Historically Black Films
Pay tribute to these historic tales of Black Americans, both real and imagined. Which tells the most interesting story?
Discuss the list here
* not biopics, but covering more than just one person's story
+ please note, the non-inclusion of Hidden Figures was an unintentional error
Discuss the list here
* not biopics, but covering more than just one person's story
+ please note, the non-inclusion of Hidden Figures was an unintentional error
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35 titles
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsDjimon HounsouMatthew McConaugheyAnthony HopkinsIn 1839, the revolt of Mende captives aboard a Spanish owned ship causes a major controversy in the United States when the ship is captured off the coast of Long Island. The courts must decide whether the Mende are slaves or legally free.
- DirectorJohn BadhamStarsBilly Dee WilliamsJames Earl JonesRichard PryorIn the late 1930s during racial segregation, a star of the Negro League Baseball, Bingo Long, leaves his team and convinces other stars of the league to join him as free agent players touring the towns of the Midwest.
- DirectorNate ParkerStarsNate ParkerArmie HammerPenelope Ann MillerNat Turner, a literate slave and preacher in the antebellum South, orchestrates an uprising.
- DirectorClark JohnsonStarsJeffrey WrightTerrence HowardCCH PounderBlack Americans boycott the public buses during the 1950s civil rights movement.
- DirectorJames GoldstoneStarsSidney PoitierWill GeerBradford DillmanA man who returns to his hometown for a funeral may have a much larger purpose in life than those around him can see.
- DirectorCharles HaidStarsLamont BentleyTom BowerTimothy BusfieldThe all-black US Cavalry Troop H pursues Apache warrior Victorio while dealing with racial bigotry and myths about their designated enemies.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsDanny GloverWhoopi GoldbergOprah WinfreyA tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry.
- DirectorJulie DashStarsCora Lee DayAlva RogersBarbara OA languid, impressionistic story of three generations of Gullah women living on the South Carolina Sea Islands in 1902.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsDanny AielloOssie DavisRuby DeeOn the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsOssie DavisCharles S. DuttonAndre BraugherA disparate group of African-American men travel by bus to Washington, DC for the Million Man March.
- DirectorRob ReinerStarsAlec BaldwinJames WoodsWhoopi GoldbergA Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to finally bring a white racist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsMatthew BroderickDenzel WashingtonCary ElwesRobert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.
- DirectorGualtiero JacopettiFranco ProsperiStarsStefano SibaldiSusan HampshireDick GregoryTwo documentary filmmakers go back in time to the pre-Civil War American South, to film the slave trade.
- DirectorDenzel WashingtonStarsDenzel WashingtonForest WhitakerKimberly EliseA drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school's first debate team, which went on to challenge Harvard in the national championship.
- DirectorCharles BurnettStarsHenry G. SandersKaycee MooreCharles BracySet in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.
- DirectorRichard PearceStarsSissy SpacekWhoopi GoldbergDwight SchultzTwo women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.
- DirectorGeorge Tillman Jr.StarsCuba Gooding Jr.Robert De NiroCharlize TheronThe story of Carl Brashear, the first African-American U.S. Navy Diver, and the man who trained him.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsDerek LukeMichael EalyLaz AlonsoSet in 1944 Italy, the story of four black American soldiers who get trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII.
- DirectorJoseph SargentStarsAlfre WoodardLaurence FishburneCraig ShefferThe true story of the U.S. Government's 1932 Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which a group of black test subjects were allowed to die, despite a cure having been developed.
- DirectorAlan ParkerStarsGene HackmanWillem DafoeFrances McDormandTwo F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists.
- DirectorTanya HamiltonStarsAnthony MackieKerry WashingtonJamara GriffinIn 1976, complex political and emotional forces are set in motion when a young man returns to the race-torn Philadelphia neighborhood where he came of age during the Black Power movement.
- DirectorMichael RoemerStarsIvan DixonAbbey LincolnJulius HarrisA black man and his school-teacher wife face discriminatory challenges in 1960s America.
- DirectorMario Van PeeblesStarsKadeem HardisonBokeem WoodbineJoe Don BakerA dramatized account of the story of The Black Panther Party of Self-Defense.
- DirectorSunu GoneraStarsTerrence HowardBernie MacKimberly EliseThe determined Jim Ellis starts a swim team for troubled teens at the Philadelphia Department of Recreation.
- DirectorAnthony HemingwayStarsCuba Gooding Jr.Gerald McRaneyDavid OyelowoA crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.