Introduction to Afrocentric Cinema Studies
This list is a great introduction to studying African and African Diaspora cinema and film history. Afrocentric Films Collaborative has put together this collection of quality Black Cinema so the general public can research these titles and know that these titles and stories exist. Each title is centered on some aspect of Africa and its Diaspora experience. This goal of this list is to show the rich diversity of storytelling we have as well as the plethora of stories that have not been told and must be told to e positives stories and images of Black/African peoples and cultures.
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- DirectorMichael SchultzStarsGlynn TurmanLawrence Hilton-JacobsGarrett MorrisIn 1964 on Chicago's Near-North Side, the lives of four carefree high school seniors and best friends, including an aspiring playwright and an all-city basketball champion, takes a tragic turn.
- 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.
- DirectorTaylor HackfordStarsJamie FoxxRegina KingKerry WashingtonThe story of the life and career of the legendary rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles, from his humble beginnings in the South, where he went blind at age seven, to his meteoric rise to stardom during the 1950s and 1960s.
- DirectorRobert TownsendStarsRobert TownsendMichael WrightLeonThe story of the rise and fall of an African American vocal group.
- DirectorMichael RoemerStarsIvan DixonAbbey LincolnJulius HarrisA black man and his school-teacher wife face discriminatory challenges in 1960s America.
- DirectorJohn SingletonStarsCuba Gooding Jr.Laurence FishburneHudhail Al-AmirFollows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.
- StarsOprah WinfreyMary AliceOlivia ColeA multi-generational story of the lives of several black women who call an inner-city tenement home.
- DirectorIvan DixonStarsLawrence CookJanet LeaguePaula KellyA black man plays 'uncle Tom' in order to gain access to CIA training, then uses that knowledge to plot a new American revolt.
- DirectorSidney J. FurieStarsDiana RossBilly Dee WilliamsRichard PryorThe story of the troubled life and career of the legendary Jazz singer, Billie Holiday.
- DirectorSouleymane CisséStarsIssiaka KaneAoua SangareNiamanto SanogoA young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.
- DirectorVincente MinnelliBusby BerkeleyStarsEthel WatersEddie 'Rochester' AndersonLena HorneA compulsive gambler dies during a shooting, but he'll receive a second chance to reform himself and to make up with his worried wife.
- 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.
- 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.
- DirectorDouglas SirkStarsLana TurnerJohn GavinSandra DeeAn aspiring white actress takes in an African American widow whose mixed-race daughter is desperate to be seen as white.
- 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.
- StarsLeVar BurtonRobert ReedJohn AmosA dramatization of author Alex Haley's family line from ancestor Kunta Kinte's enslavement to his descendants' liberation.
- DirectorGina Prince-BythewoodStarsSanaa LathanOmar EppsGlenndon ChatmanMonica and Quincy love and play basketball together through many life challenges from childhood to adulthood.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsDenzel WashingtonAngela BassettDelroy LindoBiographical epic of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader, from his early life and career as a small-time gangster, to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his eventual assassination.
- DirectorRobert TownsendStarsRobert TownsendCraigus R. JohnsonHelen MartinAn actor limited to stereotypical roles because of his ethnicity, dreams of making it big as a highly respected performer. As he makes his rounds, the film takes a satiric look at African American actors in Hollywood.
- DirectorBoaz YakinStarsSean NelsonGiancarlo EspositoSamuel L. JacksonDeath and violence anger a twelve-year-old drug courier, who sets his employers against each other.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsMbissine Thérèse DiopAnne-Marie JelinekRobert FontaineA black girl from Senegal becomes a servant in France.
- DirectorOtto PremingerRouben MamoulianStarsSidney PoitierDorothy DandridgeSammy Davis Jr.A woman whose past is scorned by nearly everyone around her meets a man who'd love her regardlessly- if only everyone else would allow them to.
- DirectorCharles LaneStarsCharles LaneNicole AlysiaTom AlpernNearly silent comedy filmed in black and white follows a street artist (Charles Lane), who rescues a baby after her father was murdered. The artist then sets off to find the mother, but has to first learn how to care for the child. Ultimately he ends up in a horse drawn chase of the murderers.
