Entertainment
Great Historical Black Movies Based On True Stories
List Rules
Vote up your favorite Black movies that are based on true stories.
Historical movies about famous Black people often focus on stories of bravery in the face of oppression. The top historical Black movies are based on civil rights leaders, sports stars, and legendary musicians. This is a list of true Black movies featuring everything from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom to 12 Years a Slave to Malcolm X.
What movies will you find on this list of the best historical Black films? History buffs might place Glory near the top. Based on the Civil War experiences of one of the first military units of the Union Army to be comprised entirely of African-American men, this great film went on to win three Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actor trophy for Denzel Washington. Ali, starring Will Smith, is another good Black movie based on true events. Selma took an in-depth look at Martin Luther King's iconic march from Selma to Montgomery to fight for equal voting rights for African Americans. Other good movies featured on this best historical Black films list include biography films like The Hurricane and The Last King of Scotland, not to mention a great deal of top African American biopics.
Do you have a favorite historical Black movie? Give the best films a vote up and please down any that you think other fans can skip. When you're done, be sure to check out our list of movies about discrimination.
Ranked by
- 1Whoopi 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 - 2Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae
- Released: 2016
- Directed by: Theodore Melfi
Three brilliant African American women at NASA -- Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson -- serve as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut ...more - 3Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard
- Released: 2011
- Directed by: Tate Taylor
In 1960s Mississippi, Southern society girl Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from college with dreams of being a writer. She turns her small town on its ear by choosing to interview the Black women who ...more - 4Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans
- Released: 2021
- Directed by: Liesl Tommy
Following the rise of Aretha Franklin's career -- from a child singing in her father's church choir to her international superstardom -- it's the remarkable true story of the music icon's journey to ...more - 5Chiwetel 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 - 6Chadwick Boseman, Nicole Beharie, Alan Tudyk
- Released: 2013
- Directed by: Brian Helgeland
42 is a 2013 American biographical sports film directed by Brian Helgeland. The powerful story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s ...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 - 8Forest 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 - 9Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Joaquin Phoenix
- Released: 2004
- Directed by: Terry George
Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a Hutu, manages the Hôtel des Mille Collines and lives a happy life with his Tutsi wife (Sophie Okonedo) and their three children. But when Hutu military forces ...more - 10Matthew 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 - 11Louis Gossett Jr., LeVar Burton, Vic Morrow
- Released: 1977
- Directed by: Alex Haley
Miniseries based on a novel about slaves in America. - 12David 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 - 13Morgan 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 - 14Leon, Doug E. Doug, Malik Yoba
- Released: 1993
- Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
Four Jamaican bobsledders dream of competing in the Winter Olympics, despite never having seen snow. With the help of a disgraced former champion desperate to redeem himself, the Jamaicans set out to ...more - 15Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson
- Released: 2016
- Directed by: Denzel Washington
Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) makes his living as a sanitation worker in 1950s Pittsburgh. Maxson once dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player, but was deemed too old when the major ...more - 16John Travolta, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg
- Released: 1999
- Directed by: Robert Brousseau, Vincenzo Trippetti
Our Friend, Martin is a 1999 animated children's educational film about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement. Two friends travel through time, meeting Dr. King at several ...more - 17Sidney 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 - 18Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Regina King
- Released: 2004
- Directed by: Taylor Hackford
Legendary soul musician Ray Charles is portrayed by Jamie Foxx in this Oscar-winning biopic. Young Ray watches his 7-year-old brother drown at age seven. When he loses his sight at the age of 9, his ...more - 19Will 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 - 20Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle
- Released: 1997
- Directed by: John Singleton
Rosewood, Florida, is a small, peaceful town with an almost entirely African-American population of middle-class homeowners, until New Year's Day 1923, when a lynch mob from a neighboring white ...more - 21Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker
- Released: 2007
- Directed by: Denzel Washington
Poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) teaches at the predominately black Wiley College in 1935 Texas. He decides to start a debate team, something nearly unheard of at a black ...more - 22Laurence Fishburne, Allen Payne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner
- Released: 1995
- Directed by: Robert Markowitz
A semi-fictionalized account of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-African-American Air Force squadron during World War II, the film centers on ambitious young pilot Hannibal Lee (Laurence ...more - 23Jamie 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 - 24Sissy Spacek, Whoopi Goldberg, Dwight Schultz
- Released: 1990
- Directed by: Richard Pearce
Odessa Carter (Whoopi Goldberg) needs to get to work as a nanny in the home of the affluent Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek), but she refuses to take the bus. Odessa is participating in the Montgomery ...more - 25Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Deborah Kara Unger
- Released: 1999
- Directed by: Norman Jewison
Denzel Washington is Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a man whose dreams of winning the middleweight boxing title were destroyed when he was arrested along with another man for the murders of 3 people in a ...more
