Best Movies for Black History Month

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at the age of seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mother who insisted he make his own way in the world, Charles found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered incorporating gospel, country, jazz and orchestral influences into his inimitable style. As he revolutionized the way people appreciated music, he simultaneously fought segregation in the very clubs that launched him and championed artists' rights within the corporate music business. The movie provides a portrait of Charles' musical genius as he overcomes drug addiction while transforming into one of his country's most beloved performers.

Biography of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league baseball player in the 20th century. Traces his career in the negro leagues and the major leagues.

Set in 1944 Italy, the story of four black American soldiers who get trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII.

A drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school's first debate team, which went on to challenge Harvard in the national championship.

The film tells the story of boxing icon Muhammad Ali from 1964 to 1974 featuring his capture of the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston, his conversion to Islam, criticism of the Vietnam War, banishment from boxing, his return to fight Joe Frazier in 1971, and, lastly, his reclaiming the title from George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle fight of 1974. The movie also discusses the great social and political upheaval in the United States following the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

About a 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the northeastern coast of America. Much of the story involves a court-room drama about the free man who led the revolt.

12 Years a Slave is an historical drama film based on the autobiography Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film is directed by Steve McQueen and written by John Ridley. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northup. * 12 Years A Slave received nine (9) 2014 Oscar Nominations: "Best Picture" "Best Actor in a Leading Role" (Chiwetel Ejiofor) "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" (Michael Fassbender) "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" (Lupita Nyong'o) "Costume Design" (Patricia Norris) "Directing" (Steve McQueen) "Film Editing" (Joe Walker) "Production Design" (Adam Stockhausen, Alice Baker) "Writing - Adapted Screenplay" (John Ridley) *'12 Years A Slave' won a Golden Globe Award (2014) for "Best Motion Picture - Drama". * '12 Years a Slave' received seven (7) 2014 Golden Globe Nominations: "Best Drama" in motion pictures "Best Director" (Steve McQueen) "Best Actor in a Drama" (Chiwetel Ejiofor) "Best Supporting Actress" (Lupita Nyong'o) "Best Supporting Actor" (Michael Fassbender) "Best Screenplay" (John Ridley) "Best Score" (Hans Zimmer)

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.

The true story of how a group of African American pilots overcame racist opposition to become one of the finest US fighter groups in World War II.

Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.

In Harlem, an overweight, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction.

The film is an ensemble piece about a young white woman, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, and her relationship with two black maids during Civil Rights era America in the early 1960s. Skeeter is a journalist who decides to write a controversial book from the point of view of the maids (known as the Help), exposing the racism they are faced with as they work for white families.

Several stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the white district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist white veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with the racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more.

A frustrated African American TV writer proposes a blackface minstrel show in protest, but to his chagrin it becomes a hit.