- DirectorBrian GibsonStarsAngela BassettLaurence FishburneRaéVen KellyThe story of singer Tina Turner's rise to stardom and how she gained the courage to break free from her abusive husband, Ike Turner.
- DirectorKim NguyenStarsRachel MwanzaAlain Lino Mic Eli BastienSerge KanyindaSomewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona, a 14-year-old girl, tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.
- DirectorTheodore WitcherStarsLarenz TateNia LongIsaiah WashingtonDarius Lovehall is a young black poet in Chicago who starts dating Nina Mosley, a beautiful and talented photographer. While trying to figure out if they've got a "love thing" or are just "kicking it," they hang out with their friend, talking about love and sex. Then Nina tests the strength of Darius' feelings and sets a chain of romantic complications into motion.
- DirectorJules DassinStarsRaymond St. JacquesRuby DeeFrank SilveraIn this landmark collaboration between activist and actress Ruby Dee and director Jules Dassin, Black revolutionaries are betrayed by one of their own. Based on the 1935 classic "The Informer."
- DirectorJustin ChadwickStarsNaomie HarrisOliver LitondoTony KgorogeThe story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau veteran who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.
- DirectorMartin RittStarsCicely TysonPaul WinfieldKevin HooksThe oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.
- DirectorDarrell RoodtStarsLeleti KhumaloLihle MvelasePepi KhambuleAfter falling ill, Yesterday learns that she is HIV positive. With her husband in denial and young daughter to tend to, Yesterday's one goal is to live long enough to see her child go to school.
- DirectorRalph NelsonStarsCicely TysonPaul WinfieldLarry B. ScottA troubled boy (Larry B. Scott) becomes addicted to heroin, and his mother (Cicely Tyson) and foster father (Paul Winfield) help him fight it.
- DirectorSam O'SteenStarsPhilip Michael ThomasIrene CaraLonette McKeeThree sisters form a singing group in 1950s Harlem, but success threatens to ruin their relationship forever.
- DirectorDoug AtchisonStarsAngela BassettLaurence FishburneKeke PalmerAkeelah, a young gifted girl, comes from a dysfunctional family and is on the verge of quitting school. She discovers that she has a high aptitude for spellings and enters a spelling bee contest.
- DirectorGeorge Tillman Jr.StarsVanessa WilliamsVivica A. FoxNia LongOne person can keep a family together and, when that one person is gone, a family can be torn apart.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsFatoumata CoulibalyMaimouna Hélène DiarraSalimata TraoréWhen a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.
- StarsCicely TysonJason BernardClifford DavidA film about the life and career of the African American abolitionist and slave escape leader, Harriet Tubman.
- DirectorTono ErrandoJavier MariscalFernando TruebaStarsEman Xor OñaLimara MenesesMario GuerraChico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.
- DirectorIdrissa OuedraogoStarsFatimata SangaNoufou OuédraogoRoukietou BarryA small village in Burkina Faso. The story focuses on Bila, a ten year old boy who befriends an old woman, Sana. Everybody calls her 'Witch' but Bila himself calls her 'Yaaba' (grandmother). When Bila's cousin Nopoko gets sick it is Sana's medicine who saves her.
- DirectorRichard AttenboroughStarsDenzel WashingtonKevin KlineJosette SimonSouth African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee the country after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend, the Black anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko.
- DirectorMilos FormanStarsJames CagneyElizabeth McGovernHoward E. Rollins Jr.A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
- DirectorDee ReesStarsAdepero OduyeKim WayansAasha DavisA Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.
- DirectorJohn BerryStarsDiahann CarrollJames Earl JonesLawrence Hilton-JacobsIn the 1970s Harlem, garbage collector Roop feels intimidated by the idea of dating Claudine who is a single mother of six on welfare.
- DirectorAlbert HughesAllen HughesStarsTyrin TurnerLarenz TateJune Kyoto LuA young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsDenzel WashingtonVicellous ShannonDeborah Kara UngerThe story of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.
- DirectorMichael CampusStarsRony ClantonDon GordonJoyce WalkerA gifted young man is caught up in gang life.
