Black History Month: My Top 10 Favorite Black Filmmakers

Greetings, reader!

It's February, and therefore Black History Month. I've already covered the most obvious Top 10 lists relating to the month's themes - if you're interesting in reading these posts from previous years, click on the titles below:

Top 10 Movies to Watch During Black History Month

Top 10 TV Episodes to Watch During Black History Month

Top 10 Movies by Black Directors

This time, I'm celebrating the works of African-American artists by ranking my top 10 favorite Black filmmakers! Here are my honorable mentions: Barry Jenkins, Lee Daniels, Stanley Nelson.

10. Jeymes Samuel

Relative newcomer Jeymes Samuel only has one feature film under his belt thus far, but it's a rock-solid one: The Harder They Fall, the all-Black western that made it into my top 10 favorite films of 2021. This debut immediately sold me on Samuel's directorial talents, with his style being delightfully Tarantino-influenced yet still with a voice of its own.

Samuel has also directed the music video for Jay-Z's Legacy, which isn't as much an ordinary music video as it is a gripping 10-minute short film. The director is currently working on his second feature film Pins and Needles. Little is known of this upcoming project, but as it's described as a 'Biblical comedy' and the the dynamite cast includes big names like James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch and the world's most underrated actor LaKeith Stanfield, I'm extremely hyped up for the outcome, and generally invested in following the direction of Jeymes Samuel's promising filmmaking career.

9. Reginald Hudlin

As most filmmakers tend to do, Reginald Hudlin dabbled in activities like production teams and the directing of television episodes et cetera, before embracing the director's chair for feature films. Hudlin's dabbling is much more impressive than that of the average director, however: having directed quality episodes of sitcoms like The Office, Modern Family and New Girl, as well as being one of the major producers for Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (which even earned Hudlin a spot in the film's Best Picture Oscar nomination), his filmmaking CV is to be taken seriously.

This is especially the case thanks to Marshall (2017), his best-known feature film to date: starring the late great Chadwick Boseman, the film tells the story of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Much of the film's subdued yet inspiring atmosphere is thanks to Hudlin's steady directing, truly making him a name to look out for in the world of cinema. He's currently working on multiple upcoming films, such as World War II flick Black Cotton Star and jazz music voodoo fantasy flick (yes, you read that correctly) Shadowman.

8. Donald Glover

In addition of being one of my top 3 favorite rappers, top 5 favorite stand-up comedians, top 10 favorite movie/TV writers and probably top 10 favorite current actors, the insane multi-talent Donald Glover (also known by stage name Childish Gambino) is also quite the director, truly raising the question "is there anything this dude can't do?".

Mind you, Glover's directorial filmography is quite limited thus far - he has exactly one short film, one music video and 9 episodes of Atlanta (2016-2022) under his belt. But that is enough to impress me - the short film Chicken and Futility (2014) is awesome, the music video to Feels Like Summer is an artistic masterpiece, and the episodes he directed for his series Atlanta are some of the most barrier-breaking television I've seen. I mean, the episode B.A.N. (Season 1 episode 7) is presented as a complete episode of a fictional talk show on a fictional channel, down to there being commercial breaks as a part of the 'broadcast', as Glover went out of his way to direct several fake commercials that tie in to the episode's themes.

One of these days, he's going to make a feature film, and I'm betting it'll be one banger of a movie.

7. Steve McQueen

No, not that Steve McQueen. Amusingly having the exact same name as the 1960's action star, the Black McQueen may have faced an uphill battle of (literally) making a name for himself in the beginning of his career. By now I think it's safe to say that he has become quite the icon in his own right - after all, his best-known film 12 Years a Slave (2013) became the first film written, directed and produced by an African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

That is quite the legacy to have, and a deserved one at that - 12 Years a Slave is one hell of a film. Its ambition, gripping nature and empowering themes make it one of the more deserving Best Picture winners of the 2010's, and a historic landmark for Black cinema in more ways than one - not only did it find unprecedented critical acclaim for a film by African-American filmmakers, but it also shed a completely authentic and true-to-facts light on the depth of American slavery in a way that no mainstream film had done before (by 2013, one could say that it was about damn time that American cinema showed what that era was really like, as opposed to the washed-down version we'd been spoonfed until then).

6. John Singleton

The late John Singleton was, among other things, the first African-American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. This was for his magnificent debut film Boyz n the Hood (1991), which is a haunting, gripping cornerstone of African-American cinema. My own life experiences are about as far from 'the hood' as can be, so I can't personally speak to the film's authenticity - I have, however, read many reviews by people with more authentic experience, claiming that this movie is a more accurate representation of that world than any other. I'll take their word for it.

While Boyz n the Hood alone earns Singleton a spot among the greats, I'll also give a shout-out to his work directing The Fast and the Furious sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003). While it's one of the overall lesser offerings of the franchise, the actual directing is surprisingly decent amidst Michael Brandt & Derek Haas' disjointed writing and the absence of beloved characters. With 2 Fast 2 Furious, Singleton proved that he can coordinate the hell out of a big-budget action sequence, in addition to his better-known skill of directing gritty, down-to-earth human drama.

5. Ava DuVernay

The best-known work by Ava DuVernay's career so far is undoubtedly 2014's Selma, which details key moments from the Civil Rights movement in the 60's, starring David Oyelowo as Dr. King himself. The film is especially praiseworthy for how true it stays to facts - I've seen studies comparing the rate of real events, semi-real events and made-up events in mainstream biopics from the last decade, and Selma has blown pretty much all of its competitors out of the park in terms of how much of the story, individual scenes and dialogue is based on reality.

