It’s interesting to note that, despite a lengthy and rich history, starting with Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 silent “Within Our Gates,” African-American cinema was mostly known as a fringe genre until blaxploitation showed up in the ‘70s and made it a marketable commodity. And yet, it took close to 3 decades for one of the greatest films ever directed by an African-American filmmaker to see the light of day (Charles Burnett’s “The Killer of Sheep”).
Ever since #OscarsSoWhite happened, maybe the most influential movement in American movies since the ‘70s maverick phase, young and promising black filmmakers have emerged from all parts of the U.S. with unique styles all their own (Boots Riley, Ryan Coogler, Barry Jenkins, Jordan Peele). In trying to assemble the 12 best movies by and/or about African-Americans, it was important to spread out the wealth. Half this list could have solely been Spike Lee movies, alas, the rule was only two entries for Spike.
“Killer of Sheep” (Charles Burnett)
This 1978 film was edited, shot, written, produced, and directed as a thesis for UCLA film school by Charles Burnett. It was only 30 years after Burnett submitted it as his thesis that the film got released, restored, and transferred from a 16mm to a 35mm print. Featuring a cast of unknowns, “Killer of Sheep” is seeped in the cultural accuracies of African-Americans living in L.A’s Watts district. Although critics are fast to point out the Italian neorealism influences, Burnett seems to have created his own unique style here. If anything, “Killer of Sheep” feels like an experimental film, with its non-reliance on narrative and its beautiful, poetic nature. It all amounts to a deeply sad, but sometimes, melancholic experience. It's a film that, even in 2020, still feels way ahead of its time.
“Do the Right Thing” (Spike Lee)
Spike Lee's “Do The Right Thing” celebrates its 31st anniversary this summer and it still packs a wallop. The writer-director’s examination of the racial divide in America is as relevant today as it’s ever been before. Lee wanted to make a movie that would stir things up and light a fire inside our bellies. Well, with “Do the Right Thing,” he made it. With this incendiary statement, Lee shows us an unblinking look at racism on the streets of New York City. Mookie is a pizza delivery boy who works for an Italian-American named Sal, who also happens to be the father of one son who is bigoted and one who isn’t. With two Oscar nominations and a realistic but riveting look at discrimination, Lee shows us both sides of the story. The first time I saw it I felt something I hadn't felt in years; it's a movie of such relevance, poignancy and incendiary truth — I was stunned, scared, shaken to my core. Radio Raheem still lingers in my head, as does Mookie throwing a garbage can at Sal's Pizzeria, Buggin Out with his infamous boycott and Pino's toxic in-your-face-racism. To call Lee’s film a game-changer wouldn’t do it much justice. It brought the kind of impact to American society that felt almost wordlessly powerful. People were shaken; they started asking questions about themselves and their own inherent ideals. Lee’s masterpiece reminds us of the power that art can have on society and the enlightening whiplash that comes in watching such a visionary and powerful creation. The director never made a better movie than "Do The Right Thing" (only his third film at that time), and not many have since.
To Sleep With Anger (Charles Burnett)
Danny Glover, an underrated but gifted actor, outdoes himself in writer-director Charles Burnett’s “To Sleep With Anger.” Glover plays Harry Mention, a mysterious visitor from the Deep South who comes to stay with an old friend, Gideon (Paul Butler), and Gideon’s wife and grown children, in a Los Angeles suburb. Harry’s effect on this Black middle-class family is immediate. He spins tales full of Black folklore, lucky charms, and bad magic, giving this family a background in African-American stories that they seem to have hidden away in their day-to-day lives.. Soon most of the other family members, including Gideon’s wife, Suzie (the outstanding Mary Alice), regard Harry as not just suspicious, but also as a destructive force. It would be unfair to give away too many plot details of this masterful film, but Burnett, one of the most underrated filmmakers in American cinema, mixes past and present, poetry and realism, to make a truly haunting film.
