46 movies to watch and learn from during Black History Month — or anytime (2024)

From “Selma” and “Hidden Figures” to “Harriet” and “Malcolm X,” Hollywood has delivered some credible depictions of real Black lives and events. “Rustin,” "Till," “The Inspection,” “Chevalier,” “Big George Foreman,” and “Sweetwater” in 2023 alone brought fresh stories to the big screen. Those were preceded by other entries the last few years like "King Richard" and "Respect.”

On the way are "Bob Marley: One Love" (Feb. 14), and biopics of Michael Jackson and Nat King Cole.

These real-life Black history stories are more crucial than ever as efforts are continually made, including locally, to eliminate Black history from some school systems.

Here, we present a select list of films inspired by Black history in politics, the arts, sports, medicine, science, equality, struggle, justice and more — stories big and small. All Black stories that mattered.

Remember, reading and research will always be a better way to learn about Black history. Hollywood typically incorporates fictional elements into most narratives. But these films are great entry points or refreshers.

And while it's great to view these films during Black History Month, the other 11 months of the year are just as good.

Released 2014 • Director Ava DuVernay • Where to watchPrime Video

David Oyelowo portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in a film depicting the civil rights leader's historic voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Make it a double feature: 'Boycott'

Released2001 • Director Clark Johnson • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Jeffrey Wright portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in a film about the Montgomery bus boycott.

Release2019 • DirectorKasi Lemmons • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Cynthia Erivo helped bring the overdue story of the Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman to the big screen. The film was directed and co-written bySt. Louis native Kasi Lemmons.

Make it a double feature: 'The Birth of a Nation'

Release 2016 • Director Nate Parker • Where to watch Prime Video

Nate Parker stars in the story of abolitionist Nat Turner, an enslaved man who successfully led an uprising.

Release2004 • Director Taylor Hackford • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of music genius Ray Charles received all the flowers — and deservedly so.

Make it a double feature: 'What's Love Got to Do With It'

Release 1993 • Director Brian Gibson • Where to watch Prime Video

Angela Bassett portrays rock 'n' roll icon Tina Turner in this crowd-pleasing biopic.

Release2016 • Director Theodore Melfi • Where to watch Prime Video

NASA's Black female mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson received a rare spotlight with portrayals by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.

Make it a double feature: 'Concussion'

Release 2015 • Director Peter Landesman • Where to watch Prime Video

Will Smith portrays acclaimed pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, who conducted groundbreaking research in the field of chronic traumatic encephalopathy among football players.

Released 2021 •DirectorLee Daniels •Where to watch Hulu

“The United States vs. Billie Holiday” revisits the legendary jazz singer (played by Andra Day) targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics for her heroin use.

Make it a double feature: 'Lady Sings the Blues'

Release 1972 • Director Sidney J. Furie • Where to watch Available on DVD

Diana Ross soars in her breakout acting role as legendary jazz artist and “Strange Fruit” singer Billie Holiday.

Release2013 • Director Justin Chadwick • Where to watch Prime Video

Idris Elba leads this biopic depicting the rise of Nelson Mandela, the South African president and anti-apartheid revolutionary.

Make it a double feature: 'Hotel Rwanda'

Release 2004 • Director Terry George • Where to watch Starz, Prime Video

Don Cheadle portrays Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan hotel manager who successfully housed countless refugees during a 1994 genocide.

Released 2021 • Director Shaka King • Where to watch Prime Video

“Judas and the Black Messiah,” starring Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield, is based on the Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton's betrayal by FBI informant William O’Neal.

Make it a double feature: 'Panther'

Released 1995• Director Mario Van Peebles • Where to watch available on DVD

Kadeem Hardison, Angela Bassett, Courtney B. Vance, Bokeem Woodbine, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Bobby Brown Jenifer Lewis and Dick Gregory help tell a tale tracing the Black Panther movement.

Release2020 • Director George C. Wolfe • Where to watch Netflix

Viola Davis is triumphant as real-life “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey in this fictionalized story about an ill-fated recording session. It's Chadwick Boseman’s final role.

Make it a double feature: 'Bessie'

Release 2015 • Director Dee Rees • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Queen Latifah, a Grammy-winning artist herself, takes on a different blues queen, Bessie Smith, a contemporary of Ma Rainey’s (portrayed here by Mo’Nique).

Release1995 • Director Robert Markowitz • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Laurence Fishburne, Allen Payne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Andre Braugher and Courtney B. Vance are among those leading the cast in the story of Black combat pilots in World War II.

Make it a double feature: 'Red Tails'

Release 2012 • Director Anthony Hemingway • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Cuba Gooding Jr. revisits familiar territory with Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Terrence Howard, Ne-Yo and Elijah Kelley.

Release1997 • Director Joseph Sargent • Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Alfre Woodard and Laurence Fishburne headline this story of the Tuskegee Experiment, a top-secret, decades-long government operation in which underprivileged Black men were used in a study of untreated syphilis.

Make it a double feature: 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'

Release 2017 • Director George C. Wolfe •Where to watch HBO, Prime Video

Renée Elise Goldsberry portrays Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cervical cancer cells in the 1950s were used, without her consent, in groundbreaking medical research. Also starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne.

