The Double P’s that Have Shaped Black Movies

When I first thought about diving into the topic of Black movies, I was excited. I love film in general and some of the Black films that I grew up with deeply shaped me. But I quickly realized that this exploration would be complicated, highly influenced by my perceptions and by those who had compiled the movie lists that I would use. 

I had thought that I had grown up in a “golden age” (90’s/early 20’s) of what I like to call Black classics – movies that most Black folks seem to know and hold in high regard. But was this just my own experiences and perceptions causing me to jump to a false conclusion? What even qualifies a film as Black? And lastly, what are Black movies about and what warrants them to make it onto a list? I found some data that was easily accessible and decided to try to turn down my assumptions and see where the data would lead me.

The Movies That Shaped Me

I can still remember the first time I watched Do The Right Thing. It was actually a very hot summer evening in Chicago, so a very relatable setting to watch it. I was probably around ten, and alone. I remember being totally arrested by the feeling of the neighborhood, the people, the music, and the underlying unrest that the movie captured. It would springboard me on to watch many more Spike Lee movies. Which would also help cultivate a growing love of jazz.

I don’t recall the first time, but I do remember watching Boyz n the Hood even before Do The Right Thing. We had it on vhs. I remember thinking how sad it was, and deeply relating to the characters trying to make it out of tough neighborhoods but being young and thwarted by a world that was against them. 

The Color Purple holds deep memories for me. Someone in the family had recorded it on vhs from the tv, and I knew practically all the words by heart. My cousin and I would always sing along to ‘God is Trying to Tell You Something’ during the church scene. 

I remember Love Jones, even more remarkable to me because it was set in Chicago (my hometown) and opened up the world of Black artists to me. I loved uncomplicated movies like The Wood, Love and Basketball, and The Best Man which all put their spin on Black love and relationships. And because I love film so much, I even watched the oldies way before my time like Carmen with Harry Belafonte and A Raisin in the Sun with Sydney Poitier.

These are some of the movies that were special to me because they struck a chord of relatability and familiarity, and they moved something in me.

Black Movies as Perceived by the World

When I looked it up, Black movies were defined as “encompassing films that are either made by, for, or about Black people. This can include films with significant Black representation in the cast, crew (particularly directors and writers), or those that explore Black experiences and culture.” This seems pretty clear, but can obviously have some complications. For example, what about movies where only the lead actor is Black? Or the director is black, but the lead actors are not and the film doesn’t depict Black life. Should these get some consideration, at least in some instances?

I scraped three movie lists to try to figure out some Black movie (from the United States) trends, particularly around my idea about a “golden age”.

Source	Movies From (year)	Movies to (year)
Black Cinema Connection	1916	2020
IMDb Black Movies	2001	2023
IMDb The 100 best Black / urban movies of all time	1971	2015

Two lists are from IMDb, which are not exhaustive, but relatively reputable. The other is from a blog. It’s important to note that movies in the dataset may have appeared on multiple lists, but I labeled the source according to a hierarchy. Anything on the “100 best” list got labeled first. Then if it was on the general IMDb list it was assigned that label, and finally the rest got the Black Cinema Connection (BCC) label. There are 793 movies in the dataset.  I’m noting this because I think which lists the movies land on could be an important data point in understanding perception of Black film.

One thing that I noticed right away is that what I’ve labeled as the “golden age” of Black film is actually just a drop in the bucket in terms of volume of films released. After the mid-2010’s, there’s a dramatic increase in the number of Black movies. However we see that the majority of the “best 100” films fall in this period, so maybe there’s something to my “golden age” hypothesis after all.

What Are Black Movies About

Prior to the 1980s, Black film focused on topics around relationships (non-romantic), crime, and race. After that we saw a shift where comedy was the dominant category, followed by crime and relationships. Film addressing issues of race had a consistent presence across the years. Those centered around romantic love picked up a bit after 2000.

Below we can see how movie categories shake out across the three sources. It’s interesting to me that the majority of the “100 best” fall in comedy and crime. Whereas the majority for BCC fall into relationships, then comedy and crime. This prompted me to look at these comedic “100 best” and what I found was interesting.

