Film Series
Fight the Power: Black Superheroes on Film
Before Black Panther there was...an entire alternative cinematic history of black screen heroes who challenged establishment power structures through their sheer existence. From blaxploitation icons to supernatural avengers to anti-colonial outlaws, this series spotlights industry-defying images of black heroism and empowerment in films that are as socially and politically subversive as they are downright fun.
Melvin Van Peebles’ revolutionary landmark of black independent cinema.
A black revolutionary is transformed into a man of steel in this blaxploitation film.
A super-fly Pam Grier gets even in this grindhouse classic.
“She’s 6-feet 2-inches of dynamite… And the hottest super agent ever!”
The blaxploitation sensation with Isaac Hayes’ classic, hot-buttered soul soundtrack.
Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte fight white oppressors in this slam-bang Western.
Avant-jazz mystic Sun Ra brings his pioneering Afrofuturist vision to film.
The most radical call to revolution of the 1970s, suppressed for decades by the FBI.
This hilarious spoof of blaxploitation cinema nails the music, the fashion, and the jive.
A pure cinema pop spectacle with the screen’s first black blockbuster superhero.
George Romero's stunningly subversive horror milestone is more than just the mother of all zombie movies; it's a still-shocking vision of Vietnam-era America consuming itself. The oft-imitated premise—a band of strangers crawl the walls of a farmhouse while the flesh-eating undead approach—is transformed into a canny (and ultimately chilling) commentary on race by the casting the sole black actor (Jones) as the hero.
A 90s horror classic rich in compelling racial and social commentary.
Wesley Snipes is iconic as a half-vampire avenger in this inventive sci-fi-horror hybrid.
An exquisite animated fable with a soundtrack by Senegalese great Youssou N’Dour.
Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are the Ray-Ban-sporting galaxy defenders.
An international program of shorts, from Afrofuturist fantasies to dystopian social commentary.
A schoolteacher turned superhero cleans up the community in this lovably goofball farce.
Roots icon Jimmy Cliff stars in “the definitive postcolonial cult-movie musical.”
The real life saga of an Afro-Brazilian martial arts legend and black liberator.
Caribbean folklore meets Afrofuturist superhero saga in this one-of-a-kind feminist origin story.
Pop sensation Aaliyah is the queen of vampires in this glitzy-goth horror extravaganza.
A mute, black alien crash-lands in Harlem in this wryly comic, lo-fi lost treasure.
A subtly supernatural origin story and one of the most overlooked films of the last year.
Forest Whitaker is a Zen hitman in Jim Jarmusch’s inventively offbeat crime thriller.
Halle Berry as the leather-clad, whip-cracking super-feline.
A spellbinding, mystical masterpiece from Malian auteur Souleymane Cissé.
Kathryn Bigelow’s dazzling sci-fi head-trip with a seriously steely Angela Bassett.
John Boyega stars in this British satire blending 80s thrills and incisive social commentary.
BAM and the Black Comics Collective present a day-long showcase celebrating comics of color.
Marvel Studios’ record-breaking film starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, and Lupita Nyong’o.