Other great black films

I enjoyed...

Sometimes in April
The Color Purple
Fried Green Tomatoes
Set it off
Life Support

~I love the rhythm it is my methoood!~

Honeydripper

An admirable effort to list.

However, many of the films listed in this thread by you - and, below, by others - on this topic are in my opinion stories about African American history and society, told with white people at the centers of the stories. "Mississippi Burning" places FBI agents at the center, where they are the active characters. "Blind Side" focuses on the mother. Similarly, "Ghosts of Mississippi" makes the attorney the center of our attention. This is the nearsightedness apparent in Hollywood filmmaking, and they serve to frame our understanding of African Americans in ways that make them the victims and the objects of study - not the subjects.

A list of great "black films" should in my opinion focus upon the thoughts and behaviors of black characters, even as they interact with non-black others. Such a list should include "Precious" and "The Color Purple" as well as "Sounder" and "Raisin in the Sun" and "Bamboozled" and "Mississippi Masala" and "A Soldier's Story" and "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and "Boyz in the Hood" and "Ali" and "The Great White Hope" and maybe "Waiting to Exhale." And while it's about Africans, not African Americans, I would include also "Hotel Rwanda."

The Great Debaters
Panther
Malcolm X
Glory

:)


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