Some of them, although wrapped in comedy, had a deeper storyline that I wouldn’t consider a comedy, like Do the Right Thing and Soulfood. This made me wonder if Black movies are only palatable to the folks who make the reputable lists if they are wrapped in humor. Or perhaps only if they are placed in the oh-too-familiar crime-laden stereotypes that plague the Black community. Or maybe it’s just that Black movies often have a comedic slant because that is a preference of our community — finding the humor in things as a way to deal with them.

Who’s Working in Black Movies

I don’t know much about film directors in general, but I was curious to see if there were any names that stood out as frequently directing Black movies. I saw some expected names: Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, John Singleton, Albert & Allen Hughes (Dead Presidents, The Book of Eli). But I also saw some names I didn’t expect. Steven Spielberg for example; it makes sense (he directed The Color Purple), but I just didn’t originally think of him. Jeff Pollack, who is white and a name that I was unfamiliar with, wrote, produced, and directed Above the Rim (1994), which I would consider one of those “Black classics”.

I also noticed that volume didn’t equate to quality. Tyler Perry has directed the most films, but Spike Lee and John Singleton have the most films on the “100 best” list.

I did the same exercise to look at most frequent actors, broken down by source. Eddie Murphy and Ice Cube have the highest number of movies on the “100 best” list. And I’m struck by how some of the more popular, known actors fall in the lower frequencies. People like Will Smith and Laurence Fishburne.

Or people like Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson or Sydney Poitier, who I know have made a ton of movies but don’t show up here. I think the key here is that these are Black actors who make a lot of different kinds of movies. Not just movies handling Black stories or movies that may tell a Black story. But also ones that perhaps have a white audience in mind. I’m specifically thinking about movies like Losing Isaiah (Berry) or In the Heat of the Night (Poitier).

Black Movies — Perception and Perseverance

I wanted to dig into the topic of Black movies because I love film. As an African American, I love to see Black folks on the screen making art. But this task as a data-driven exercise had major obstacles from the start. What is a Black movie? After all, there is no singular Black movie registry. And I personally believe that excluding all, if not just some, movies that feature a Black lead but may have a predominately white cast, could be a misstep. Yet this is just my perception of what is a Black movie and what should make it on the list.

We’ve seen in the data that Black movies are largely classified as comedies, even when that description does not capture the essence of what the movie is. We’ve also seen that filmmakers center a major proportion of Black movies on crime. Often these movies address drugs, gangs, or heists. Or living in an environment where these things are prevalent. It’s all so cliche for a movie about Black people to also be about crime. But here’s the rub. Black people have had to fight and grin and bear it just to be a part of the film industry in the US.

The legacy of slavery and second class citizenship made it such that Black actors could only get certain types of roles, and Black filmmakers got no support. Simplified, these roles were either the buffoon comedic relief, the violent criminal, or for women the mammy or the sexy jezebel. I think this legacy drives the types of films filmmakers choose to create. We see these categories in the data.

But we also see the rise of Black filmmakers telling stories that resonate with them and the community. Sure, they may wrap these stories in humor, but I could argue that humor reflects a Black cultural trait. We laugh to keep from crying, to cope with our circumstances, and to find joy when it feels out of reach. And that is perseverance. I mentioned a “golden age” of Black film. Looking at the data, that time period did see growth in the making of Black movies. And many movies held in high regard (100 best list) come from that time period.

After around 2015 we see more holiday, friendship, and romantic love films. Filmmakers are changing the types of Black movies they produce. And maybe because they release so many more films, with more varied subjects, it’s easier for someone like me to miss some of them. Or perhaps as movie-making becomes more accessible for us, there becomes less emphasis on impactful stories and just pure entertainment. I don’t know. There’s just so many questions and speculations.

What I do know is this: I know a Black movie when I see it. It’s art, so our perceptions do matter. I’m going to hold onto my “golden age” of Black film theory for now. The data I have here does not disprove it. I know how those movies made me feel. They influenced my thinking and sparked the consciousness of the community I grew up in. We’d have to find more complete, better data to go further. We would also need to nail down our assumptions behind the categorization of movies before we’d be able to get much more insight than that. Sometimes that is all the data can do.