Movies: Charles Burnett

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....

An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence....

J.J. is a rookie in the Sheriff's Department and the first black officer at that station. Racial tensions run high in the department as some of J.J.'s fellow officers resent his presence. His only real friend is the other new trooper, the first femal...

An enigmatic drifter from the South comes to visit an old acquaintance who now lives in South-Central LA....

John is a man of many talents, including one forbidden skill: he can read. When he teaches a young slave girl named Sarny to read and write, she learns an unforgettable lesson about the power of words and the true meaning of freedom....

Lynn Redgrave plays Poinsettia, a former housewife with an imagined lover in the form of 19th-century composer Giacomo Puccini. She moves into a Los Angeles boarding house with an energetic landlady (Margot Kidder) where she meets a Jamaican widower,...

Tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself....

In 1965 Alabama, an 11 year old girl is touched by a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. and becomes a devout follower. But her resolution is tested when she joins others in the famed march from Selma to Montgomery....

Director Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep, My Brother's Wedding, To Sleep with Anger) presents a tale about a young boy's encounter with his family in Mississippi in the 1950s, and intergenerational tensions between the heavenly strains of gospel and...

Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation is a 2007 epic film on the Namibian independence struggle against South African occupation as seen through the life of Sam Nujoma, the leader of the South-West Africa People's Organisation and the first president ...

Shelby Coles (Halle Berry) is engaged to marry talented white jazz musician Meade Howell, but the pair face opposition from both Meade's family, who object to an inter-racial marriage, and Shelby's parents, who want her to marry a professional. As Sh...

Jason Ross is an 11-year-old boy whose love for baseball exceeds his talent for the game. When cut from his little league team, Jason's undefeatable spirit leads him to try and create an expansion team. In searching for a new coach, Jason comes to be...

A musician spends New Year's Day trying to help his friend pay the rent....

In 1831, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in the United States that resulted in the murder of local slave owners and their families, the eventual execution of 55 rebels and the retribution lynching of more than 200 innocent slaves. Nat Turner: A Trou...

How did America change from Easy Rider into Donald Trump? What became of the dreams and utopias of the 1960's and 1970's? What do the people who lived in that golden age think about it today? Did they really blow it? Shot in Cinemascope - from New Je...

A teenage boy leaves a moment of boredom while his father works on his old car, and the mother wishes to go out for a stroll around the block. One more relocated family post Hurricane Katrina....

This critically acclaimed 1973 short is about an aristocratic white farming family who has a horse that is being put away, by the father of a young black boy named William. William cares for said horse in its last moments, as the male family members ...

A young African-American man, living in Los Angeles without direction in his life, reluctantly agrees to be the best man for his brother, an upwardly mobile lawyer....

After the death of his father, a former football star reunites with the family that he abandoned years earlier....

A woman in a Hollywood dubbing studio struggles with race and preconceptions....