Top 5 Influential Black Films
A Black Inspiration
Not until recently there has been any recognition for black films outside the black community until Black Panther recently came out. There are so many influential and important, black fully casted films that have been created over the last 40 plus years. Here below are the top 10 most influential black films in the last 40 or more years.
- Roots
This film is a nine-time Emmy award-winning mini-series that first premiered in 1977, that was created based on the book The Roots: The Saga of an American Family. It is about the capture of an African male in the 18th century, Who at a young age was captured as a slave in Africa and taken to North America. This film follows his life and those who come from his lineage. When this movie came out it was a cultural sensation in America and thought to be one of the most vital works in the 20th century.
2. The Color Purple
This film was directed by Steven Spielberg, premiered in 1985 with a star-studded cast that included; Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey. It is about a coming of age of a young woman named Celie, who grew up being abused by her father. Later being separated from her siblings, because her father decided to sell her to Mister Albert Johnson ( Danny Glover )who is equally abusive to her. Leading her to find companionship were ever she can, fights through it all with the goal to see her sister again in Africa.
3. Raisin In The Sun
This 1961 film, follows an African American family, The Youngers, all living in a small apartment together in Chicago during the great depression. This movie surrounds the events of the matriarch of the family passing away and then deciding what to do with the insurance money that was left to them. Thoughts on what to do vary’s on what to do with the money, Walter Lee (Sidney Poitier) wants to invest the money. While his mother’s goal is to use the money for a house, for all of them to live in — Two different views on the American dream.
4. Marvel’s Black Panther
This Film is a movie based on the Marvel comic Black Panther, Which is the first major black superhero movie in history. This film follows T’challa aka The Black Panther returns home to Wakanda to take the throne as king, after the death of his father. It displays his challenges as King and the Black Panther as a powerful enemy comes to try to take it all away from him.
5. Love & Basketball
Follows two childhood best friends, Monica and Quincy, their journey from childhood to adulthood with the dream of making it big in basketball. It shows how as they get older things change and feelings change. How being best friends all there lives, can change to something more in a blink of an eye.
