All products featured on Vogue are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
February, which marks Black History Month, is the perfect time to cue up movies that explore and honor moments both large and small, joyous and heart-wrenching, from modern Black history. Here, we’ve asked some of this year’s Academy Award nominees—including Danielle Brooks, Cord Jefferson, and Jon Batiste—for their favorite Black history movies, and added a few of our own into the mix, too. Consider this merely a starting point for exploring the rich landscape of Black history movies—and an easy way to celebrate Black film and history all year round.
Juice (1992)
The acting, the haircuts, the score, the wardrobe, the screenplay—all of those elements came together to masterfully depict and humanize a facet of society that is still profoundly misunderstood. —Jon Batiste, nominee for best music (original song), “It Never Went Away,” from American Symphony.
How to watch: Stream on Max.
Boyz n the Hood (1991)
I was too young to see the movie when it came out (I was two), so I didn’t get to see this film until my adulthood. I was so moved and in awe, not only because of John Singleton’s incredible filmmaking and storytelling but also because of his representation of the complex aspects of South LA and Black masculinity in a grounded and honest way. I could relate to so many aspects of Tre and saw myself in parts of his world and life that I hadn’t really seen onscreen in that way before. —Kris Bowers, nominee for best documentary short film, The Last Repair Shop
How to watch: Rent on Apple TV+.
Summer of Soul (2021)
Summer of Soul is that movie for me. I love Black documentaries because they transport us back to our ancestors, back to where we came from. So much of our history has been erased. The fact that Questlove brought the Harlem Cultural Festival back to life, so we may always witness our joy through the celebration of music by the remarkable talent that performed that day, is truly a gift. This is a film that should be played in the background of every family gathering where a TV is present. It uplifts. —Danielle Brooks, nominee for best actress in a supporting role, The Color Purple
How to watch: Stream on Disney+.
Malcolm X (1992)
I think it’s Spike Lee’s masterpiece. It’s such a nuanced portrayal of a difficult man, and it’s such a high degree of difficulty. Normally biopics that are from cradle to the grave are sort of a terrible idea. It’s difficult to cram in that much of somebody’s life in this limited timeframe, and somehow he does it. And really all of it is necessary. There’s not a wasted frame in the entire movie. Malcolm X was a very complex guy, and each chapter of his life is like a different orchestral movement. But you see the ways in which they’re interconnected. On top of that, the cinematography is just beautiful. I always think of him traveling to Mecca, and him in that big mosque—those are beautiful shots. I just think that the performances are incredible—Angela Bassett, Denzel Washington, Delroy Lindo. There s not a bad performance in the movie. It is just masterful, as far as I m concerned. Also the score is beautiful. —Cord Jefferson, nominee for best picture and best adapted screenplay, American Fiction
How to watch: Stream on Max.
Harlem Nights (1989)
Harlem Nights is honestly a top-three movie of all time for me in any color (but I do love its Blackness). Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Della Reese, Jasmine Guy, and Arsenio Hall in a movie that’s part 1930s gangster film, part heist movie, and part rom-com. And all directed by Eddie Murphy, who somehow managed to service the performative skill set of all of those incredible actors (including himself!) and all of those genres in under two hours. Thirty-five years later, I still absolutely love that movie from beginning to end. —Jermaine Johnson, nominee for best picture, American Fiction
How to watch: Stream on Paramount+.
Chameleon Street (1990)
A hilarious satirical biopic inspired by real-life con man and impersonator William Douglas Street. A Sundance breakout in the early ’90s, it was quickly enshrined (and quoted) by me and my peers alongside other great Black-driven films like The Education of Sonny Carson, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Cooley High, Cornbread, Earl and Me, and Hollywood Shuffle. I held on to a worn VHS copy of the film for years since it was notoriously difficult to find. After its recent reemergence on streaming services like the Criterion Channel, I rewatched it again and found the exploits of its antihero to be as biting, entertaining, and timely as they were the first time I saw it all those years ago. It’s still a classic. —Kemp Powers, nominee for best animated feature film, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
How to watch: Stream on Prime Video.
A Place of Our Own (2004)
From Marcus Garvey to Miles Davis to Madame C. J. Walker, documentarian Stanley Nelson has spent a lifetime capturing the African American experience onscreen in all of its humanity. Black history is American history, and films like Freedom Riders and The Murder of Emmett Till are essential to understanding who we are as a country. But one of my favorite films by Nelson is the lesser-known A Place of Our Own. Reaching back to the ’50s, it’s a deeply personal account of how Black middle-class families built enclaves in places like Oak Bluffs in Martha’s Vineyard, where, as he puts it, “the world did not look at us and define us solely by race.” It’s a film about family, about legacy, Black joy, and so much more. —Christine Turner, nominee for best documentary short film, The Barber of Little Rock
Not currently available to stream.
