Since the beginning of cinema, there have been bold forerunners in Black cinema (Oscar Micheaux for instance) who used to camera to dramatize the lives of African Americans and bring a voice to the voiceless in Hollywood. Over the years, Black films have broken ground and achieved cinematic excellence on the silver screen, pushing against the grain. Here is my list of ten films by and about African Americans that have become modern classics.
Do the Right Thing - Few Hollywood movies ever captured the truth about racism in America as Do the Right Thing. Fierce and uncompromising, director Spike Lee refused to soften his film with the usual feel-good bromides dished out by Hollywood and delivered an incendiary vision of a small Brooklyn neighborhood caught in the grips of racism. Theater owners feared the film's ending, in which Lee's character Mookie tosses a garbage can through the window of the local pizzeria, would set off a wave of riots throughout America's urban cities. The riots didn't happen, but Do the Right Thing anticipated the fire that did happen next time when a Simi Valley jury exonerated the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating. The truth that so many Americans were willing to deny could no longer be ignored. Spike Lee's movie set the way with a dire warning that is still true to this day.
Malcolm X - the release of Lee's 1992 biopic on the life of Malcolm X became an event as Hollywood finally gave voice to the controversial Muslim. Finally a film about an important figure in Black America who wasn't demonized. An epic in grand scale, the film covered Malcolm's exploits as a street hood, his imprisonment for burglary (and for sleeping with a white woman), to his spiritual conversion to the Nation of Islam and finally his break from Elijah Muhammad, his spiritual mentor, to become a vocal figure against racism in the United States and across the globe. Malcolm X showed the breadth of its subject's life, his intellect, and his righteous anger toward injustice.
Waiting to Exhale - the ultimate chick flick, Waiting to Exhale, based on the bestselling novel by Terry McMillan, opened the way for Black actresses to finally strut their stuff on the silver screen. Starring Loretta Devine, Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, and Angela Bassett, Waiting to Exhale also presented the rare depiction of four Black women whose friendships get them through bad marriages, relationships and break ups as they try to find that perfect love and discover it in themselves and each other.
Soul Food - Family and food. What more can you ask for? Writer and director George Tillman, Jr. mined his own family memories, particularly of his big mama, for this film about three sisters, their lives, loves, and fights in this film drama. Soul Food was one of the few Black films about family that captured the complex emotions involved in familial relationships. These sisters love each other, but they also get on each other's nerves. And what can be more realistic than that? But what makes this movie a classic is how food plays a role in bringing families together. A lovely movie that also has the distinction of introducing the magnificent Irma P. Hall to film audiences.
Boyz In the Hood - John Singleton's screen debut as a director was a punch in the gut. Telling the story of three young boys growing up in South Central L.A., Boyz In the Hood details how violence and poverty can cut short the promise of African American men. A post-civil rights nightmare, Boyz In the Hood did more than entertain, but shined a light on the problems of Black America under the Reagan/Bush administrations. Boyz In The Hood also introduced rapper Ice Cube to the silver screen in his screen acting debut.
Carmen Jones - This classic groundbreaking movie opened the way for all-Black casts in Hollywood. Granted, it would take another decade or so for a serious film treatment featuring an African American cast, but Carmen Jones set the stage. Starring the incandescent Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, and a young Diahann Carroll, and directed by Otto Preminger, Carmen Jones was a remake of the classic Bizet opera, told during WWII in the deep south. Dandridge lights up the screen and makes her Carmen both vivacious, sultry, and deeply empathetic. A true classic Hollywood musical all the way around.
Sparkle - Improbably written by Joel Schumacher, Sparkle features a young Irene Cara in the title role as one-third of a singing group of sisters (including the wonderful Lonette McKee), whose dreams of stardom is challenged by racism, poverty, and crime of 1950s Harlem. But what makes this 1970s classic a hit are the sublime tunes by Curtis Mayfield. The signature tune "Giving Him Something He Can Feel," became a hit with Aretha Franklin, and was later covered by En Vogue in the 1990s.
Cooley High - Directed by Michael Schultz, Cooley High does for Black teen movies what American Graffiti did for whites. Deeply nostalgic, with a killer Motown soundtrack, Cooley High tells the story of two high school friends in the Chicago projects as they mature from boyhood to manhood on the city's mean streets. Cooley High also features the song "It's so Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday," which later became a hit for Boyz II Men in the 1990s.
Dream Girls - Destined to become a modern classic, Dream Girls, based on the hit Broadway play, is the barely disguised tale based on the Motown sensations The Supremes about three girls whose dreams of fame are undermined by jealousy and clashing egos. Starring Beyonce Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, and Jennifer Hudson, who won an Oscar for her thrilling performance, Dream Girls is elevated by the performances all around by the talented cast, making up for unmemorable songs (with the exception of the awesome showstopper "And I'm Telling You, I'm Not Going"). But Hudson's performance alone makes this version of the stage musical a classic in its own right.
What's Love Got To Do With It - A biopic on the tempestuous but extremely talented married duo, Ike and Tina Turner, What's Love Got to Do With It, showcased a fine cast with the also incredible Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett in the leads. While the movie is all about Tina's life with Ike, the fame they both achieved, and the horrific violence she suffered under an abusive Turner, the film also does justice to Ike Turner by portraying him as a complex man whose demons developed by the poverty and racism of his childhood comes to overshadow his incomparable talent.
