Oh man, what a movie. And truly heartbreaking in parts.
**The Commitments **
“The Irish are the blacks of Europe. Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. The Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. Say it once and say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.”
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner I love Sydney Poitier…
Antwone Fisher
White Men Can’t Jump
Boyz n the Hood
Mahogany
Lady Sings the Blues
The Women of Brewster Place (if you haven’t read the book, do so - it was phenomenal)
Strange Days (because Angela Bassett was the female lead and I’d turn lesbian for her)
I have to second Eve’s Bayou. I like Glory and Soul Food as well.
Bingo Long’s Travelling All-Stars & Motor Kings.
Glory and HBO Pictures’ The Tuskeege Airmen.
I have quite a few.
Hoop Dreams
Finding Forrester
The Color Purple
Tsotsi
Hotel Rwanda
Antwone Fisher
Men of Honor
Remember the Titans
Coming to America
Jungle Fever - Halle Berry as a crackhead: amazing acting.
48 Hours
Malcolm X
The best black *history * film? The Old Negro Space Program. 
When I’m feeling blue, few things uplift me quicker than Purple Rain.
In addition to others that have been mentioned.
Killer of Sheep FTW. Anyone who has ever lived in the US needs to see this movie.
I liked To Sir, With Love.
Intruder in the Dust is another I enjoyed, partly for the storyline but partly because it was filmed in my hometown. Several locals were in the film, including the twins Ed and Eph Lowe, who played the Gowrie twins.
Cabin in the Sky should be more fondly remembered than it is. Most of the great black entertainers of the Forties, in a film the studios didn’t think would sell to white audiences. Yes, the script has some shuffling/Yassuh aspects to it, but it’s a lot of fun and actually has some surprising bits - and it’s the only kind of script and roles a black cast was going to get then anyway.
Dayum, Lena Horne was hot … and so was Ethel Waters.
Glory Maybe not accurate in its details, but still a thoughtful look at race and the Civil War. Many great performances.
Friday This movie has me rolling in the floor every time I watch it.
Barbershop Ditto.
Something the Lord Made Caught this one on cable. Hadn’t heard anything about it beforehand, but it drew me right in.
Hustle & Flow Mainly for the great performance by Terrence Howard.
Fallen This list needs a horror movie. Here you go. One of my favorites from Denzel.
48 Hrs. This, to me, is Eddie Murphy at his best.
And sort of a special mention for Lone Star which, while it does not have a black lead, has several black characters in an ensemble cast and which features some of the most insightful observations on small-town race relations to be found anywhere in cinema.
Besides about a dozen and a half movies that have already been tossed out that are among my all time favorites, I’d like to see some love for these two.
Mo’ Better Blues because IMHO Spike and Denzel should work together more.
In the Heat of the Night, a top 250 on IMDB; Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, you could feel the tension radiating off of those two. A great early black man takes on white establishment movie, and to me, still powerful.
What? No mention of Dreamgirls? Great, great musical, even if the social issues are a little diluted from the stage version. Eddie Murphy really is fantastic in this, too.
If you jump in the wayback machine, to a time when America was just a little blip on the radar, there’s Laurence Fishburne in Othello.
Cornbread, Earl and Me (I"ll never forget the kid trying to run faster than the raindrops…)
Glory
New Jack City
In alphabetical order:
Baby Face
Boyz n the Hood
The Emperor Jones
Eve’s Bayou
Hallelujah
Intruder in the Dust
Killer of Sheep
Nightjohn
Say Amen Somebody
To Sleep with Anger
There have been some great films mentioned above that are about *African *Africans. But I think the point of Black History Month is the African *American *experience, so I’ve limited my own titles to those.
:smack:
How could I forget this one? I’m watching it right now on TV One.
If there was a way to award Academy awards to past films, that one would be at the top of the list. How did Denzel not get an award? There’s no way his performance in Training Day was better than his Malcolm. No way. The man was robbed!
Starring a young Lawrence Fishburn! The movie is corny as hell, but seeing little Larry is worth it.
I haven’t seen a lot of the films that have been mentioned. I’m going to have to check them out.