Portrait of Jason (1967)
In December 1966, director Shirley Clarke filmed the larger-than-life character Jason Holliday for 12 hours as he spun fascinating, uproarious tales and reminisced about his life as a gay hustler and aspiring cabaret performer. The result is nothing short of entrancing; Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman called Portrait of Jason “the most extraordinary film I’ve seen in my life.”
How to watch: Stream on the Criterion Channel.
I Am Somebody (1970)
This empathetic short film by Madeleine Anderson, considered the first Black woman documentarian, chronicles a 1969 strike by Black women hospital workers in Charleston. During their 100-day protest for equal pay and union recognition, they faced off with state officials, police, and the National Guard. Anderson said she saw her own challenges in the film industry (mostly white-male dominated, then as now) reflected in their plight.
How to watch: Stream on Kanopy.
Style Wars (1983)
Hip-hop was only 10 years old when PBS aired Tony Silver’s groundbreaking documentary about the nascent movement. It focused on the thriving graffiti scene of early-1980s New York City, portraying it as a vital outlet for creative expression—a perspective strongly opposed by Mayor Ed Koch and the NYPD.
How to watch: Stream on Peacock.
Paris Is Burning (1990)
The category is: influential cinema, darlings! Jennie Livingston’s landmark (and, in recent years, controversial) documentary brought New York City’s ‘80s ballroom culture to the mainstream, highlighting the fierce, tight-knit community of Black and Hispanic gay men, drag queens, and trans people competing to come out on top on fashion runways and in vogueing battles.
How to watch: Stream on the Criterion Channel.
Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Sumptuously shot by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, Julie Dash’s seminal first feature was the first film by a Black woman to receive a US general theatrical release. (The Library of Congress named it to the National Film Registry in 2004.) It’s a languorous, impressionistic story of three generations of Gullah women living on the Sea Islands off South Carolina in 1902 who struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore all while considering migrating to the mainland—a move sure to further disconnect them from their roots. It was a major influence on Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album Lemonade.
How to watch: Stream on Kanopy, Mubi, and the Criterion Channel.
Color Adjustment (1992)
With insight and humor, director Marlon Riggs analyzes four decades of racial myths and stereotypes through the eyes of the small screen, from Amos ’n’ Andy to Roots, Good Times, and The Cosby Show.
How to watch: Stream on Ovid.
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Cheryl Dunye’s wry classic rom-com follows a version of herself—a lesbian filmmaker living in Philadelphia—who becomes captivated by the Watermelon Woman, an obscure (and fictional) actor whose life story reveals the hidden challenges of race and sexuality in early Hollywood. Blending fake archival footage with everyday scenes of lesbian life, the film, considered a landmark in New Queer Cinema, is inspired by sidelined and overlooked Black actors like Louise Beavers, Hattie McDaniel, and Butterfly McQueen. (Dunye invented the Watermelon Woman because she couldn’t afford archival footage of real-life actors.)
How to watch: Stream on the Criterion Channel and other platforms.
The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975 (2011)
Comprised of newly discovered 16mm footage shot by a team of Swedish filmmakers, director Goran Hugo Olsson’s documentary is a riveting time capsule that looks at the turbulent era of antiwar and Black Power movements from a different perspective. Adding context and notes on the period’s legacy are contemporary interviews from notables like Erykah Badu and Questlove.
How to watch: Stream on AMC+.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)
RaMell Ross’s quiet and intimate nonfiction feature debut followed a decade of observing the community of Hale County, Alabama. A beautiful, humanistic portrait of Black Southern life, it was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature.
How to watch: Rent on Prime Video.
When I Get Home (2019)
Directed by Solange Knowles as a nearly 40-minute film accompaniment to her album of the same name, When I Get Home is an ode to her hometown of Houston following the devastation of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. It’s an evocative, mesmerizing exploration of origins commingled with Houston’s history and present that proves Knowles to be a truly visionary visual artist, with key contributions from filmmaker Terence Nance and artist Jacolby Satterwhite.
How to watch: On Apple Music
Time (2020)
Nominated for an Oscar for best documentary, Garrett Bradley’s sweeping, wrenching love story follows entrepreneur and mother Fox Rich’s decades-long fight for the release of her husband from prison. It’s a powerful indictment of the American justice system, beautifully rendered in black and white and incorporating Rich’s home video footage recorded over 18 years.
How to watch: Stream on Prime Video.
Kokomo City (2023)
In Grammy-nominated producer turned filmmaker D. Smith’s eye-opening documentary, four Black trans sex workers in New York and Atlanta bring viewers into their most intimate spaces to tell their own vivid stories, by turns harrowing and hilarious but always starkly, refreshingly candid.
How to watch: Stream on Showtime.
