The American Negro

2017

I Am Not Your Negro

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.

1972

Sounder

The 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.

2014

Selma

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

2007

The Great Debaters

The true story of a brilliant but politically radical debate team coach who uses the power of words to transform a group of underdog African-American college students into a historical powerhouse that took on the Harvard elite.

2020

The Banker

In the 1960s, two entrepreneurs hatch an ingenious business plan to fight for housing integration—and equal access to the American Dream.

2019

Seberg

An ambitious young FBI agent is assigned to investigate iconic actress Jean Seberg when she becomes embroiled in the tumultuous civil rights movement in late 1960s Los Angeles.

2017

Marshall

Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, battles through one of his career-defining cases.

2014

Get On Up

A chronicle of James Brown's rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history.

2021

Son of the South

In civil rights era Montgomery, Alabama, Klansman's grandson Bob Zellner must choose which side of history to be on during the Movement. Defying his family and white Southern norms, he fought against social injustice, repression and violence to change the world around him

2016

In Dubious Battle

In the California apple country, 900 migratory workers rise 'in dubious battle' against the landowners. The group takes on a life of its own—stronger than its individual members, and more frightening. Led by the doomed Jim Nolan, the strike is founded on his tragic idealism—'courage, never submit, or yield'.

2019

The Green Book: Guide to Freedom

In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.

2016

Free State of Jones

In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.

1962

To Kill a Mockingbird

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.

2013

The Butler

Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with alcoholism and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way.

2012

Lincoln

The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

2020

Audrey

An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).

1964

Nothing But a Man

Railroad laborer Duff Anderson struggles to maintain his dignity and marriage to a preacher's daughter in the racially segregated South.

1994

The Shawshank Redemption

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

2013

42

In 1947, Jackie Robinson becomes the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball facing unabashed racism from the public, the press and other players.

2021

In the Heights

The story of Usnavi, a bodega owner who has mixed feelings about closing his store and retiring to the Dominican Republic or staying in Washington Heights.