Black Lives Matter: Films

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. embarks on a deeply personal journey through the last fifty years of African American history. Joined by leading scholars, celebrities, and a dynamic cast of people who shaped these years, Gates travels from the victories of the civil rights movement up to today, asking profound questions about the state of black America, and our nation as a whole.

A powerful and thought-provoking true story follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first and most incendiary cases is that of Walter McMillian.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historical struggle to secure voting rights for all people. A dangerous and terrifying campaign that culminated with an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1964.

Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s was the scene of a passionate outburst of creativity by African-American visual artists. Rich archival footage, including newsreels and photographs, recalls the influential force of the exhibitions, the vibrancy of Harlem and the many significant personalities that shaped the movement, such as William E. Harmon, W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke.

Millie Dunbar is a foster parent who looks after her many children in Los Angeles in 1992. After the verdict from the Rodney King Incident is revealed, the city quickly begins to descend into all-out chaos between its denizens and the police. Now, Millie must protect her children from the ensuing anarchy and erupting violence all while navigating the precarious waters of police violence and finding justice for her family.

Jack Radcliff, a homicide detective, picks up his niece Ashley from a theater. It is revealed that Ashley does not like her father Garret due to his bipolar disorder and history with drug abuse. A day after Jack has a serious talk with his brother about getting his life together, he receives a crying call for help from Ashley. Jack rushes to her house but is too late, finding the dead bodies of Ashley, his brother Garret, and Garret's wife in an apparent murder-suicide. Two weeks later, Jack receives a phone call from Ashley who is calling from the past. He soon realizes that he has been given a chance to rewrite the past and uncover the truth about the family's murder.

A biographical picture about Jackie Robinson's life and role in baseball.

Vols. 1-3 tell the story of America's civil rights years from 1954 to 1965; vols. 4-7 examine the new America from 1966 to 1985, from community power to the human alienation of urban poverty.

In a journey from his segregated childhood to the global music scene, Kirk Whalum shares a timely and stunning picture of MLK's beloved community.

A timeless love story set in early 1970s Harlem involving newly engaged nineteen-year-old Tish and her fiancé Fonny who have a beautiful future ahead. But their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Now the pair and their families must fight for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.

A young black man struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

Behind the enduring images of heroic rescues undertaken by the New Orleans Police Department in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there is another story of law enforcement in crisis, even out of control. This year-long, ongoing collaboration among Frontline, ProPublica, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune investigates charges that NOPD officers inappropriately used lethal force against New Orleans citizens and then tried to cover up their actions.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, in the prime of his boxing career, finds himself wrongfully convicted of murder. Sentenced to life in prison, Carter's published memoir, The Sixteenth Round, inspires a teenager from Brooklyn and three Canadian activists who believe in the truth, to join forces with Carter to prove his innocence.

The gripping story is told through four generations, from the capture of Kunta Kinte in Africa to his transport to Colonial America in brutal conditions through successive generations fighting to win their freedom in the Civil War.

Ron Stallworth, an African-American police officer from Colorado, successfully managed to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan and became the head of the local chapter.

Traces the course of a single day on a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. It's the hottest day of the year, a scorching 24-hour period that will change the lives of its residents forever.

Born Malcolm Little, his minister father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. He became a gangster, and while in jail discovered the Nation of Islam writings of Elijah Muhammad. After getting out of jail, he preaches the teachings, but later on goes on a pilgrimage to the city of Mecca. There he converts to the original Islamic religion and becomes a Sunni Muslim. He changes his name to El-Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz and stops his anti-white teachings, having discovered the error of his mistakes. He is later assasinated and dies a Muslim martyr.

Based on the true story of Solomon Northup. It is 1841, and Northup, an accomplished, free citizen of New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Stripped of his identity and deprived of all dignity, Northup is ultimately purchased by ruthless plantation owner Edwin Epps and must find the strength within to survive. Filled with powerful performances by an astonishing cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, and newcomer Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave is both an unflinching account of slavery in American history and a celebration of the indomitable power of hope.

As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson crossed all gender, race, and professional lines while their brilliance and desire to dream big, beyond anything ever accomplished before by the human race, firmly cemented them in U.S. history as true American heroes.

Bill Moyers interviews James Cone, author of God of the oppressed, about the meaning of the noose, the lynching tree, and other emblems of cruelty, shedding light on the lingering presence of racial hatred and terror in the national consciousness of the United States.

Nat Turner is a literate American slave and preacher. His financially strained owner accepts an offer to use Nat's preaching to subdue unruly slaves. But as Nat witnesses countless atrocities, he orchestrates an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom.

Master documentary filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and a flood of rich archival material. A journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter.

A young black man meets his white girlfriend's parents at their estate, only to find out that the situation is much more sinister than it appears.

Haunted by trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family. After spending a tense beach day with their friends, Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway: doppelgangers of themselves.

A frustrated teacher in a southern town, whose education is being underutilized, finds his own purpose in helping bring meaning to the last days of a young man due to be executed. In teaching one person to die with dignity, he redeems himself.

The shameful, sadistic murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a black boy who whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi grocery store in 1955, was a powerful catalyst for the civil rights movement. Although Till's killers were apprehended, they were quickly acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury and proceeded to sell their story to a journalist, providing grisly details of the murder. Three months after Till's body was recovered, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.

Chronicles the 1839 revolt on board the slave ship Amistad bound for America. Much of the story involves the court-room drama about the slave who led the revolt.

Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind. As he struggles to reconnect with his family and reconstruct the community he longs for, his hopes blind him to the reality of his situation.

Starr Carter navigates the perilous waters between her poor, black neighborhood and her prestigious, mainly white private school. This all changes when she finds herself in the middle of racial activism after her best friend is shot by police officers, and she's forced to make a decision. Allow the media to skewer her friend to protect the status quo, or stand up and tell the truth in memory of Khalil?

An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", in which Haley traces his African American family's history from the mid-18th century to the Reconstruction era.