Celebrating Black Cinema
Items in this hypelist
Shorts
Two Black Boys in Paradise
Baz Sells · 2025
Edan (19) and Dula (18) navigate love, identity, and self-acceptance on a journey about coming into oneself and out to the world. Confronting fear, shame, and societal expectations, the boys rediscover a sense of belonging in their own paradise, in this celebration of queer love, vulnerability, and the power of embracing who you are.
Movies
King Richard
Reinaldo Marcus Green · 2021
The story of how Richard Williams served as a coach to his daughters Venus and Serena, who will soon become two of the most legendary tennis players in history.
American Fiction
Cord Jefferson · 2023
A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.
The Princess and the Frog
Ron Clements · 2009
A waitress, desperate to fulfill her dreams as a restaurant owner, is set on a journey to turn a frog prince back into a human being, but she has to face the same problem after she kisses him.
Soul
Pete Docter · 2020
Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Ryan Coogler · 2022
Queen Ramonda, Shuri, M’Baku, Okoye and the Dora Milaje fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia and Everett Ross and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Justin K. Thompson · 2023
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse’s very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most.
Nope
Jordan Peele · 2022
Residents in a lonely gulch of inland California bear witness to an uncanny, chilling discovery.
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Kasi Lemmons · 2022
The joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom.
Green Book
Peter Farrelly · 2018
Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.
Till
Chinonye Chukwu · 2022
The true story of Mamie Till Mobley’s relentless pursuit of justice for her 14 year old son, Emmett Till, who, in 1955, was lynched while visiting his cousins in Mississippi.
Michael
Antoine Fuqua · 2026
The story of Michael Jackson's life beyond the music, tracing his journey from the discovery of his extraordinary talent as the lead of the Jackson Five, to the visionary artist whose creative ambition fueled a relentless pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world.
Hotel Rwanda
Terry George · 2004
Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.
Blade
Stephen Norrington · 1998
The Daywalker known as "Blade" - a half-vampire, half-mortal man - becomes the protector of humanity against an underground army of vampires.
Moonlight
Barry Jenkins · 2016
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Roots
2016
An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", chronicling the history of an African slave, Kunta Kinte sold to America and his descendants.
Race
Stephen Hopkins · 2016
Based on the story of Jesse Owens, the athlete whose quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.
Creed
Ryan Coogler · 2015
The former World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Balboa serves as a trainer and mentor to Adonis Johnson, the son of his late friend and former rival Apollo Creed.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Bob Persichetti · 2018
Struggling to find his place in the world while juggling school and family, Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales is unexpectedly bitten by a radioactive spider and develops unfathomable powers just like the one and only Spider-Man. While wrestling with the implications of his new abilities, Miles discovers a super collider created by the madman Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk, causing others from across the Spider-Verse to be inadvertently transported to his dimension.
Sing Sing
Greg Kwedar · 2024
Divine G, imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn't commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men in this story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art.
Us
Jordan Peele · 2019
Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
Sorry to Bother You
Boots Riley · 2018
In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, black telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success – which propels him into a macabre universe.
BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee · 2018
Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
The Woman King
Gina Prince-Bythewood · 2022
The story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen, and General Nanisca as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life.
The Six Triple Eight
Tyler Perry · 2024
During World War II, the US Army's only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn't been delivered to American soldiers and finish within six months.
Django Unchained
Quentin Tarantino · 2012
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
Marshall
Reginald Hudlin · 2017
Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, battles through one of his career-defining cases.
Concrete Cowboy
Ricky Staub · 2020
Sent to live with his estranged father for the summer, a rebellious teen finds kinship in a tight-knit Philadelphia community of Black cowboys.
Nickel Boys
RaMell Ross · 2024
Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.
Selma
Ava DuVernay · 2014
"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.
Mudbound
Dee Rees · 2017
In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.
Da 5 Bloods
Spike Lee · 2020
Four African-American Vietnam veterans return to Vietnam. They are in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and the promise of buried treasure. These heroes battle forces of humanity and nature while confronted by the lasting ravages of the immorality of the Vietnam War.
Beasts of No Nation
Cary Joji Fukunaga · 2015
Based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows Agu's journey as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. While he fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination.
The Hate U Give
George Tillman Jr. · 2018
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.
The Help
Tate Taylor · 2011
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.
Two Distant Strangers
Martin Desmond Roe · 2020
A man trying to get home to his dog becomes stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.
Fences
Denzel Washington · 2016
In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Joe Talbot · 2019
Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.
Passing
Rebecca Hall · 2021
In 1920s New York City, a Black woman finds her world upended when her life becomes intertwined with a former childhood friend who's passing as white.
Black Panther
Ryan Coogler · 2018
King T'Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country's new leader. However, T'Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne by factions within his own country as well as without. Using powers reserved to Wakandan kings, T'Challa assumes the Black Panther mantle to join with ex-girlfriend Nakia, the queen-mother, his princess-kid sister, members of the Dora Milaje (the Wakandan 'special forces') and an American secret agent, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
Judas and the Black Messiah
Shaka King · 2021
Bill O'Neal infiltrates the Black Panthers on the orders of FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. As Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton ascends—falling for a fellow revolutionary en route—a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul.
Fruitvale Station
Ryan Coogler · 2013
Oakland, California. Young Afro-American Oscar Grant crosses paths with family members, friends, enemies and strangers before facing his fate on the platform at Fruitvale Station, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009.
Desert Flower
Sherry Hormann · 2009
The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.
The Color Purple
Steven Spielberg · 1985
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
Harriet
Kasi Lemmons · 2019
The extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.
Get Out
Jordan Peele · 2017
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
12 Years a Slave
Steve McQueen · 2013
In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.
Hidden Figures
Theodore Melfi · 2016
The untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson – brilliant African-American women working at NASA and serving as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history – the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.
Sinners
Ryan Coogler · 2025
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Series
Small Axe
Steve McQueen · 2020
An anthology series of five stories looking at the lives of a group of friends and their families in London’s West Indian community from the late 1960s to the early 80s.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Malcolm Spellman · 2021
Following the events of “Avengers: Endgame”, the Falcon, Sam Wilson and the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities, and their patience.
The Get Down
Baz Luhrmann · 2016
In 1977 New York City, the talented and soulful youth of the South Bronx chase dreams and breakneck beats to transform music history.
The Underground Railroad
Barry Jenkins · 2021
Follow young Cora’s journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.
Them
Little Marvin · 2021
A limited anthology series that explores terror in America.
Colin in Black and White
Ava DuVernay, Michael Starrbury · 2021
The life of athlete Colin Kaepernick and his adoptive parents as they navigate the challenges of raising a black son in a white family and community.
When They See Us
Ava DuVernay · 2019
Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.
Uncategorized
My Father's Shadow
Akinola Davies · 2025
Kid brothers Remi and Akin get to spend a gift of a day with their estranged father Folarin. They go on a voyage into Lagos observing the colossal city for the first time and the hoops their father must deal with to provide. All this happens in the backdrop of a huge 1993 presidential election result which calls into question his ability to get them home.
