Highest-Rated Movies about 'African-americans', Sort by Popularity

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It) (2005), Baadasssss! (2003), Down in the Delta (1998), The Green Pastures (1936), Friday (1995), The Five Heartbeats (1991), Malcolm X (1972), The Guard (2011) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best African-americans movies.

#1. How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It) (2005)

Storyline: Melvin Van Peebles was one of the first black directors to challenge the white establishment in his films, which include "Watermelon Man" and "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." In this documentary, the life of Van Peebles is discussed, including his work not only in film, but also as a novelist, actor, musician, stock trader and even Air Force pilot. Interview subjects include Gil Scott-Heron, Spike lee and Melvin's son and fellow filmmaker, Mario Van Peebles.

Plot Keywords: director, son, poet, intense, inspiring, positive, united states ...

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#2. Baadasssss! (2003)

Storyline: Director Mario Van Peebles chronicles the complicated production of his father Melvin's classic 1971 film, "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." Playing his father in the film, Van Peebles offers an unapologetic account of Melvin's brash and sometimes deceptive conduct on the set of the film, including questionable antics like writing bad checks, tricking a local fire department and allowing his son, Mario, to shoot racy sex scenes at the age of 11.

Plot Keywords: director, actor, father, son, amusing, brash, crafty ...

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#3. Down in the Delta (1998)

Storyline: Sinclair family matriarch Rosa Lynn (Mary Alice) raises enough money to help her two grandchildren and drug-addicted adult daughter, Loretta (Alfre Woodard), move to a small Mississippi town in order to escape the dangers of inner-city Chicago. There, Loretta and her kids are taken in by her gruff uncle, Earl (Al Freeman Jr.), who attempts to instill a work ethic and sense of history in his niece. With the help of Earl's tough love, Loretta does her best to put her past demons behind her.

Plot Keywords: single mother, grandmother, uncle, wife, son, daughter, touching ...

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#4. The Green Pastures (1936)

Storyline: A preacher in a small African-American church in Louisiana tells his Sunday school class stories from the Bible as if the characters were part of a local fish fry. He starts with the creation of the world by God, known as "De Lawd" (Rex Ingram), and tells how God went on to create heaven, which is just like their farmland, and then created man and woman, followed by their fall and finally the coming of Jesus Christ. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Plot Keywords: preacher, father, angel, magician, priest, dreamy, uplifting ...

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#5. Friday (1995)

Storyline: It's Friday and Craig Jones (Ice Cube) has just gotten fired for stealing cardboard boxes. To make matters worse, rent is due, he hates his overbearing girlfriend, Joi (Paula Jai Parker), and his best friend, Smokey (Chris Tucker), owes the local drug dealer money -- and that's all before lunch. As the hours drag on, Jones and Smokey experience the gamut of urban life, complete with crackheads, shoot-outs and overly sexual pastors, concentrated into one single, unbelievable Friday.

Plot Keywords: man, drug addict, neighbor, girlfriend, pastor, best friend, lighthearted ...

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#6. The Five Heartbeats (1991)

Storyline: In the early 1960's, a quintet of hopeful young African American men form an amateur vocal group called The Five Heartbeats. After an initially rocky start, the group improve, turn pro, and rise to become a top flight music sensation. Along the way however, the guys learn many hard lessons about the reality of the music industry with it's casual racism and greed while the personal weaknesses of the members threaten to destroy the integrity of the band.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>

Plot Keywords: singer, manager, record producer, groupie, friend, gritty, moving ...

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#8. The Guard (2011)

Storyline: Sergeant Gerry Boyle is a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door.

Plot Keywords: guard, fbi agent, amusing, thrilling, ireland, village, murder case ...

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#9. Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Storyline: Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink, in the Bathtub, a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink's tough love prepares her for the unraveling of the universe; for a time when he's no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack, temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. With the waters rising, the aurochs coming, and Wink's health fading, Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother.

Plot Keywords: young girl, father, alcoholic, mother, dreamy, emotional, striking ...

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#11. Men of Honor (2000)

Storyline: The story ultimately revolves around two "men of honor"; their relationship, their individual and joint failures and triumphs. Carl Brashear is determined to be the first African American Navy Diver in a time where racism is rife. Leslie Sunday is his embittered trainer, determined to see him fail. Fate, challenges and circumstances eventually draw these two men together in a tale of turbulence and ultimately triumph.

Plot Keywords: diver, naval officer, sharecropper, trainer, amputee, racist, inspiring ...

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#13. Good Hair (2009)

Storyline: Chris Rock, a man with two daughters, asks about good hair, as defined by Black Americans, mostly Black women. He visits Bronner Brothers' annual hair convention in Atlanta. He tells us about sodium hydroxide, a toxin used to relax hair. He looks at weaves, and he travels to India where tonsure ceremonies produce much of the hair sold in America. A weave is expensive: he asks who makes the money. We visit salons and barbershops, central to the Black community. Rock asks men if they can touch their mates' hair - no, it's decoration. Various talking heads (many of them women with good hair) comment. It's about self image. Maya Angelou and Tracie Thoms provide perspective.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: daughter, celebrity, african-american woman, al sharpton, engaging, hilarious, profound ...

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#14. Anna Lucasta (1958)

Storyline: When wild child Anna Lucasta (Kitt) is banished from the family home by her self-righteous father, she falls into a life of prostitution and into the arms of of streetwise sailor Danny Johnson (Davis). But after she shocks them all by finally finding true love with a well-heeled young suitor, her unforgiving father sets a vengeful plan in motion to remind his daughter of her sordid past and destroy her future forever.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: prostitute, sailor, father, mother, suitor, brother-in-law, melodramatic ...

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#15. Bright Road (1953)

Storyline: Based on the story, See How They Run (The Ladies' Home Journal June 51), and subsequently won that year's Christopher award. The story was written by Mary Elizabeth Vroman, a 4th generation schoolteacher from the British West Indies. Jane Richards, a young 4th grade teacher in the South, faces a challenge in the form of 11 year-old C.T. Young, a backward boy, whose pride has made him a stubborn rebel and liar. Jane believes in him, then discovers his interest in nature when he spends his time watching a caterpillar in a tree trunk as it develops a cocoon. C. T.'s devoted to his family and especially to Tanya, who adores him. When Tanya dies, despite Dr. Mitchell's efforts to save her, the embittered C.T. stays away from school; when he returns, he gets into a fight and gets sent to Coventry. But when a swarm of bees invades the classroom and panics the students, C.T. takes charge, captures the queen bee, and leads the swarm outside, earning the school principal's praise. But C.T. has urgent business: the cocoon's splitting and a butterfly's ready to emerge. He had meant it for Tanya, but he now presents it to Jane, who calls the other children to watch the unfolding miracle of nature.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Plot Keywords: teacher, principal, student, classmate, touching, inspiring, gutsy ...

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