Photo Credit/MPI Medi Group-Significant Productions-Netflix-Trimark Pictures
With Black History Month, we honor the achievements of the African American community while recognizing their historic fight for equality in America, and this certainly encompasses the entertainment sphere. According to a recent study from UCLA, a staggering 74.6 percent of the top Hollywood films are helmed by white filmmakers, leaving a narrow space for people of color to be properly represented. In reckoning with a flawed system, my colleague, Jerrianna Somerville, and I seek to extol some of our favorite films from Black directors and screenwriters.
For this article, we chose not to feature movies with mainstream recognition. Even though we absolutely adore movies like blockbuster hits Black Panther and The Woman King, Jordan Peele’s horror films Get Out and Nope, recent Oscar darlings 12 Years A Slave and Moonlight, and Spike Lee Joints Do the Right Thing and BlacKkKlansman, we opted to showcase films that could use a bit more exposure.
Don’t forget to also check out our piece featured in this issue on Chinonye Chukwu’s excellent historical drama Till, which was recently screened as part of UTM’s annual Civil Rights Conference.
Our picks (listed by year of release):
New Jack City (1991) – director: Mario Van Peebles
Starring Law & Order’s Ice-T and Wesley Snipes, New Jack City takes place in Harlem during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes) and his crew known as the Cash Money Brothers have risen to the top of the narcotics trade. Scotty (Ice-T) and Nick (Judd Nelson), two police officers who know the ins and outs of the streets of Harlem, try to take Nino down. But to do that, they have to go undercover. The film was directed by Mario Van Peebles and is a timeless classic in Black cinema. -Jerrianna
Availability: HBO Max, VOD
Eve’s Bayou (1997) – director: Kasi Lemmons
One of the quintessentially great American indie films, writer/director Kasi Lemmons’ assured feature debut and striking exercise in southern gothic and mysticism is the rare film that truly casts a spell over the viewer. With a hypnotic and sensorial atmosphere, the film envelopes you into an odyssey of the hazy, fractured memory of 10-year-old Eve as she wrestles with the complicated truths and buried secrets of her affluent Louisiana family. Lemmons artfully swoons among melodrama, folklore and historical prestige as she hauntingly captures the nature of trauma, forgiveness and legacy, and it’s the rare movie to explore Black matrilineal bonds with genuine dramatic clarity. -Will
Availability: Showtime, VOD, PML Media Center
Prison Song (2001) – director: Darnell Martin
This film is a certified underrated gem and was meant to be a full-fledged musical. Prison Song stars the iconic rapper Q-Tip of 90s hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. The story follows the life of Elijah (Q-Tip), who deals with the struggles of his father being sent to prison and his mother (Mary J. Blige) becoming institutionalized. Elijah spent the majority of his life in foster homes after that. In his teenage years, his talent for photography earned him a college scholarship offer. Soon, however, Elijah finds himself behind bars for accidentally killing a man and has to fight for his innocence and for prison reform. This film marks the acting debut of singer Mary J. Blige. -Jerrianna
Availability: Tubi
Yelling to the Sky (2012) – director: Victoria Mahoney
Written and directed by Victoria Mahoney, the coming-of-age film Yelling to the Sky showcases the complicated life of quiet teenager Sweetness O’Hara (Zoe Kravitz). Life isn’t easy for her and her older sister Ola (Antonique Smith), as they deal with their violent drunk menace of a father and estranged mother as well as the local neighborhood bullies. The film explores the topic of color divides within the Black community; since Sweetness and her sister are daughters of an African American woman but have a white father, they believe they don’t fit in their predominantly Black neighborhood. It’s a powerful film and loosely based on Mahoney’s own life. -Jerrianna
Availability: Tubi, VOD
Fruitvale Station (2013) – director: Ryan Coogler
Before helming groundbreaking mainstream studio pictures like Creed and the Black Panther series, writer/director Ryan Coogler exploded onto the scene with his feature debut Fruitvale Station, which harrowingly depicts the final day in the life of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III (a poignant Michael B. Jordan, cementing his status as one of the finest actors of his generation) before he was fatally shot by a Bay Area police officer. Coogler’s stirring and emotionally sophisticated portrait of life undercut by brutality never succumbs to pitfalls of countless directors’ first films, and the young filmmaker’s sterling talent was evident in his initial outing with a movie that exudes an aching humanity. -Will
Availability: Starz, VOD
Mudbound (2017)- director: Dee Rees
This sophomore effort from co-writer/director Dee Rees chronicles the struggles of two veterans-one Black, one white- who return from World War II to rural Mississippi and grapple with racism and PTSD respectively as their families clash working on the same farm. Rees spins a complex yarn whose empathetically realized threads regarding racial and class tensions in the American south reverberate far past the 1960s setting. Profound in both its intimate moments and sprawling narrative, the film revitalizes classical southern trappings with potent sociopolitical observations. The stacked ensemble cast exhibits captivating performances from Mary J. Blige, Carey Mulligan, Jason Mitchell and Garrett Hedlund. -Will
Availability: Netflix
Blindspotting (2018)- co-writer: Daveed Diggs
From the creative minds of Daveed Diggs (Black-ish, Hamilton) and Rafael Casal, Blindspotting is set in legendary Oakland, California, and tells the story of Collin (Daveed Diggs), an ex-con who must make it through the final three days of probation for a chance of a new beginning. His friendship with his best friend Miles (Rafael Casal) is tested when they witness a police officer shoot an unarmed African American man. The success of the film led to it being made into a television show of the same name. -Jerrianna
Availability: VOD
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) – director: George C. Wolfe
The late and great Chadwick Boseman delivered a masterful swan song performance as a tortured trumpeter in director George C. Wolfe’s stately adaptation of the acclaimed August Wilson play, which also features one of Viola Davis’ most pristine onscreen turns to date as the famous titular blues singer. Coming from a theatrical background, Wolfe draws richly textured and bone-deep performances from his lead duo, but the film is never hindered by issues that plague other stage-to-screen iterations, as Wolfe’s dynamic and atmospheric direction punches up Wilson’s wrenching meditation on the plight of Black artists perfectly for the silver screen. – Will
Availability: Netflix
