20 Black Films to Add Your Watch List Right Now (2023)

Director: Dee Rees

This feature chronicles the double life of 17-year-old Alike, who struggles with the pressure to conceal her sexuality from her parents. There’s a heartbreaking juxtaposition between the awkwardness of Alike’s strained relationships at home and the beautiful vulnerability of her time spent with outside confidants. She embraces those who offer even a sense of liberation, so her story speaks to the experiences of countless adolescents that have ever felt stuck.

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Director: Jordan Peele

Covert racism gets the terrifying portrayal it rightfully deserves in Jordan Peele’s directorial debut. Every re-watch of this thriller will reveal even more of the modern microaggressions it explores. This blockbuster also made the phrase, stuck in the sunken place, a widely adopted dig. So, yes, it’s a modern classic.

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Director: Tayarisha Poe

It’s easy to love films that place a hilariously heavy significance on high school hierarchies, but if you’ve grown weary of the typical alpha blonde, this movie really stands out. The politics at an elite Pennsylvania boarding school are explored in depth here, as senior queen bee Selah tries to determine who she will pass her status on to after graduation.

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Director: Daniel Petrie (screenplay by Lorraine Hansberry)

If you love a black-and-white-era vibe, the screen adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play is perfect. It’s focused on a Black family in Chicago navigating how to manage their sudden influx of insurance money alongside their conflicting ideas of progress. Many early pioneers of Black Hollywood lead the movie, like Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, and Claudia McNeil, making it a must-watch for any film lover.

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Director: Malcolm D. Lee

Bear witness to 122 minutes of ceaseless joy. As we follow a group of reunited college girlfriends on a weekend getaway, the bizarre hijinks and slightly emotional reconnections make for a great watch. The strong lineup of hilarious leading ladies includes Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish. It’s basically cinematic serotonin.

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Director: F. Gary Gray

Like Girls Trip, Set It Off stars bona fide Hollywood icons Queen Latifah and Jada Pickett Smith. And like Girls Trip, it details the heartwarming journey of four very different women who find family in each other. But unlike Girls Trip, it features shootings, car chases, and a bank robbery or two. Who would’ve thought that crime and sisterhood would make for such an iconic combo?

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Director: Spike Lee

Through the eyes of nine-year-old Troy Carmichael during her summer in Brooklyn, Spike Lee successfully uses this story to profile both a family and a neighborhood. By capturing such a tender time in life with humor and accuracy, it’s an enjoyable watch for all ages.

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Director: John Landis (Story by Eddie Murphy)

In a story led and developed by Eddie Murphy himself, this fish-out-of-water tale goes unmatched to this day. It’s safe to say that one of this movie’s core takeaways is how we can’t judge people different from us too harshly. With that said, however, if you haven’t seen this classic yet, any judgment that comes your way may be warranted.

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Director: Julie Dash

The Gullah community, one of America’s richest subcultures, thrives along the Southeast coast. Through the eyes of a group of characters across generations, Gullah culture receives its due platform and respect in this poetic film. Director Julie Dash makes gorgeous use of the physical atmosphere, and in addition, the ancestral storyline will inspire a desire to reconnect to your roots. It’s a story so affecting that even Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade cited the film as inspiration 25 years later.

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Director: Kasi Lemmons

Pre-Lovecraft Country, Jurnee Smollett was flexing her acting range as a curious young girl who slowly uncovers her prosperous family’s facades. This story skillfully documents the universal process we all go through once we begin to realize that the adults in our life are imperfectly human.

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Director: John Singleton

One of John Singleton’s greatest strengths as a creator was his ability to translate experiences with an intimate understanding on-screen, experiences that his non-Black peers might’ve been tempted to either demonize or sanitize through their gaze. This iconic coming-of-age story is a great example, as it follows the journeys of three young men all confronting their approach to adulthood differently, but all within the confines of the country’s most dangerous, heavily policed neighborhoods.

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Director: Rungano Nyoni

A satirical exploration of witch persecutions in Zambia, this film follows a wrongly accused nine-year-old girl sentenced to life at a state-run witch camp. As a BAFTA-winning debut feature from Rungano Nyoni, it artfully maneuvers its way through a tragic injustice with wit, creative storytelling, and a significant respect for the subject matter. Through very few words, the film’s star, Maggie Mulubwa, steers the movie with a gripping presence, elevating its impact.

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Director: Charles Burnett

This title may not ring a bell, but it deserves to. During this film’s initial festival run in 1983, producers rushed director Charles Burnett to submit a rough cut of the movie for screening. Unfortunately, the far-from-finished version of My Brother’s Wedding failed to impress distributors, and the film was never widely released. But the complete version is now finally available. The story follows the rudderless Pierce (Everett Silas), who is chosen as the best man to his practical lawyer brother, despite his contempt for the haughty fiancée.

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Directors: Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downing Jr., Bruce W. Smith

This Oscar-winning short uses the famously mundane morning routine as a backdrop and manages to detail some of the most intimate, frustrating, and beautiful elements of Black girlhood in just under seven minutes. This animated tearjerker is both heartwarming and engaging for all ages and backgrounds.

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Director: Tim Story

During this movie, Cedric the Entertainer’s character ponders the many roles of a barber. He can be your therapist, style coach, confidante, and far more, which makes this hysterical classic a completely unique addition to the canon of workplace comedies.

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Director: Rick Famuyiwa

Director: Boots Riley

There are lots of ways to describe this film: provocative, unique, politically relevant. The one thing you truly can’t call this movie is predictable. Honestly, if you can anticipate anything that occurs next in this story, I have a crystal ball and a corner of Times Square for you.

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Director: Barry Jenkins

Watching Moonlight feels close to reading through a book trilogy you can’t put down. That’s how thoroughly structured and relentlessly heartfelt the viewing experience is. A film that cares about its characters, no matter how small, it properly details how the process of learning who you are is far from swift.

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Director: Forest Whitaker

Literally nothing is better than watching women free themselves from the societal reins that have restricted them from finding happiness in the past. Especially if it’s set to an iconic Whitney Houston soundtrack and features a Angela Bassett strutting away from a burning car in slow motion.

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Director: Ryan Coogler

What discussion is there to be had about Black movies without mention of this game-changing superhero blockbuster starring the late Chadwick Boseman? Its lasting cultural impact is unquestionably widespread, and though Wakanda may be only a sub-Saharan fantasy, the project’s unapologetic African influences were unprecedented on such a global platform.

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