But for me personally, Selma isn't even DuVernay's best work - she outdid herself with 2016's 13th, which is currently sitting at the #2 spot on my list of all-time favorite documentaries. Detailing the history, facts and current situation of systemic racism in the U.S., 13th is as educational and eye-opening as it is disturbing and heartbreaking, not to mention how well-researched and truthful it all is. DuVernay clearly has an eye for powerful cinema on the subjects of race, history and civil rights, which makes me all the more amped up for her upcoming release Caste, described as a historical drama about the unspoken systems of inequality in the United States.

4. Ryan Coogler

In terms of relevant and influential African-American filmmakers today - if Ava DuVernay is the symbolic mother-figure warning and teaching you about serious and important issues, then Ryan Coogler is the symbolic cool big brother -figure, taking you on neat adventures and generally providing a good time. First of all, the young and imaginative Coogler is to be thanked for Creed, the fantastic legacy sequel to the Rocky movies, that stars the phenomenal Michael B. Jordan as Apollo Creed's son Adonis, while earning Sylvester Stallone an Oscar nomination as the old, washed-up Rocky Balboa. Ryan Coogler's directing knocks it out of the park, both in the intense boxing sequences and in the drama outside of the ring, making for a film arguably even better than the original Rocky.

But, even more importantly, Ryan Coogler is the man behind Black Panther. It's not every day that an MCU superhero flick wins three Academy Awards (Costume Design, Production Design, Original Score) and is nominated for several more (including Best Picture), but in this case, it was thoroughly deserved. Coogler does a remarkable job bringing the vibrant world of Wakanda to life, while bringing out the very best in both the villain (Coogler's go-to actor Michael B. Jordan playing the Shakespearean role of Erik Killmonger) and the hero (the late great Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa). Wakanda forever!

3. F. Gary Gray

This master of the 90's burst onto the scene with music videos, having directed such projects for Dr. Dre, Coolio, and most famously, Ice Cube with the iconic It Was a Good Day (1993). Gray's feature film debut was none other than 1995's Friday, an absolute staple of the stoner comedy genre and Black cinema, with beyond-memorable lead performances by Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. In later years, he has branched out with projects such as The Fate of the Furious (2017), where his handling of big-budget action set-pieces (such as the climactic arctic submarine sequence) is quite something.

However, the #1 reason for F. Gary Gray's high ranking on my list is his 2015 masterpiece Straight Outta Compton. When I ranked my all-time favorite music biopics last year, this raw and gripping N.W.A. biopic made it all the way to first place, ahead of the likes of Amadeus (1984) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) et cetera. Gray's combination of rap music video experience and big-budget Hollywood blockbuster experience made him the perfect director for this film, that was as large in scale as it was gritty and raw.

2. Jordan Peele

Also known as the Spike Lee of horror, Jordan Peele is one of the most stylistically unique filmmakers out there. His love for the horror genre, his strong stance on civil rights and influencing society through art, and his comedy background from projects such as Key & Peele (2012-2015) (he also voices the Ghost of Duke Ellington on Big Mouth (2017), which may be my favorite fact in the world), make for an amazing combination. Peele has directed three feature films so far, and they've all combined creepy horror, powerful and nuanced social themes and peculiar humor, with a balance that sounds impossible on paper but somehow works.

It's hard to pick a favorite from Peele's impressive filmography - his debut picture Get Out won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (a damn impressive stunt for a horror film), his sophomore production Us went even further down the artistic rabbit hole with its cryptic storytelling and wild premise, and his newest film Nope was perhaps 2022's most Oscar-worthy film if it wasn't for the Academy critics being so full of themselves that they snubbed the masterful film that criticized Hollywood in a poignant manner. All three films are great in their own right, and I look forward to Peele's next project with interest.

1. Spike Lee

If Jordan Peele is the Spike Lee of horror, then this man is the Spike Lee of cinema. The Spike has been a powerful voice for civil rights and Black activism through his films for several decades, and the powerful social themes of his works is matched by his unique and stylistic filmmaking M.O. - when you're watching a Spike Lee joint, you know you're watching a Spike Lee joint, as no one else makes films quite like these.

Lee's filmography ranges from eye-opening historical biopics like Malcolm X (1992) and BlacKKKlansman (2018), all the way through the sort of hyper-focused comedy-dramas juxtaposing several social themes and political statements into the same framework -staples he's known for like Crooklyn (1994) and Da 5 Bloods (2020), all the way to gritty dramas outside of his archetype proving that he can do mainstream cinema just as well as not-so-mainstream cinema, like 25th Hour (2002) and Inside Man (2006).

While the overall tapestry of his many, many great films is the biggest reason for Lee being #1 on my list, I have to single out one particular masterpiece - 1989's Do the Right Thing. One of the greatest films ever made, Lee's third feature film combines comedy with drama in an expert manner while having a lot to say about our society with its still-relevant message. Navigating conversational landmines and difficult cultural topics in an unparalleled fashion, Do the Right Thing is one for the ages and the crowning achievement of a magnificent career.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I shift from Black filmmakers to the whitest show in the world, for a list requested by my Instagram followers - the Top 10 episodes of beloved sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (1994-2004).