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash)
Julie Dash’s 1991 seminal film about the lives of a family on a small island near South Carolina at the turn of the century, was the first American feature directed by an African-American woman ever to receive a theatrical release. Now, as its 30th year of existence nears, it’s finally getting its due. Following the women of the Peazant family, whose roots come from creole Gullah culture, Dash tackles these former slaves as they live in the coastal Carolinas and prepare to migrate, leaving their land and legacy for the promise of the North. The impressionistic colors that Dash uses to saturate the screen are influenced by African symbolism, and Geechee-Gullah rituals. There have been plenty of movies made about slavery over the years, but not many about the post-slavery narrative from the perspective of those who lived it. “Daughters of the Dust” does that injustice right. No wonder it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2004.
Boyz n the Hood (John Singleton)
It may have been just his directorial debut, but the late John Singleton’s portrayal of the social problems of inner-city Los Angeles is what made “Boyz n the Hood” such a landmark movie. Following three friends and their struggles, conflicts, and mishaps in the ghetto, the Oscar-nominated drama can be considered the originator of the “hood” film. It has a stunning cast, incredible direction and an impeccable script — we still haven’t forgotten the sting of watching Tre, Ricky and Doughboy hustling it up and trying to stay alive. Singleton’s film influenced “Menace II Society” (released just two years after ‘Boyz’), the directorial debut of Allen and Albert Hughes, also about a young street hustler trying to escape the rigors and temptations of the hood. Much like Singleton, the Hughes brothers nailed every detail with that potent, persuasive, and chilling take on life on the streets as an African-American teen.
Malcolm X (Spike Lee)
Spike Lee was trying for years to film the life story of Malcolm X, an activist, spokesman, ideologue, hero, scapegoat, and martyr for the Black community in the ’50s and ’60s. When he was finally given the opportunity, he made sure to splatter the full story on-screen. A 3-hour epic directed with righteous anger and artistic freedom, Lee’s film adapted the autobiography that’s become a staple in school curriculae. This was a historical drama, a character study, and a militant political essay all at once. The term biopic shouldn’t be used when describing Lee’s film because it transcends the genre trope, turning it into a living and breathing thing. Denzel Washington claimed that he could feel the spirit of the late Nation of Islam minister moving through him as he played him on set, and if you’ve seen his performance, then that comment doesn’t seem outrageous at all.
Pariah (Dee Rees)
Here’s a film that ages better with each passing year. Director Dee Rees was the first Black woman nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, for 2017’s “Mudbound” (2017), but more people need to catch up to her 2011 indie debut, “Pariah.” Telling the painful story of Alike (Adepero Oduye), a Black teenager dealing with the realization that she might be gay, the film was under-seen and under-reviewed back in December of 2011. However, with Rees now hitting it big time, “Pariah” needs to be re-evaluated for this new decade. This is a raw and intimate look at a young girl’s path to identity and sexuality. Rees refuses to be blatantly obvious about Alike’s sexuality, but from the very first frame of the film, where Alike shyly stares at exotic dancers grinding at a strip club, there is little doubt about where her sexuality lies.
12 Years A Slave
“12 Years A Slave” is a Steve McQueen film through and through, despite an ending that surprisingly tries to tug at your heartstrings. Then again, that ending is what may have won it the Best Picture Oscar. Some scenes are as tough to watch as any from his brilliant directorial debut, “Hunger”. I’d go as far as to say that this is probably the most realistic portrayal of slavery ever put on celluloid. Don’t go in expecting ”The Color Purple” or “Beloved” — McQueen refuses to flinch at anything. He tries to depict exactly what happened. Fassbender is brilliant as Epps, the cruelest of slave owners with the sole intention of dehumanizing his “assets”. He’s a bible-quoting man with a mean-spirited wife who jealously thinks that her husband is turned on by one of the female slaves, Patsy. And what to make of Chiwetel Ejiofor, excellent in films like “Dirty Pretty Things” and “Redbelt,” but flat out phenomenal in this film. “12 Years To A Slave” feels like a great symphony. It flows effortlessly from one scene to the next with the ability to have you feeling like you’re eavesdropping on an important part of American history.
