Essential films & series about the Black experience
- Breaking cinematic color barriers
Film can be a powerful tool for education. From MLK to BLM, these films will teach you something the history books don’t. They celebrate black excellence and prove black film is no longer a genre, but a vital part of film across all genres. In the spirit of creating a dialogue, we created a list designed as a resource guide to connect movie watchers with more relevant than ever classics like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and George Tillman Jr.’s The Hate U Give, both tackling the epidemic of police brutality.
Powerful documentaries are also highlighted like the Oscar-nominated James Baldwin doc, I Am Not Your Negro and They’ve Gotta Have Us: A Brilliant History of Black Cinema, that casts a light on the renaissance of black film. This list also features classic comedies like Friday and Coming to America, sports films like Love & Basketball, and biographical movies about black icons, from Ray to Malcolm X. This list also includes powerful films about slavery including 12 Years A Slave and Django Unchained as well as films that showcase Black life in the American South throughout history, from A Time to Kill to The Help.
Films
The Wiz (1978)
The Color Purple (1985)
Coming to America (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Malcolm X (1992)
What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993)
Poetic Justice (1993)
Waiting to Exhale (1995)
Friday (1995)
A Time To Kill (1996)
Set It Off (1996)
Love Jones (1997)
Love & Basketball (2000)
Fruitvale Station (2013)
You Got Served (2004)
Django Unchained (2012)
Moonlight (2016)
Loving (2016)
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Get Out (2017)
Barbershop (2002)
Ray (2004)
The Help (2011)
12 Years a Slave (2013)
Selma (2014)
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Hidden Figures (2016)
The Hate U Give (2018)
Girls Trip (2017)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Us (2019)
Black Panther (2018)
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
The Photograph (2020)
Just Mercy (2019)
They’ve Gotta Have Us: A Brilliant History of Black Cinema (2020)
Series
A Different World (1987)
The Wire (2002)
Dear White People (2017)
When They See Us (2019)
