pharmaceutical compositions including the compounds, and methods of preparation and use thereof are disclosed. The compounds are noscapine analogs. The compounds and compositions can be used to treat and/or prevent a wide variety of cancers, including drug resistant cancers. While the antitussive plant alkaloid, noscapine, binds tubulin, displays anticancer activity, and has a safe pharmacological profile in humans, structure-function analyses pointed to a proton at position 9 of the isoquinoline ring that can be modified without compromising tubulin binding activity. Noscapine analogs with various functional moieties at position 9 on the isoquinoline ring kill human cancer cells resistant to other anti-microtubule agents, such as vincas and taxanes. Representative analogs include the 9-nitro, 9-bromo-, 9-iodo-, and 9-fluoro-noscapines, which bind tubulin and induce apoptosis selectively in tumor cells (ovarian and T-cell lymphoma) resistant to paclitaxel, vinblastine and teniposide. Surprisingly, treatment with one of the analogs, 9-nitro-nos, at doses as high as 100 μM, did not affect the cell cycle profile of normal human fibroblasts. This selectivity for cancer cells represents a unique edge over the other available antimitotics. The compounds can perturb the progression of cell cycle by mitotic arrest, followed by apoptotic cell death associated with increased caspase-3 activation and appearance of TUNEL-positive cells. Thus, the compounds are novel therapeutic agents for a variety of cancers, including ovarian and T-cell lymphoma cancers, even those that have become drug-resistant to currently available chemotherapeutic drugs.