Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver • Documentary • With Myles Horton, May Justice, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bernice Robinson • 1985 • 85 minutes

Lucy Massie Phenix's You Got to Move: Stories of Change in the South is about individuals who have dared to change the world for the be...

Directed by Patrick Savey • Documentary • With Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Miles Davis • 2014 • 97 minutes

Patrick Savey plunges us into Marcus’s world, capturing the New York roots of the legendary bass player, following his path like the pebbles of Tom Thumb, as he meets mast...

Directed by Grace Lee, Marjan Safinia • Documentary • With Stacey Abrams, Rashida Tlaib • 2020 • 111 minutes

“Episode One: Building The Movement” opens with the powerful reminder that “women of color have been the backbone of our communities forever.” An energetic montage of modern American civi...

Directed by Marjan Safinia, Grace Lee • Documentary • With Stacey Abrams, Rashida Tlaib • 2020 • 121 minutes

“Episode Two: Claiming Power” takes us to the weeks leading up to election day and focuses on how organizers combat voter suppression in their own communities. At the heart of the episode...

Directed by Sedat Pakay • Documentary • With James Baldwin • 1973 • 12 minutes

Set in Istanbul, the film opens with a surprisingly candid scene of Baldwin leisurely awakening in his bedroom. Sedat Pakay, a Turkish filmmaker who studied with Walker Evans, is known for his photographic portraits o...

Directed by Terence Dixon • Documentary • With James Baldwin • 1970 • 27 minutes

Shot in Paris, a city in which Baldwin lived for nine years after leaving New York — a decision he has described “as a matter of life and death.” The early sequences find Baldwin uncooperative, even hostile to the B...

Directed by Adam Bhala Lough, Ethan Higbee • Documentary • With Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Paul McCartney, The Clash, Bunny Wailer, Marcus Garvey, Carl Bradshaw, Eve, Benicio Del Toro • 2008 • 95 minutes

THE UPSETTER tells the wild, weed-fueled story of Lee “Scratch” Perry — a ...

Directed by Lori Cheatle • Documentary • 2000 • 60 minutes

In the 1930s Jewish intellectuals who escaped Nazi Germany and immigrated to the U.S. faced an uncertain future. Confronted with anti-Semitism at American universities and a public distrust of foreigners, many sought refuge in an unlikel...

Directed by Leo Hurwitz • Documentary • With Alfred Drake, Muriel Smith, Gary Merrill • 1948 • 71 minutes

The year was 1945. The free world rejoices over the defeat of fascism. But the peace soon chilled, and in the Cold War that followed the United States entered a period of national paranoia a...

Directed by George Nierenberg • Documentary • With Thomas A. Dorsey, Willie Mae Ford Smith, Delois Barrett Campbell, Billie Barrett GreenBey, Rodessa Barrett Porter, Edgar O'Neal, Edward O'Neal • 1982 • 100 minutes

One of the most acclaimed music documentaries of all time, Say Amen, Somebody is ...

Directed by Alaysja Clark • Documentary • 2017 • 7 minutes

African-American women discuss the struggles and benefits of being a black woman in America through hair.

Directed by Brad Bennett, Chris Haley • Documentary • 2021 • 40 minutes

Throughout the South, vast numbers of African-American gravesites and burial grounds for enslaved persons have been lost or are disappearing through neglect and nature reclaiming the solemn tombstones and markers. Recently, ...

Directed by Shirley Clarke • Documentary • With Ornette Coleman, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer • 1985 • 85 minutes

Returning in 1983 to his home in Fort Worth, Texas, documentary footage and dramatic scenes recall legendar...

Directed by Andrew Piddington • Documentary • With David Driskell • 1991 • 52 minutes

David Driskell, the pathbreaking art history professor and artist, is the focus of HIDDEN HERITAGE: THE ROOTS OF BLACK AMERICAN PAINTING. He made it his life mission to trace the work of Black artists from the ...

Directed by Billy Woodberry • Drama • With Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore • 1983 • 80 minutes

Searching for steady work, Charlie (Nate Hardman) views his chronic unemployment as a kind of spiritual trial. But selling a few catfish can’t sustain a family of five while his wife, Andais (Kaycee Moore)...

Directed by Lofty Nathan • Documentary • 2013 • 76 minutes

The 12 O'CLOCK BOYS are a notorious urban dirt bike pack in Baltimore -- popping wheelies and weaving at excessive speeds through traffic, the group impressively evades the hamstrung police. In Lotfy Nathan's wild, dynamic documentary (t...

Directed by Shola Lynch • Documentary • With Shirley Chisholm, Amiri Baraka, Octavia Butler, Bobby Seale • 2004 • 77 minutes

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this compelling documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman...

Directed by Linda Atkinson & Nick Doob • Documentary • With Carmen de Lavallade, Geoffrey Holder, Ailvin Ailey, Lester Horton, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker • 2006 • 80 minutes

Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, two living legends in the world of American dance, are the subjects of this ...

Directed by Charles Burnett • Drama • With Everett Silas, Jessie Holmes, Gaye Shannon-Burnett, Ronnie Bell • 1983 • 86 minutes

In 1983, after many long months of shooting, Charles Burnett sent his rough-cut of My Brother’s Wedding to his producers. Ignoring his request to finish the editing of t...

Directed by Andrew Rossi • Documentary • With Okwui Okpokwasili • 2017 • 91 minutes

From director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times, The First Monday in May) comes an electrifying portrait of writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili and her acclaimed one-woman show, Bronx Gothic. R...

Directed by Jacques Goldstein • Documentary • 2017 • 52 minutes

In 1969, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York mounted a major exhibit called “Harlem On My Mind.” There was just one thing wrong: the show had no work by African-American artists.

The “Harlem on My Mind” fiasco is emblematic ...

Directed by Carroll Parrot Blue • Documentary • 1984 • 28 minutes

'It starts before you snap the shutter... It starts with your sense of what's important.' These are the words of Roy DeCarava, one of the foremost photographic artists of the twentieth century, contributor to the Family of Man exh...

Directed by Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner • Documentary • 1970 • 55 minutes

FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is a forceful, unique documentary that reveals the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers inside and outside the auto factories of Detroit. Through interviews with th...

Directed by Ben Crosbie and Tessa Moran • Documentary • 2013 • 27 minutes

Fate of a Salesman is an intimate portrait of a way of life on the verge of disappearing. In its 60th year of business, Men's Fashion Center in Washington, DC has come to represent identity, legacy and redemption for sales...