- DirectorF. Gary GrayStarsIce CubeChris TuckerNia LongIt's Friday, and Craig and Smokey must come up with $200 they owe a local bully or there won't be a Saturday.
- DirectorF. Gary GrayStarsO'Shea Jackson Jr.Corey HawkinsJason MitchellThe rap group NWA emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California, in the mid-1980s and revolutionizes Hip Hop culture with their music and tales about life in the hood.
- DirectorAndrew L. StoneStarsLena HorneBill RobinsonCab Calloway and His Cotton Club OrchestraThe relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African-American entertainers of the early 1900s.
- DirectorLarry PeerceStarsBarbara BarrieBernie HamiltonRichard MulliganIn his wanderlust, Joe Cullen moves from the US to South America to work in a mining camp, he leaving behind his wife Julie and their infant daughter, Ellen Mary. After Joe stops writing and sending money, Julie, not expecting Joe ever to return to her in he being dissatisfied with married life, files for divorce, and moves with Ellen Mary to the town of Howard to start life anew working in the payroll department of Howard Factory. Among the people she meets and befriends in Howard is coworker Frank Richards, the friendship with him which slowly but eventually blossoms into romance. Despite some opposition from his parents, especially his father, Frank and Julie get married, Frank, in the process, becoming the only father that Ellen Mary has really ever known, a loving one at that. After Julie and Frank have a child of their own, William so named after his father, Joe, four years after his departure, returns solely wanting to reestablish a relationship of sorts with now adolescent Ellen Mary. After Joe sees Julie's new life, he changes his want from that relationship with Ellen Mary to suing for full custody. The sole issue, originally with William's Sr.'s objection to the marriage, and to Joe's want for full custody, is that Julie and Joe, and thus by association Ellen Mary, are white, while Frank is black.
- DirectorHector BabencoStarsFernando Ramos da SilvaJorge JuliãoGilberto MouraThe life of a boy on the streets of Sao Paulo, involved with crimes, prostitution, and drugs.
- DirectorPhilip LeacockStarsJohnny NashEstelle HemsleyRuby DeeA black high school senior struggles with becoming a man, and living in a middle class white neighborhood in the late 1950s U.S. In protest of the paternalistic views of the Civil War emphasized in his history class, he storms out and gets caught smoking a cigar in the boys' room. Spence's crush on a white classmate goes nowhere because of her father's attitude toward blacks. His outspoken grandmother seems the only one who understands his angry growing pains, at the early stages of the U.S.'s Civil Rights Era.
- DirectorDebbie AllenStarsLynn WhitfieldVanessa WilliamsJasmine GuyFour young black women are trying to achieve their dreams of success in the 1930s Harlem.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsSidney PoitierRod SteigerWarren OatesA black Philadelphia police detective is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case.
- DirectorGordon ParksStarsKyle JohnsonAlex ClarkeEstelle EvansA bittersweet, idyllic story about a year in the life of 14-year-old Newt Winger, born into a poor Black family in Kansas, who learns about love, fear, racial injustice, and immorality.
- DirectorMel StuartStarsThe DramaticsThe Staple SingersKim WestonDocumentary covering a Stax Records-sponsored all-day concert at the 1972 Watts Summer Festival with performances by Stax Records artists such as Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas, The Staples Singers, and more.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsHoward E. Rollins Jr.Adolph CaesarArt EvansAn African-American officer investigates a murder in a racially charged situation in World War II.
- DirectorRaoul PeckStarsEriq EbouaneyAlex DescasThéophile SowiéThe true story of controversial leader of independent Congo Patrice Lumumba.
- 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.
- DirectorJordan PeeleStarsDaniel KaluuyaAllison WilliamsBradley WhitfordA young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.
- CreatorDavid SimonStarsDominic WestLance ReddickSonja SohnThe Baltimore drug scene, as seen through the eyes of drug dealers and law enforcement.
- StarsT.K. CarterKhandi AlexanderSean NelsonChronicles a West Baltimore family living in poverty on the front lines of America's drug war.
- DirectorJoe TalbotStarsJimmie FailsJonathan MajorsRob MorganA young man searches for home in the changing city that seems to have left him behind.
