The Best Films by Black Directors

In Boots Riley’s directorial debut, LaKieth Stanfield plays a young Oakland telemarketer who begins faking a “white voice” in order to make more sales, propelling him into a dark and surreal underworld of corporate greed and abhorrent labor practices.

High schooler Jesus Shuttlesworth, the top basketball prospect in the nation, is considering his college options. Meanwhile, his incarcerated father is given one week of parole to convince his estranged son to sign with the governor’s alma mater in order to reduce his own prison sentence.

This biographical film stars Don Cheadle as Ralph “Petey” Greene, an ex-con who became a popular Emmy-winning radio host and community activist in 1960s Washington, D.C. with the help of his manager, Dewey Hughes.

Source: Courtesy of Annapurna Pictures

Inspired by the director’s own experiences as an actor, this satirical film displays the typecasting and pigeonholing that Black actors face in Hollywood through a series of vignettes and fantasies.

Largely autobiographical, this film written and directed by Detroit native Vondie Curtis-Hall concerns three young bandmates and their struggles with heroin addiction and the system that prevents them from getting the treatment they seek.

A dramatization of the life of an American hero, this biographical film recounts Harriet Tubman’s escape from slavery and her decision to leave the safety of Philadelphia in order to guide more slaves on the journey north.

As an aging Chicago matriarch is hospitalized, her 40-year tradition of serving Sunday dinners to her progeny is abruptly halted, while her daughters’ heightening quarrels threaten to fracture the family even further.

Co-written with two of his siblings, this semi-autobiographical film from Spike Lee follows a strict school teacher, her struggling jazz musician husband, and their five children in 1970s Brooklyn.

Based on the novel by James Baldwin, this drama concerns a young pregnant woman who seeks the help of her family and her Harlem community in proving the innocence of her boyfriend, who was arrested for a rape he didn’t commit.

Inspired by a true story and written by real-life protagonist Antwone Fisher, this drama recounts the harrowing childhood of a troubled sailor as his Navy psychiatrist guides him on a path toward healing.

Starring the two members of the hip hop duo Kid ‘n Play, this wild comedy follows a high school student who sneaks out to attend a party after his father grounds him for getting into a fight at school.

This biographical drama about the early career of the first Black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, stars the late Chadwick Boseman as a young NAACP lawyer who takes on a high profile rape case.

Based on the play by August Wilson, Fences recounts the life of a sanitation worker and former Negro League baseball player in 1950’s Pittsburgh as he faces his life’s disappointments and tries, in his own way, to save his son from the same fate.

Another film based on an August Wilson play, this drama imagines a tumultuous 1920s Chicago recording session headed by legendary blues singer Ma Rainey, as she and her backup musicians clash with her producer and one another.

In this crime thriller, a demented trio of murderers flee Los Angeles after a drug heist, spurring L.A.P.D. detectives to team up with a small-town Arkansas sheriff who jumps on the chance to solve a real crime…until he recognizes one of the suspects.

Set in the South Bronx, “I Like It Like That” concerns the failing marriage and infidelities of a young couple who each want a better life and will do whatever it takes to get one.

When a mysterious and devilishly charming old friend from the South shows up at a Southern transplant family’s home in South Central L.A., their seemingly tranquil household begins to smolder with latent tensions that can no longer be ignored.

“Training Day” follows a seasoned L.A.P.D. narcotics officer as he trains a young promotee using questionable methods, revealing a web of corruption that threatens both of their lives.

In post-9/11 New York, a young man spends his last day of freedom visiting with friends and loved ones before heading to jail on a seven-year sentence for dealing drugs, all the while contemplating the choices that got him where he is.

This biographical drama recounts the story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at historically Black Wiley College in 1930s Texas, whose debate team would go on to challenge the reigning national champions.

A dramatization of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre in Levy County, Florida, this film follows an outsider and a local store owner as they attempt to help citizens evacuate a small town that is being destroyed by a racist lynch mob.

This cult classic buddy comedy follows two unemployed friends who owe $200 to a local drug dealer and run into a zany and menacing cast of characters as they attempt to square their debt.

In this blaxploitation action film, a former CIA agent attempts to find out who killed his little brother, and ends up investigating a shady organization that is siphoning heroin and adulterated malt liquor into Black neighborhoods.

A mockumentary about the gangsta rap group N.W.H., this zany film details the rise and fall of the controversial performers through the eyes of a sociologist who follows them to research her thesis on hip hop as a form of urban dialogue.

