Top 250 Movies Like Black Hollywood: 'They'Ve Gotta Have Us'
A list of the best movies similar to Black Hollywood: 'They've Gotta Have Us'. If you liked Black Hollywood: 'They've Gotta Have Us' then you may also like: Uptight, The Vagabond, The Watermelon Woman, Night Catches Us, Nina and many more great movies featured on this list.
A unique portrait of how art and activism for black people in film are indivisible from race and cinema.
The Vagabond
A tramp tries to earn money by playing the violin, but he’s soon facing off against the jealous competition.
The Watermelon Woman
A young black lesbian filmmaker probes into the life of The Watermelon Woman, a 1930s black actress who played 'mammy' archetypes.
Night Catches Us
After growing up during the tumultuous 1960s, ex-Black Panther Marcus returns to his home in Philadelphia in 1976 and reconnects with Pat, the widow of a Panther leader. Marcus befriends Pat's young daughter and attempts to conquer his demons. Interfering with Marcus's good intentions are the neighborhood's continuing racial and social conflicts, as well as old enemies and friends -- both with scores to settle.
Nobody's Fool
After serving five years in prison, wild child Tanya looks to her buttoned-up, by-the-book sister Danica to help her get back on her feet. The feisty ex-con becomes suspicious and concerned when Danica tells her that she's in a long-distance, online relationship with a mysterious man she's never seen. As the polar opposites start to collide, Tanya soon discovers that her sibling's picture-perfect life may not be what it seems.
One Potato, Two Potato
Study of interracial marriage in the 1960s. A white divorcée falls in love with and marries an African-American man. When her ex-husband sues for custody of her child, arguing that a mixed household is an improper place to raise the girl, the new husband fights for his parental rights in court, fighting against a judge who represents the prejudices of the era.
The Rachel Divide
Rachel Dolezal became infamous when she was unmasked as a white woman passing for black so thoroughly that she had become the head of her local N.A.A.C.P. chapter. This portrait cuts through the very public controversy to reveal Dolezal’s motivations.
Krush Groove
Russell Walker is a young, successful manager of rap performers, handling acts for the Krush Groove label, including Run-DMC and The Fat Boys. When Run-D.M.C. has a hit record and Russell needs more money to press more copies, he borrows it from a street hustler and soon regrets his decision.
Black Girl
An aspiring dancer and her two wicked sisters resent their mother's love for a foster daughter.
A Cambodian Spring
"A Cambodian Spring" is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land-rights protests that led to the 'Cambodian spring' and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities - both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.
Menace II Society
A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.
Dear White People
Four college students attend an Ivy League college where a riot breaks out over an “African-American” themed party thrown by white students. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the film explores racial identity in 'post racial' America while weaving a story about forging one's unique path in the world.
Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde
A doctor in a Watts clinic takes his own medicine and becomes a monstrous white killer of hookers.
First Sunday
Durell and LeeJohn are best friends and bumbling petty criminals. When told they have one week to pay a $17,000 debt or Durell will lose his son, they come up with a desperate scheme to rob their neighborhood church. Instead, they end up spending the night in the presence of the Lord and are forced to deal with much more than they bargained for.
Gaza
GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.
They Call Me Mister Tibbs!
A police detective's investigation of a prostitute's murder points to his best friend.
The Lost Man
A gang of black militants plots to rob a factory to finance their "revolutionary struggle."
The Liberation of L.B. Jones
Undertaker L.B. Jones, the richest black man in his county of Tennessee, is divorcing his wife for infidelity with a white policeman. Taking a stand against racism, he is greeted with a hostile bunch of Southern bigots and other various stereotypes.
Body of Night
When a woman begins seeing a mysterious man who challenges her to a series of tests, she enters the dangerous and dark side of online dating.
Miss Juneteenth
Turquoise, a former beauty queen turned hardworking single mother, prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she did.
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound
An exploration of the history, artistry and emotional power of cinema sound, as revealed by legendary sound designers and visionary directors, via interviews, clips from movies, and a look at their actual process of creation and discovery.
Man of a Thousand Faces
The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.
A Piece of the Action
How does retired cop Joshua Burke (James Earl Jones) get two career criminals, Manny Durrell (Sidney Poitier) and Dave Anderson (Bill Cosby), to follow the straight and narrow? Con them into helping juvenile delinquents turn over a new leaf. But how? Burke has never been able to nail the duo, but he uses what he knows of their seedy past to blackmail them into volunteering.
Why Did I Get Married Too?
Four couples reunite for their annual vacation in order to socialize and to spend time analyzing their marriages. Their intimate week in the Bahamas is disrupted by the arrival of an ex-husband determined to win back his recently remarried wife.
Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor
A marriage counselor's personal and professional life becomes complicated after she enters into a relationship with one of her clients.
Selah and the Spades
Paloma, the new girl at an esteemed prep school, is drawn into the daily aggressions of warring senior class factions. She joins the Spades and becomes friends with the Spades’ leader, an enigmatic and scheming cheerleader named Selah.
Lottery Ticket
Kevin Carson is a young man living in the projects who has to survive a three-day weekend after his opportunistic neighbors find out he's holding a winning lottery ticket worth $370 million
Carmen: A Hip Hopera
An engaged Philadelphia policeman falls in love with a beautiful woman while dealing with a corrupt superior.
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
When Madea catches sixteen-year-old Jennifer and her two younger brothers looting her home, she decides to take matters into her own hands and delivers the young delinquents to the only relative they have: their aunt April. A heavy-drinking nightclub singer who lives off of Raymond, her married boyfriend, April wants nothing to do with the kids.
First Time Felon
Inspired by the true story of Greg Yance. In the film, Yance (Epps) is a hood who goes to jail for possession of drugs. He is given a choice: 5 years in jail or a couple of months in boot camp. He chooses boot camp and finds out it is tougher than he thought it would be. He braves it through and comes home a better man. He then has to deal with the real world, and never gives up no matter what the odds.
Brotherly Love
West Philadelphia basketball star Sergio Taylor deals with the pressures of fame while his brother and sister have their own issues with ambition.
The Rosa Parks Story
A seamstress recalls events leading to her act of peaceful defiance that prompted the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
Holiday Heart
After losing his police officer lover, Christian drag queen Holiday Heart meets 12-year-old Niki and her drug-addicted mother, Wanda. Heart finds relief from heartache and a renewed sense of purpose when he steps in as a father figure to Niki and welcomes the two women into his life. But when Wanda becomes romantically involved with her drug dealer, Silas, it may endanger Niki and threaten to destroy the makeshift family.
Cornbread, Earl and Me
The unintentional shooting by police of a star basketball player has profound personal, political and community repercussions in this acclaimed adaptation of the novel Hog Butcher by Ronald Fair. This was one of the more thoughtful urban dramas produced at the height of the "blaxploitation" craze. Also released under the title Hit the Open Man, it features the screen debut of Laurence Fishburne, who was barely a teenager at the time.
Claudine
Claudine is a single mother in New York City who endures an exhausting commute to the suburbs where she works as a maid for wealthy families. In one carefully tended white community, she meets Roop, a charismatic but irresponsible garbage collector. Romance quickly ensues, but Claudine doubts that their relationship is good for her six children, and Rupert, despite his good nature, is reluctant to take on fatherhood.
Five on the Black Hand Side
Leonard Jackson plays a barber who is also the domineering head of a middle-class African American family. Jackson is forced to rethink his values when his previously docile wife (Clarice Taylor) joins their three children in rebelling against her husband's retrogressive behavior.
Young Soul Rebels
Two disc jockeys have a friend's murder to solve in the fringe-group melting pot of 1977 London.
Hit Man
Bernie Casey portrays Tyrone and Pamela Grier plays a sultry skin-flick star in this first Americanized remake of the iconic Michael Caine action film Get Carter. From Watts to the West Side, from porno parlors to a high-rise, from motel dives to a crime kingpin’s sprawling pleasure dome, from corner hangouts to a wildlife preserve, Tyrone covers a lot of real estate, busts a lot of heads.
Let's Do It Again
Clyde Williams and Billy Foster are a couple of blue-collar workers in Atlanta who have promised to raise funds for their fraternal order, the Brothers and Sisters of Shaka. However, their method for raising the money involves travelling to New Orleans and rigging a boxing match.
Burning Sands
Deep into Hell Week, a favored pledgee is torn between honoring his code of silence or standing up against the intensifying violence of underground hazing.
Ruby's Bucket of Blood
A Louisiana juke joint owner loses her star entertainer and hires a white singer to fill in.
Miss Evers' Boys
The true story of the US Government's 1932 Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiments, in which a group of black test subjects were allowed to die, despite a cure having been developed.
Strictly Business
Waymon has a great job in real estate and a promising future, but he's also trapped in a loveless longterm relationship. He meets Natalie, a beautiful club-hopping hipster, and quickly falls in love. Realizing he's just not cool enough to attract her on his own, he seeks the help of his friend Bobby, a free-spirited smooth talker who works in the mail room at Waymon's firm and utilizes the predicament as leverage to advance in the company.
Middle of Nowhere
When her husband is sentenced to eight years in prison, Ruby drops out of medical school in order to focus on her husband's well-being while he's incarcerated - leading her on a journey of self-discovery in the process.