- DirectorDavid HicksonStarsJunior SingoOwen SejakeMary TwalaYoung Musa is orphaned after a mysterious illness strikes his village in KwaZulu Natal. To help his grandmother, Musa sets out for Johannesburg with his father's last gift, a tribal drum, in search of work and his uncle. The journey confronts him with the stark realities of urban life, but his indomitable spirit never wavers; he returns with a truth and understanding his elders have failed to grasp.
- CreatorAaron McGruderStarsRegina KingJohn WitherspoonGary Anthony WilliamsBrothers Huey and Riley Freeman experience a culture clash when they leave Chicago to move in with their grandfather in the suburbs.
- 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.
- StarsJohn BeasleyMary AliceUlysses ZakeryA weekend in the life of the Arnett family. The events of a forty eight hour period have a rainbow of incidents. From a preacher to a drug dealer; from an innocent young school girl to a reformed drug addict gone bad. The same scenario that millions of American families encounter each day in suburbia; both black and white and brown and yellow. There are no racial boundaries to the ups and downs of the real American life.
- DirectorPeter LevinStarsCicely TysonMorgan FreemanRodrick F. WimberlyIn this touching story, a dedicated African-American teacher in an inner-city school in the midwestern United States facing tough odds helps inner-city children to succeed. Meanwhile, she faces an adversarial colleague and a principal who disapproves of her teaching methods. To top it off, a youth regularly messes up the classroom after school to tick the teacher off.
- DirectorJohn KortyStarsCicely TysonEric BrownRichard DysartStory of a black woman in the South who was born into slavery in the 1850s and lives to become a part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
- DirectorDon CoscarelliStarsBruce CampbellOssie DavisBob IvyWhen residents of their nursing home start dying of dubious causes, an aged Elvis and an African-American senior who claims to be President John F. Kennedy discover that the perpetrator is an Egyptian mummy with murderous intentions.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneThierno Faty SowStarsSidiki BakabaHamed CamaraIsmaila CisséIn this semi-autobiographical film, black soldiers help to defend France, but are detained in prison camp before being repatriated home.
- DirectorJohn BerryStarsDiahann CarrollRosalind CashIrene CaraMaya Angelou's story of the family stresses that occur when an older sister (Diahann Carroll) attempts to maintain a home, left by her revered father, in an ultra-moralistic way (regardless of the fact that she is secretly having an affair with the married preacher). Nevertheless, her uptight need to maintain a sense of propriety of course goes against the wishes of her much younger sister (Irene Cara) who, as an accomplished ice skater, is striving for her own independence. And if this isn't enough, into it is suddenly thrust a third sister (Rosalind Cash), who is a single mother with a pre-teen son, who "comes home" with her boy after living for years in the ghettos of Detroit. And because she is the complete antithesis of her older sister in morals and deportment, she immediately sides with her younger sister against the strictures set down in the home.
- DirectorTina MabryStarsAdam ClarkMalcolm GoodwinMichael HyattThree poor Black kids in rural Mississippi reap the consequences of their family's cycle of abuse, addiction, and violence.
- DirectorDjibril Diop MambétyStarsMoussa BaldéLissa BaleraAminata FallA girl sells copies of Soleil, the government paper.
- DirectorKasi LemmonsStarsDon CheadleChiwetel EjioforBruce McFeeThe story of Washington D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist in the 1960s.
- CreatorVeena SudStarsClare-Hope AshiteyBeau KnappMichael MosleyTensions run high between black citizens and white cops in Jersey City when a black teenage boy is critically injured by a cop.
- DirectorEuzhan PalcyStarsGarry CadenatDarling LégitimusDouta SeckSet in 1931, Sugar Cane Alley paints a rich impasto of native life under French colonial rules, filtered through the coming-of-age of a bright, sweetly opportunistic boy.
- CreatorAva DuVernayStarsAsante BlackkCaleel HarrisEthan HerisseFive teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park. Based on the true story.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsJeffrey HunterWoody StrodeConstance TowersRespected Black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior officer.
