Entertainment
The Best Movies About Black History
List Rules
Movies about black history.
Black history is extremely important in the United States. There are a number of award winning movies about black history that will remind us of where we came from, the dangers of prejudice, and how our nation was once divided over racial issues.. If you’ve ever asked the question, “What are the best movies about black history?” before then you’ve absolutely come to the right page!
The movies featured on this list are very historically important. They take an honest approach to a lot of issues that went on behind the scenes in history and shed light on the role racism played in America. Many also feature the true events of heroes who forever impacted the world and took a stand to fight against slavery, no matter the cost.
This list has the best movies about black history, including: Roots, Glory, Twelve Years a Slave, The Butler, A Raisin in the Sun, The Rosa Parks Story, The Hate U Give, and The Color Purple.
Vote up your favorite black history film or add one you love that isn't already on the list.
Ranked by
- 1David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo
- Released: 2014
- Directed by: Ava DuVernay
Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally desegregated the South, discrimination was still rampant in certain areas, making it very difficult for Blacks to register to vote. In 1965, an Alabama ...more - 2Louis Gossett Jr., LeVar Burton, Vic Morrow
- Released: 1977
- Directed by: Alex Haley
Miniseries based on a novel about slaves in America. - 3Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey
- Released: 1997
- Directed by: Steven Spielberg
In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque (Djimon Hounsou) leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, ...more - 4Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman
- Released: 1989
- Directed by: Edward Zwick
Following the Battle of Antietam, Col. Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) is offered command of the United States' first all-African-American regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. ...more - 5Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding
- Released: 1991
- Directed by: John Singleton
Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is sent to live with his father, Furious Styles (Larry Fishburne), in tough South Central Los Angeles. Although his hard-nosed father instills proper values and respect in him, ...more - 6Howard E. Rollins, Adolph Caesar, Denzel Washington
- Released: 1984
- Directed by: Norman Jewison
A black Army investigator (Howard E. Rollins Jr.) travels to a remote military base in the heart of the Louisiana backwoods to look into the mysterious murder of a black sergeant toward the tail end ...more - 7Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall
- Released: 1992
- Directed by: Spike Lee
A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the ...more - 8Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Donald Faison
- Released: 2000
- Directed by: Boaz Yakin
In Virginia, high school football is a way of life, an institution revered, each game celebrated more lavishly than Christmas, each playoff distinguished more grandly than any national holiday. And ...more - 9Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee
- Released: 1961
- Directed by: Daniel Petrie
This lauded drama follows the Youngers, an African-American family living together in an apartment in Chicago. Following the death of their patriarch, they try to determine what to do with the ...more - 10Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley
- Released: 1997
- Directed by: Spike Lee
On Sunday, September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed by four members of a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated racist group. Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole ...more - 11Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
- Released: 2012
- Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Two years before the Civil War, Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave, finds himself accompanying an unorthodox German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) on a mission to capture the ...more - 12Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery
- Released: 1985
- Directed by: Steven Spielberg
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries ...more - 13Christopher LeeShaka Zulu is a television series directed by William C. Faure and written by Joshua Sinclair for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, based on Sinclair's novel of the same name. It is based ...more
- 14Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks
- Released: 1972
- Directed by: Martin Ritt
Sounder is a 1972 American drama film directed by Martin Ritt, adapted from the novel by William H. Armstrong. The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the ...more - 15Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier
- Released: 1967
- Directed by: Stanley Kramer
When Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton), a free-thinking white woman, and black doctor John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) become engaged, they travel to San Francisco to meet her parents. Matt Drayton ...more - 16Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
- Released: 1967
- Directed by: Norman Jewison
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. ...more - 17Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch
- Released: 2013
- Directed by: Steve McQueen
In the years before the Civil War, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Subjected to the cruelty of one ...more - 18O'Shea Jackson, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell
- Released: 2015
- Directed by: F. Gary Gray
In 1988, a groundbreaking new group revolutionizes music and pop culture, changing and influencing hip-hop forever. N.W.A's first studio album, "Straight Outta Compton," stirs controversy with its ...more - 19Cuba Gooding, Terrence Howard, Nate Parker
- Released: 2012
- Directed by: Anthony Hemingway
During World War II, the Civil Aeronautics Authority selects 13 black cadets to become part of an experimental program at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The program aims at training "colored ...more - 20Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Keke Palmer
- Released: 2006
- Directed by: Doug Atchison
Akeelah, an 11-year-old girl living in South Los Angeles, discovers she has a talent for spelling, which she hopes will take her to the National Spelling Bee. Despite her mother's objections, Akeelah ...more - 21Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee
- Released: 1989
- Directed by: Spike Lee
Salvatore "Sal" Fragione (Danny Aiello) is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of ...more - 22Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight
- Released: 2001
- Directed by: Michael Mann
With wit and athletic genius, with defiant rage and inner grace, Muhammad Ali forever changed the American landscape. Fighting all comers, Ali took on the law, conventions, the status quo and the war ...more - 23Robert De Niro, Cuba Gooding, Charlize Theron
- Released: 2000
- Directed by: George Tillman
Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is an ambitious sharecropper who joins the U.S. Navy to become the world's first black master diver. But as he works through diving training, the bitter and racist ...more - 24Cicely Tyson, Odetta, Richard Dysart
- Released: 1974
- Directed by: John Korty
Beginning during the racial turmoil of 1960s Louisiana, 110-year-old ex-slave Jane Pittman (Cicely Tyson) grants an interview to a persistent journalist and relates the remarkable story of her life. ...more - 25Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, John Cusack
- Released: 2013
- Directed by: Lee Daniels
After leaving the South as a young man and finding employment at an elite hotel in Washington, D.C., Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he is hired as a butler at ...more