I Will Follow
Chronicles a day in the life of a grieving woman, and the twelve visitors who help her move forward.
The House on Skull Mountain
When the relatives of a recently deceased voodoo priestess gather at her sinister house on Skull Mountain for the reading of the will, they discover a killer in their midst who wants to keep them from collecting their inheritance.
Speed Demon
In this supernatural take on The Fast and the Furious, college student Jesse returns home only to find that his old stomping ground has been overrun by a gang of street racers that dabbles in the black arts. But things take a bloody turn for the gang members when a supercharged muscle car starts running them down. Can Jesse stop the fuel-injected killing machine and unmask the mysterious driver?
Those People
On Manhattan's gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.
Top of the Heap
A Black cop is pushed over the edge when he is passed over for a promotion, leading him on a violent personal crusade against criminals punctuated by feverish psychedelic dream visions.
Jason and Shirley
Based on a true story, Jason and Shirley recreates the 1966 power struggle between Jewish, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Shirley Clarke and her subject, Jason Holiday, a fierce black gay queen over a 12-hour marathon filming session which gave rise to Clarke's iconic documentary Portrait of Jason.
That Forsyte Woman
Soames and Irene Forsyte have a marriage of convenience. Young Jolyon Forsyte is a black sheep who ran away with the maid after his wife's death. Teenager June Forsyte has found love with an artist, Phillip Bosinny. The interactions between the Forsytes and the people and society around them is the truss for this love story set in the rigid and strict times of the Victorian age.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Composed of intimate and unencumbered moments of people in a community, this film is constructed in a form that allows the viewer an emotive impression of the Historic South - trumpeting the beauty of life and consequences of the social construction of race, while simultaneously a testament to dreaming.
Come Away
Before Alice went to Wonderland, and before Peter became Pan, they were brother and sister. When their eldest brother dies in a tragic accident, they each seek to save their parents from their downward spirals of despair until finally they are forced to choose between home and imagination, setting the stage for their iconic journeys into Wonderland and Neverland.
Montford: The Chickasaw Rancher
A Chickasaw man survives great hardships and tragedy to establish a vast ranching empire along the famous cattle highway of the American West.
Ashes and Embers
Ashes and Embers is an original screenplay by Haile Gerima, about a Vietnam veteran, who, several years after the war, is struggling to come to terms with his role in the war, and his role as a Black person in America. He survives by working odd jobs in Washington, D.C. and living with his girlfriend and her son. When criticism of his alienated behavior come from her and a father figure too often, he runs to the streets or to his grandmother's rural house in Virginia. Her criticism and his memories of the past both send him fleeing again to Los Angeles, where he is surrounded by superficial people who have forgotten how to be compassionate human beings. It is here that the advice of his friends and grandmother combine to transform him from an embittered ex-soldier to a strong and confident man.
Drop Squad
Controversial film about an underground organization that kidnaps and 'deprograms' African Americans who sell out or deny their cultural heritage. Spike Lee is the Executive Producer.
Slaughter's Big Rip Off
Vigilante Slaughter comes under attack from Duncan, a local money launderer whose hit-man traps Slaughter in a car at a cliff, but Slaughter escapes, arms himself, and goes after Duncan's hideout.
Halls of Anger
An all-black inner city school has to become an integrated school. Few dozen white kids are transfered there, but the black students are aggressively opposed to this. The school then approaches a tough black teacher for help.
Final Portrait
Paris, 1964. The Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti, one of the most accomplished and respected artists of his generation, asks his friend, the American writer James Lord, to sit for a portrait, assuring him that it will take no longer than two or three hours, an afternoon at the most.
Is That Black Enough for You?!?
A look at the Black revolution in 1970s cinema, from genre films to social realism, from the making of new superstars to the craft of rising auteurs.
Don't Play Us Cheap
As an African American family and friends gather in an apartment for a house party, two mischief-making devil-bats take human form in order to break up the party.
Losing Ground
Sara, a cold college professor, and her husband, an ecstatic painter, spend a summer away from the city, straining their rocky relationship.
Melinda
A slick, smooth-talking, womanizing young black DJ falls hard for an enigmatic woman he's just met. Things take a turn for the worse, though, when she is found dead in his apartment. It turns out that she was killed by the local mob, which is trying to frame him for the crime. With the police after him, he calls on some of his old acquaintances to help clear his name and avenge the woman's death.
Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe
Crump directed the feature-length documentary film Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff + Robert Mapplethorpe, which premiered in North America at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and in Europe at Art Basel. It explores the influence curator Sam Wagstaff, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and musician/poet Patti Smith had on the 1970s art scene in New York City.
Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia
The true story of Mahalia Jackson, who began singing at an early age and went on to become one of the most revered gospel figures in U.S. history, melding her music with the civil rights movement.
Trick Baby
Two Philadelphia con men try to evade gangsters they have conned and cops who are trying to put them in jail.
Thomasine & Bushrod
A pair of thieves operate in the American South between 1911 and 1915, stealing from rich, white capitalists, and giving to Mexicans, Native Americans and poor whites.
Dark Angels
A pregnant woman's physically abusive husband demands that she get an abortion. Their world is full of sex, drugs, money, and power, with violence an ever-present threat. On the mean streets of Atlanta, the expectant mother finds that only spiritual awareness and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse can help her escape the madness. Dark Angels is a black action movie written, produced, and directed by David Wadley, featuring A.J. Johnson (Friday, Menace II Society). Dark Angels is available on multiple streaming services, including Prime Video and Tubi.
Come Back, Charleston Blue
Sequel to Cotton Comes to Harlem. Another bad influence is hitting Harlem and Gravedigger and Coffin Ed are the two cops who will stop it. Charleston Blue was a prohibition era black gangster, dead 4 decades. When he seems to have reappeared, once again slitting throats with his Blue straight edge razors, the two cops begin a complicated search for some answers.
Gordon's War
A black soldier comes home to Harlem after a tour in Vietnam and discovers that his wife had become a heroin addict and died of an overdose. Infuriated, he gathers three of his ex-GI buddies and they lay out plans to fight the drug dealers.
Jimi: All Is by My Side
A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off.
The Forty-Year-Old Version
Desperate for a breakthrough as she nears the big 4-0, struggling New York City playwright Radha finds inspiration by reinventing herself as a rapper.
Baking Christmas
When their mother decides to retire, her three children organize Christmas Cake Off to choose which one of them is going to take over the family bakery.
Noble Intentions
A teenage boy reluctantly turns to the streets to earn $6,000 a month for his mother's cancer medicine and quickly discovers that street money does not come easy. When an old family friend makes him a syndicate boss, jealousy and greed immediately turn his friends against him. With pressure mounting from all sides, he must choose between saving his mother’s life and saving his own.
Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire
Actress Sally Field looks at the dramatic life and successful career of the superb actress Barbara Stanwyck (1907-90), a Hollywood legend.
Indivisible
Upon returning from serving in the U.S. Army, Chaplain Darren Turner faces a crisis that shatters his Family and Faith in God but through the help of his fellow soldiers, he returns to his faith and family
Three Bewildered People in the Night
David, Craig and Alicia are a triangle of young lovers who find angst and despair as they sort out their feelings and sexuality in a late-night coffee shop.
Christmas in Canaan
Set in the 1960s, Christmas in Canaan is a drama about a black family and a white family that learn to love each other out of their Christian beliefs.
Special People
Special People is based on a true story of Diane Dupuy. Diane Dupuy creates a unique black light theatre company called Famous People Players. The cast consists of people who are developmenatlly challenged. Seven members of the cast play themselves in the movie as well as the man who discovered this talented performance group and gave them their start in show business: Liberace.
The Inheritance
Five ambitious cousins set out on a family reunion during the dead of winter. The purpose of the retreat is to secure their inheritance, a fortune that dates back many generations. Upon their arrival, Uncle Melvin welcomes them with open arms, but warns them to respect their family traditions. During the weekend, as each of the cousins mysteriously disappear, they learn the truth about their family legacy, blood ancestry and the ultimate sacrifice they must make in exchange for their beloved inheritance.
The Man Who Couldn't
A young Los Angeles cinephile falls in love with a woman but has that love tested by the all-seeing eye of the Internet.
The American Society of Magical Negroes
A young man, Aren, is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier.
Meeting Ms. Leigh
A young writer in desperate need of inspiration begins an affair with an enchanting, enigmatic older woman during a weekend in Santa Monica. True feelings emerge, and they must decide whether to continue their torrid romance or go their separate ways.
Tyler Perry's Divorce in the Black
Ava, a young bank professional is devastated when her husband Dallas abandons a marriage she is determined to fight for until fate intervenes, revealing Dallas' wicked deeds that have trashed their marriage, and once upon a time sabotaged Ava's destiny to be loved by her true soulmate.
A unique portrait of how art and activism for black people in film are indivisible from race and cinema.
A list of the best movies similar to Black Hollywood: 'They've Gotta Have Us'. If you liked Black Hollywood: 'They've Gotta Have Us' then you may also like: Uptight, The Vagabond, The Watermelon Woman, Night Catches Us, Nina and many more great movies featured on this list.
Uptight
Black militants building up an arsenal of weapons in preparation for a race war are betrayed by one of their own.