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsLaurence FishburneDaniel WilliamsBill CobbsA former prisoner tries to save a neighbor youth from following him down the wrong path.
- DirectorGordon ParksStarsRoger E. MosleyPaul BenjaminMadge SinclairBiography of the legendary folksinger, Huddie Ledbetter, master of the 12-string guitar and long-time convict on Texas and Louisiana chain gangs.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsOumarou GandaGambiPetit Touré"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor in Treichville, envious of the bordering quarters of The Plateau (the business and industrial district) and the old African quarter of Adjame. The film traces a week in these immigrants' lives, blurring the line between their characters' routines and their own. Every morning, Tarzan, Eddy Constantine and Edward G. Robinson seek work in Treichville in hopes of getting the 20 francs that a bowl of soup costs them. They perform menial jobs as dockers carrying sacks and handy labor shipping supplies to Europe. At night, they drink away their sorrows in bars while dreaming about their idealized lives as their "movie" alter-egos, alternatively as an FBI Agent, a womanizing bachelor, a successful boxer, and even able to stand up to the white colonialists that seduce away their women. These dream-like sequences are shot in a poetic mode. Each day is introduced by an interstitial voice of god omniscient narration from Jean Rouch, providing a universal thematic distance to the movie's events. The film is book-ended by a narration directed at both Petit Jules and the audience from Edward G. Robinson fondly looking back on his childhood in Niger and concluding that his life is worthy of his dreams.
- DirectorBrian HelgelandStarsChadwick BosemanT.R. KnightHarrison FordIn 1947, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era when he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers and faces considerable racism in the process.
- DirectorSara BlecherStarsJafta MamaboloThomas GumedeSihle XabaWhen 16 year old Otelo Buthelezi, his best friend, New Year, and his 12 year old brother, Ntwe, are invited to the beach-house of their new friend, Tau Modise, they step into a world previously closed to them. It is exactly the opposite of their township- a place under a constant and growing threat from political violence, driven by Inkatha hostel dwellers on one side and township United Democratic Front comrades on the other. Soon, everyone recognizes that Otelo is gifted on the water, a god in waiting for his purpose. An older white man, Kurt Struely, approaches the boys, certain of their potential and invites them to his home to watch some professional surfers on video. He paints them an enticing picture of the life to be had, if they can master every kind of break - money for nothing and the chicks for free. The boys practice and, under Struely's watchful eye, become really good. Otelo outshines his teacher, Tau, who begins to resent the obvious natural talent of his friend. His resentment builds even more when Dezi, New Year's younger sister, falls for Otelo. When Struely enters the boys into their first 'localism' competition, Tau persuades his cousin, Stembiso, to look after Ntwe at the township pool where the boys learnt to swim. But while the boys are carving out new paradigms on the water, Tau breaks his prized surfing board and Ntwe is burnt to death with a tire necklace as a suspected informer for the apartheid security police. When Otelo, with New Year's help, discovers the truth behind his younger brother's death, he has to make a choice between the money, glamour, girls and superstardom of international surfdom and justice for Ntwe. On the day Nelson Mandela steps out of prison for the first time in 27 years, what this boy chooses will resonate for audiences everywhere. He whisks her off and they spend a day of pure joy and freedom. For a moment, Anna forgets her predicament. But there is one problem. He does not have a South African passport. Now Anna must choose: between marrying for the sake of personal freedom, or loving even if it means having to leave.
- DirectorCarlos López EstradaStarsDaveed DiggsRafael CasalJanina GavankarWhile on probation, a man begins to re-evaluate his relationship with his volatile best friend.
- DirectorGuy GreenStarsSidney PoitierShelley WintersElizabeth HartmanA blind, uneducated white girl is befriended by a black man who becomes determined to help her escape her impoverished and abusive home life by introducing her to the outside world.
- DirectorHubert CornfieldStarsSidney PoitierBobby DarinPeter FalkA black prison psychiatrist is assigned the distasteful task of helping a paranoid American Nazi charged with sedition.