Set in a Louisiana Creole community in the 1960s, this Southern Gothic film follows the family of a womanizing doctor through the eyes of his 10-year-old daughter – a girl who has premonitions about things she is still too young to understand.

After a disappointing Tinder date, Queen and Slim are expecting to never see each other again. But when they are pulled over by an aggressive police officer, things take a turn for the worse and they end up on the run.

Two fun-loving high school seniors in Chicago’s Near North Side spend their time partying and living it up until their lives are upended when they are wrongfully arrested and charged with grand theft auto.

Based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire, this coming-of-age film follows a pregnant, illiterate Harlem teen who has suffered numerous types of abuse, as she receives guidance at an alternative school and begins to believe in herself.

Regina King’s directorial debut is a fictionalized account of a 1964 meeting between four greats – Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown – as they discuss and sometimes clash over their ideals and responsibilities as Black icons.

In this coming-of-age film, 13-year-old Mister takes nine-year-old Pete under his wing after Mister’s mom is arrested and the two are forced to forage for food and survive a sweltering New York City summer.

In this crime thriller, an elaborate bank heist on Wall Street becomes a high stakes hostage situation, and the bank’s founder sends in a power broker to protect the mysterious contents of a safe deposit box.

When the prince of a hidden, technologically advanced African nation called Wakanda becomes king, an adversary from the nation’s past challenges his authority, threatening not only the fate of Wakanda, but the fate of the world.

Written and directed by Mario Van Peebles, this biographical film pays homage to the career of his father Melvin Van Peebles, director of the film “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” credited as the forerunner of the blaxploitation genre.

This coming-of-age film concerns a Brooklyn teenager who slowly comes to terms with her identity and sexuality, while her Christian mother attempts to control her appearance and friendships.

This romantic sports drama follows two childhood friends who grow up pursuing their dreams of becoming professional basketball players but run into challenges as their separate paths begin to pull them apart.

This coming-of-age drama details three time spans in the life of Chiron, a meek Black boy being raised by his crack-addicted mother, as he struggles with his peers and his sexuality, finding brief refuge under the wing of a local drug dealer.

Based on a memoir by Ron Stallworth, this black comedy crime film recounts Stallworth’s time as the first Black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department and his infiltration of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter with the help of a Jewish colleague.

Director Charles Burnett’s master’s thesis is an artful look at an L.A. slaughterhouse worker’s struggle to connect with his family after numbing himself daily to the horrors of his job. As a result of unsecured music rights, the film was not widely released until late 2007.

When two soldiers, one Black and one white, return to their Mississippi town after living through the horrors of World War II, they see the racial tensions and poverty of their intertwined families with new eyes.

Starr is a 16-year-old who straddles two worlds – her predominantly Black neighborhood and her wealthy, mostly-white prep school. When she becomes the sole witness to a murder committed by a police officer, she must consolidate her identities in order to do what is right.

This biographical film portrays the last day in the life of Oscar Grant – a 22-year-old father who was fatally shot by a police officer on Jan. 1, 2009 in an Oakland subway station – as he gets a headstart on his New Year’s resolution to be a better man.

Based on Alex Haley’s book “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” this film follows the title character through the stages of his life and the activism that would culminate in his departure from the Nation of Islam and his eventual assassination.

A biographical drama surrounding the gangsta rappers known as N.W.A., “Straight Outta Compton” details how five young men from the hood used their brazen lyrics to effect social change and become one of the most influential hip hop groups in history.

Detailing the undaunted and visionary leadership behind the 1965 Alabama voting rights marches, this biographical drama portrays how the efforts of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A spin-off of the Rocky series, “Creed” portrays the trials of an amateur boxer, Adonis Creed, who is mentored by an aging Rocky Balboa, the former opponent-turned-friend of Adonis’ late father, Apollo.

In Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, a young Black man travels upstate to meet his white girlfriend’s family, and slowly discovers that his unease about their reception of him is more than warranted.

On a sweltering summer day, simmering racial tensions in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn lead to violence around a veteran pizza shop, owned by Italian-Americans who have slowly watched the demographic of the neighborhood change.

A dramatization of the events leading up to the 1969 murder of activist and multicultural political organizer Fred Hampton by local law enforcement officers, this film details the Illinois Black Panther Party’s infiltration by an FBI informant.

This coming-of-age drama follows the path of Tre Styles, a smart kid with a bad attitude, who, together with two friends, must confront race, opportunity, and violence in South Central LA.