Selma (Ava DuVernay)
What Ava DuVernay and David Oyelowo accomplished in the Martin Luther King biopic, “Selma”, was miraculous. Watching this 2014 film, you are forced to look at King from all angles. Tackling just how much King sacrificed to maintain and improve Black rights in America and go through the shape-shifting changes of the 1960s, DuVernay’s recreation of the events that led to the march in Selma, Alabama is unprecedentedly rendered by DP extraordinaire, Bradford Young. The historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to peacefully protest Alabama’s segregated voting rights in order to obtain equality across the voting board, startling reminds us of a time in US history that many would prefer to forget. There are nary any light moments in “Selma” — it’s the kind of film that, as you watch history forged in flesh and blood on-screen, hits you straight in the gut.
OJ Made in America (Ezra Edelman)
There was no better movie in 2016 and there was no better non-fiction document this last decade. Thank director Ezra Edelman’s “O.J. Made in America.” Almost no documentary has come close to the gripping, assaultive nature of this 464-minute masterpiece. More engrossing than the FX American Crime Story” series, which, by the way, was gripping in its own right, Edelman’s doc meticulously fleshed out a monstrous story of class and racial warfare in America. The fact that this epic split its screen time between the heated Rodney King riots that were happening in Los Angeles at the time and O.J. Simpson’s infamous murder case was a creative decision of sheer genius and, as it turns out, the definitive way to tell the layered and complex story of how Simpson’s case split America’s racial divide. Director Edelman, whose only other work as a director came from an ESPN sports doc, did have one hell of a story to tell. The result was a film that was all at once historic, meticulous, thematically compelling, and deeply humane. This was a masterwork of scholarship, journalism, and cinematic art.
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
Moonlight was one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the last decade. There’s no disputing that fact. It topped well over 100 critics lists and was instantly deemed a landmark in American cinema by many. What can be said about Barry Jenkins’ film that hasn’t already been told? Set during three transformative periods in the life of a Miami-based African-American gay man, the film is not only, for the most part, a mesmerizing journey into the African-American experience, but it also shatters cinematic taboos that not many have dared touch before it. This was the first major film I could recall to feature two black men passionately kissing onscreen, something previously unheard of, and an incredibly important landmark moment. Jenkins split his film into three different time frames as he followed his protagonist Chiron’s struggle for self-identity in a community that refuses to acknowledge his sexual freedom. The three actors playing Chiron (Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes) were all revelatory. Jenkins molded relevant themes in “Moonlight,” tackling African-American masculinity in ways that were both fresh and perceptive. He created a stylized and, sometimes remarkable, film about a gay black man who goes through a harrowingly internalized journey of self-discovery.
Get Out (Jordan Peele)
Chris Washington, a young African-American male (Daniel Kaluuya) is about to meet the parents of his white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), for a weekend in their posh, but secluded cottage. The old adage of trust none of what you hear and even less of what you see is put to full-throttle here. Don’t expect “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” speechifying, at least not in the hands of first-time director Jordan Peele, one-half of the comedic duo Key and Peele, who has the time of his life messing with our heads his horror-satire “Get Out.” The clever film packed plenty of tension and was the most fun I had in a movie theater all year, but it also found a way to skewer and make critical insights about the race relations in America. “Get Out” wasn’t just a horror-comedy, but it was filled with political fireworks that made it a lot more nuanced and thought-provoking than your average B-movie flick. The film was refreshingly incisive for its stab at the white liberal and conservative elite, something you don’t see much in the media or at the movies these days. Peele was smart enough to skewer all of white America and demand they wake up to the elephant in the room. Hypocrisy seems to be the name of the game and “Get Out” was the most relevant movie of the year.