- DirectorIdrissa OuedraogoStarsRasmané OuédraogoIna CisséRoukietou BarrySet in a pre-colonial African past, Tilai is about an illicit love affair and its consequences. Saga returns to his village after an extended absence to discover that his father has taken Nogma, Saga's promised bride, for himself. Still in love with each other, the two begin an affair, although it would be considered incestuous. When the liaison is discovered, Saga's brother, Koudri, pretends to kill Saga for the honor of the family and village. Saga and Nogma flee to another village, but when Nogma's birth mother dies, he returns home. Having brought ruin on the family, Saga is shot by Koudri, who walks off into exile and probable death.
- DirectorAva DuVernayStarsDavid OyelowoCarmen EjogoOprah WinfreyA chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
- DirectorAnthony HarveyStarsShirley KnightAl Freeman Jr.Frank LiebermanWith the provocation of her lovely half-naked body and strikingly lascivious speech, Lula, a sinister, neurotic white girl, lures to his doom Clay, a good-looking young Black stranger whom she has picked up in the subway and starts mocking for wearing the clothes and employing the voice and manners of the conventional white intellectual. At first Clay sees no reason to resist Lula's advances; only when it's too late does he realise she's using him, drops his "'white' disguise" and launches a wild, bitter counterattack on her and on the entire white race.
- DirectorTed BafaloukosStarsLeroy 'Horsemouth' WallaceRichard 'Dirty Harry' HallMonica CraigHorsemouth sets himself up in business selling records but when gangsters steal his bike things start to turn nasty. As tensions build, Horsemouth and friends plot to end the gangsters reign of terror and restore justice to the people of Kingston.
- DirectorFranco RossoStarsDavid N. HaynesTrevor LairdVictor Romero EvansThe movie centres around Brindsley Forde's character Blue. He fronts a reggae sound system based in South West London (Brixton). The film captures the trials and tribulations of young black youths in troubled London in the early eighties.
- DirectorAnnie SilversteinStarsRob MorganAmber HavardYolonda RossIn a near-abandoned subdivision west of Houston, a wayward teen runs headlong into her equally willful and unforgiving neighbor, an aging bull rider who's seen his best days in the arena; it's a collision that will change them both.
- DirectorBasil DeardenStarsPatrick McGoohanKeith MichellBetsy BlairThis movie, based on William Shakespeare's Othello, is neatly positioned as a vehicle to showcase some of the best jazz musicians of the period, including Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus.
- DirectorMarcel CamusStarsBreno MelloMarpessa DawnLourdes de OliveiraA retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set during the time of the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.
- DirectorBarry JenkinsStarsKiKi LayneStephan JamesRegina KingA young woman embraces her pregnancy while she and her family set out to prove her childhood friend and lover innocent of a crime he didn't commit.
- DirectorNelson Pereira dos SantosStarsModesto De SouzaRoberto BataglinJece ValadãoA semi-documentary on the people of Rio de Janeiro. The camera follows boys from a hillside shanty town who sell peanuts at Copacabana, Sugar Loaf Mountain, and a soccer game. Various subplots, involving characters they meet along the way, are interspersed.
- DirectorSpike LeeStarsAlfre WoodardDelroy LindoDavid Patrick KellySpike Lee's vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school teacher, her stubborn jazz musician husband and their five kids living in Brooklyn in 1973.
- DirectorJoseph SargentStarsJames Earl JonesMartin BalsamBurgess MeredithAn African-American senator becomes the designated survivor of a tragic accident that kills the President of the United States. Now the first black President, he attempts to end the bigotry and divide standing in his way.
- StarsEllis HaizlipGerry BledsoeJerry ButlerAmerica's first "Black Tonight Show." From 1968 to 1973, of a nation. 'Soul!' Brought Black Culture to TV. Ellis Haizlip ensures the Revolution will be televised with "SOUL!,"
- DirectorZoltan KordaStarsCanada LeeSidney PoitierCharles CarsonIn the back country of South Africa, black minister Stephen Kumalo (Canada Lee) journeys to the city to search for his missing son, only to find his people living in squalor and his son a criminal. Reverend Msimangu (Sidney Poitier) is a young South African clergyman who helps find his missing son-turned-thief and sister-turned-prostitute in the slums of Johannesburg.