There’s no getting around it: The new movie Dope is dope (I know, but I could not resist). One would expect no less from the writer and director who brought us The Wood and Brown Sugar. Filmmaker Rick Famuyiwa has definitely redeemed himself after his underwhelming last film, 2010’s Our Family Wedding. “I made a…

What Happened, Miss Simone? takes an unflinching look at the sometimes troubled life and complex legacy of the singer, pianist and civil rights activist. At one point in her career, Nina Simone was a celebrated performer playing Carnegie Hall, but fast-forward, and she’s singing in dive bars in Paris for a couple of hundred dollars…

As one watches Selma—which opens in limited release Christmas Day and nationwide Jan. 9—it’s hard not to reflect on the protests going on around the country over the shooting deaths of unarmed black men by white police officers. It’s a topic that comes up often when Selma director Ava DuVernay discusses her film. She and some…

Dear white people: It’s not OK to throw a black-themed party at which white students wear racist costumes and drink from cups that look like watermelons, especially to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Justin Simien, the writer and director behind the comedy Dear White People, doesn’t have to look far to illustrate how his…

One of the most pivotal periods in civil rights history is finally coming to the big screen. Selma, depicting Martin Luther King Jr.’s voting-rights campaign and the weeks of bloody protests in Selma, Ala., opens Christmas Day. The movie could not be timelier, with current civil rights leaders steeped in a continuing fight over voting…

It’s been 14 years since Love & Basketball came out, starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps. Now the writer-director behind that seminal film finally has another love story hitting the big screen. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights makes its U.S. premiere Thursday in New York City at the Urbanworld Film Festival. As one of Hollywood’s few…

When you think of Jane Austen-type dramas, you don’t think of black heroines, but a new film hitting theaters on Friday wants to change that. Belle is a period piece with all the beautiful costumes and grand English homes, but it features a biracial star, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and is helmed by a black director, Amma…

The new film Belle, which opens Friday, introduces the world not only to a black heroine from the 18th century but also to rising star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The 30-year-old British-born actress plays the film’s lead, Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed-race daughter of a white English aristocratic father and black slave mother. Mbatha-Raw’s own mother, Anne Raw, is English…

This year’s Sundance Film Festival concluded with four black directors leaving Park City, Utah, with awards. Although none of the four won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize, as Fruitvale Station did last year, the fact that so many black filmmakers took home honors shows that black independent films are thriving. This year’s Audience Award for…

(The Root) — For Trayvon Martin’s parents, the one-year anniversary of his shooting death was a day spent reflecting on just how much they have lost and just how much they have gained. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin marked Feb. 26 by attending a “Million Hoodie Candlelight Vigil” in New York City’s Union Square, where…