Hello, dear reader!
It is February, a.k.a. Black History Month. I figured I'd do my part in spreading the word by recommending the movies that I find to be most enlightening, informative and powerful regarding the main themes of Black History Month. Some of my picks on this list focus more on the grim history of racism that needs to be talked about and understood in order for things to get better, while other focus on the positive accomplishments of African-Americans in society and culture.
Here are my honorable mentions: Bamboozled (2000), Black Panther (2018), Becoming (2020), Do the Right Thing (1989), Invictus (2009).
10. Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019)
"If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change"
Miles Davis is undoubtedly one of the giants of popular music history. I'd argue that no other individual has had as much of an impact on jazz music - sure, the genre was around way before he came around, but Davis was there to take it forward in many different ways throughout several decades. The role of non-white musicians has always been downplayed by various systems when talking about music history, but jazz is a genre where African-American culture was so crucial to its birth and direction, that even the Jim Crow -era U.S. couldn't keep musicians like Miles Davis from getting the recognition they deserved.
Of course, Davis did get his share of racist treatment, which is dealt with in a serious manner in this documentary. But a majority of Birth of the Cool focuses on Davis's positive accomplishments, from his genius composition and amazing instrumental skills to his creation of whole new subgenres and his role as the guiding beacon of jazz for a long period of time.
9. The Butler (2013)
"America has always turned a blind eye to what we done to our own. We look out to the world and judge. We hear about the concentration camps, but these camps went on for two hundred years right here in America"
While it is inspired by a real-life person, Lee Daniels' The Butler is ultimately a fictional movie. But it sure has a lot to say about modern American history. It is the story of African-American butler Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), who serves in the White House under several different administrations. The film has a lot of fun in it, as we see various famous actors playing various famous presidents, but there's a much deeper layer to all of it - The Butler is a reflection on the ways that civil rights, racial relations and dialogue about race have changed over the years.
This is especially evident in the storyline of Cecil's son Louis (David Oyelowo), who has the spirit of an activist as he joins the civil rights movement and eventually the Black Panthers - a group often misrepresented in movies and other media, but quite realistically depicted in films like this one. The debates between the protagonist and his son, concerning whether it is worth it to take risks trying to change things when it might put a target on your back, are very gripping and engaging to follow. The Butler paints a complex picture of what those difficult decades were like for many African-American families, and how society's treatment of minorities has shifted over the years.
8. BlacKKKlansman (2018)
"If I am not for myself, who will I be? If I am for myself alone, who am I? If not now, when? And if not you, who? We need an undying love for Black people, wherever we may be. All power to the people"
The defining movie of the Donald Trump era, BlacKKKlansman relays the incredible true story of Ron Stallworth, played here by Denzel's son John David Washington. Stallworth was an African-American police officer who managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan - just think about the skill and cunning required to pull that off for a second. The film features connections to various societal phenomena of the 1970's, from racism within police ranks to the divides within the civil rights movement concerning just how extreme their actions should be. These themes, along with the film's incredible central story of a black police officer sticking it to the KKK, make the film into quite a fitting choice to watch during this month.
Why did I call a film set in the 70's the definitive movie of the Trump era, you ask? Well, for those who have seen the film, the answer is quite obvious - director Spike Lee isn't exactly subtle about the connections between America's history of white supremacy and the Trump presidency, which was the right thing to do (pun intended) in a time when all subtlety was thrown out of the window. This makes BlacKKKlansman into an even better Black History Month film, as it has a lot to say about present-day problems with racism, in addition to telling an empowering and inspiring story from the midst of a grim chapter in history.
7. Marshall (2017)
"The Constitution was not written for us. We know that. But whatever it takes, we're going to make it work for us. From now on, we claim it as our own"
Thurgood Marshall was the first-ever African-American Supreme Court Justice. Before he achieved this milestone, he was a successful attorney with a keen eye on justice and equality. The film Marshall focuses on a defining court case of his career from that time, and Marshall is played by the late great Chadwick Boseman.
In addition to being quite a riveting courtroom drama, the film has a lot to say about important topics - it is set in a time when society was very much set up against any chances of people of color getting ahead in life. As gripping as that is to watch, it is also inspiring to see someone like Thurgood Marshall struggling to fight said obstacles, doing his own part to make the world a better place.
6. Malcolm X (1992)
"We didn't see any democracy on the cotton fields of Georgia, wasn't no democracy down there. We didn't see any democracy. We didn't see any democracy on the streets of Harlem or on the streets of Brooklyn or on the streets of Detroit or Chicago. Ain't no democracy down there. No, we've never seen democracy! All we've seen is hypocrisy!"
In all his controversy, activist Malcolm X is undoubtedly a hugely important figure in Black History. Whether you agree with his polarizing philosophies or not, there's no denying that his words and actions spoke to a lot of people living in anguish and caused some major societal change, and that he met a tragic fate that he didn't deserve. Spike Lee's biopic of the man is an honest portrayal of both his virtues and flaws, and Denzel Washington plays the role with absolute brilliance.
Malcolm X is a gripping film that takes a serious look at the depths surrounding racism in America, and just as you may expect from Spike Lee, the film is far from being black-and-white or over-simplifying. The 3-hour-22-minute epic is filled with dialogue that will definitely make one think - even if you don't agree with Malcolm X's views at all, chances are that this movie, with its depiction of the pain that he and his family endured, will help you understand where he was coming from and why he insisted on the country needing such radical change.
5. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
"I will not fall into despair! I will keep myself hardy until freedom is opportune!"
Hollywood has a long history of belittling the horrors of slavery and the pain the African-American community had to endure in the antebellum United States - films like Gone with the Wind (1939), no matter how great on a cinematic level, are hard to watch due to the offensive notion of slavery being such a smaller deal than it was in reality. Many historians considered Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave to be the first mainstream film to accurately portray what the era was like for African-Americans - quite sad that it took so long to make such a film, but I'm glad someone finally did it.
12 Years a Slave isn't a fun film to watch, but an important one. We live in a time where the Confederacy is somehow still glorified by many (I doubt the image of a Trump supporter carrying a Confederate flag through the halls of the Capitol this January will ever leave my mind), which is why films like this should be watched by all who have been failed by the U.S. education system and don't have a grasp on what that era in history really meant.
4. Hidden Figures (2017)
"Separate and equal are two different things. Just 'cause it's the way, doesn't make it right, understand?"
Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe star in this fantastic film about a truly important true story. I didn't know about the story beforehand, as didn't many other people, for this was the kind of story that the society of the time wanted to keep under wraps - African-American women having a major role to play in the space race of the 1960's didn't sit well with the dominance of the white male at the time. This is why it's great that a book was written about it, and the book was turned into an Oscar-nominated movie, thus educating a lot of people concerning this cool-as-hell story.
The racism (not to mention sexism) of the time is very evident in the film, but so is the perseverance of the community's members and the inspiring struggle against oppression. The film manages to be more inspiring than it is gripping, as the sheer power of those three women breaking through the ranks in NASA to play a vital role in U.S. history is amazing. If you want to watch a film that focuses on the accomplishments and achievements of the Black community, you can't do much better than this.
3. 13th (2016)
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities, we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did"
-John Ehrlichman, former advisor to the Nixon administration
If you want your Black History Month movie choices to be nice and feel-good stories of people coming together to stand up to racism, this might not be the best choice - I can recommend Green Book (2019) for that purpose. But if you're in the right frame of mind to watch a movie that really reflects on realities that many of us should face even though we don't want to, concerning just how racist our history has been, how much pain the African-American people have endured, and how much still needs to be done, this film will certainly fill those purposes.
13th is an expertly done Netflix original documentary about systemic racism in the United States. While the main point is in explaining present-day issues, the film taps into a lot of history in order to truly explain how we came here - lines are drawn all the way from slavery and the Confederacy, through the Jim Crowe era and Nixon's "war on drugs" (read: war on Black people), all the way to the mass incarceration and police brutality that we see today. If there's one film that might inspire you to concretely do something about racism, whether it's a donation to organizations fighting for equality or gathering the courage to speak out against racism when you encounter it, it's this one, which is why I recommend it to exactly everyone.
2. 42 (2013)
"Maybe tomorrow, we'll all wear number 42, so nobody could tell us apart"
I'm glad that more than one film starring the late Chadwick Boseman made it onto this list. The man built a career out of playing various major figures in Black history: Thurgood Marshall in this list's #7, James Brown in Get On Up (2014) and baseball legend Jackie Robinson in this film. It's the gripping-at-times, incredibly-uplifting-at-others story of Robinson becoming the first African-American player in the MLB, and what a true story it is. This major milestone on the road to equality is told in a dramatic, exciting and poignant way by writer and director Brian Helgeland, and Boseman plays the main role with perfection.
42 gains extra points for this list due to the fact that it stars a man who had his own part to play in Black history: Chadwick Boseman starred in the main role of Black Panther (2018), a groundbreaking superhero movie set in Africa with a nearly all-Black cast. The film had an enormous impact on a lot of people, just as the original Black Panther comic books did, due to the genre traditionally being dominated by white people and suffering from lack of diversity. I watched 42 just a day after Boseman's death, and cried my eyes out at a scene where some little kids see Jackie Robinson at a train station, wave to him, and weep in joy as their hero throws them a signed ball. This was the exact same impact that Boseman as an actor had on tons of children of color around the world, by being the Black Panther and living up to the role both on and off the screen. Rest in Power, King.
1. Selma (2014)
"What happens when a man steps up and says, 'Enough is enough'?"
No film that I have seen epitomizes Black history quite as fully as Selma. The movie has it all: an honest account of the racism within our history, the inspiring nature of the civil rights movement and the struggle against racism, a beautiful portrayal of the strength and courage of Black history giants such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, and an uplifting message about equality. Watching Selma will make you angry at how some things haven't changed in 56 years, but other parts of the film will make you glad that things aren't nearly as bad as they were then - I don't mean this as a point to downplay the struggles of today, but rather as a point to honor and respect the sacrifices that the Civil Rights movement of the 60's made in order to take things in the right direction.
Selma rightfully won the Oscar for Best Original Song, as Common & John Legend's Glory is a powerful and tear-jerking testament to the heroes of the Civil Rights movement and everything they stood for. David Oyelowo plays the larger-than-life role of Dr. King about as well as such a challenging role could be played, and if you're not that familiar with that part of history, this film will certainly explain why MLK is considered by many (myself included) to be one of the most important, most inspiring and simply best people in history.
Thank you for reading! Next week is Valentine's Day, so I'll finally post a list that has been recommended for my blog by friends and family more than any other topic: the top 10 romantic comedies. Stay tuned!
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