Release2017 • DirectorReginald Hudlin • Where to watch Prime Video

Chadwick Boseman stars in a legal drama about an early case of Thurgood Marshall's, who went on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice. Directed by East St. Louis native Reginald Hudlin.

Make it a double feature: '42'

Release 2013 • Director Brian Helgeland • Where to watch Prime Video

Chadwick Boseman, with his penchant for portraying larger-than-life historical figures, hits a home run as Jackie Robinson, the first Black athlete to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era.

Release2020 • Director Regina King • Where to watch Prime Video

Kingsley Ben-Air, Eli Goree, Leslie Odom Jr. and Aldis Hodge star in a fictionalized depiction of the real-life 1964 meeting of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown at a Miami motel.

Make it a double feature: 'Malcolm X'

Release 1992 • Director Spike Lee • Where to watch Prime Video

Denzel Washington stars in a sweeping biopic about activist and minister Malcolm X.

Release2001 • Director Michael Mann • Where to watch Showtime, Prime Video

Will Smith enters the ring as Muhammad Ali in a flick that depicts 10 years of the boxing champion’s life.

Make it a double feature: 'The Hurricane'

Release 1999 • Director Norman Jewison • Where to watchHBO, Prime Video

Denzel Washington plays Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a boxer who is wrongly imprisoned for murder and must fight for his freedom.

Release2015 • Director F. Gary Gray • Where to watch Prime Video

O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell star in a musical drama based on the rise of groundbreaking and controversial rap act N.W.A., which spawned Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E.

Make it a double feature: 'Notorious'

Release 2009 • Director George Tillman Jr. • Where to watch Prime Video

The rise to fame and untimely death of New York rapper Notorious B.I.G. is depicted in this hip-hop biopic starring Jamal Woolard.

Release2021 •DirectorReinaldo Marcus Green •Where to watchHulu, Prime Video

Will Smith stars in this story about Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena Williams, who would stop at nothing to see his girls become tennis champs.

Make it a double feature: 'Sweetwater'

Release2023 •DirectorMartin Guigui •Where to WatchHulu

Everett Osborne stars as Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, who became the first African American to sign an NBA contract in the fall of 1950.

Release2013 • Director Lee Daniels • Where to watch Prime Video

Forest Whitaker stars in an epic drama about Cecil Gaines, a White House butler who served under eight different presidents.

Make it a double feature: 'Southside With You'

Release 2016 • Director Richard Tanne • Where to watch Prime Video

Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter portray a young Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson, on their first date in the summer of 1989, years before becoming president and first lady.

Release2013 • Director Ryan Coogler • Where to watch Prime Video

Michael B. Jordanstars as 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was killed by police on a devastating night at a train station in 2008.

Make it a double feature: 'Detroit'

Release 2017 • Director Kathryn Bigelow • Where to watch Prime Video

“Detroit” depicts the 1967 Detroit riots and a deadly incident at the Algiers Motel involving white police officers who attacked and killed Blacks.

Release2006 • Director Gabriele Muccino • Where to watch Prime Video

Will Smith teams up with his son Jaden in an inspirational story about salesman Chris Gardner, who went from sleeping in shelters to founding his own brokerage firm.

Make it a double feature: 'The Banker'

Release 2020 • Director George Nolfi • Where to watch Apple TV+

This early Apple TV+ movie stars Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson as Bernard Garrett and Joe Morris, two of the first Black bankers in the United States — with the help of a white associate who fronts the business.

Release2000 • Director Boaz Yakin • Where to watch Disney+, Prime Video

Denzel Washington plays football coach Herman Boone, who integrated T.C. Williams High School in the early 1970s.

Make it a double feature: 'The Express: The Ernie Davis Story'

Release 2008 • Director Gary Fleder • Where to watch Showtime, Prime Video

Rob Brown portrays Syracuse University football player Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy.

Release 1989 • Director Edward Zwick • Where to watch Starz, Prime Video

Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick star in a wartime feature on the Civil War’s first Black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.

Make it a double feature: 'Men of Honor'

Release 2000 • Director George Tillman Jr.• Where to watch Prime Video

Cuba Gooding Jr. is Carl Brashear, the first Black U.S. Navy diver; the cast also includes Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, Hal Holbrook and Powers Boothe.

Release1997 • Director John Singleton •Where to watch Prime Video

This historical drama is based on the horrific 1923 Rosewood, Florida, massacre, a race riot in which whites destroyed a Black town.

Make it a double feature: 'Mississippi Burning'

Release 1988 • Director Alan Parker • Where to watch Cinemax, Prime Video

A look at 1964’s Freedom Summer Murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, as investigated by FBI agents portrayed by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe.

Release2016 • DirectorStephen Hopkins • Where to watch Prime Video

Stephan James portrays 1936 Berlin Olympics track and fieldchampion Jesse Owens, dubbed “the fastest man alive."

Make it a double feature: 'Pride'

Release 2007 • Director Sunu Gonera • Where to Watch Prime Video

Philadelphia swim coach James Ellis, played by Terrence Howard, leads the first Black swim team at the Marcus Foster Recreation Center near Philadelphia.