SVA Library Research Guides: Antiracist Resources: Films

Streaming Films

Films are powerful tools for generating empathy. This page offers suggestions of both narrative and documentary films about the Black experience. The following films are available for streaming via library databases; click the link and use your SVA credentials to sign in.

*please note that films in Kanopy are licensed on an annual basis. Please reach out to library@sva.edu if a film's license has lapsed.

American Experience: Eyes on the Prize
Publication Date: 1986, 2006

Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network and also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2.
Black Is...Black Ain't by Marlon Riggs
Publication Date: 1995

The final film by filmmaker Marlon Riggs, BLACK IS...BLACK AIN'T, jumps into the middle of explosive debates over Black identity. White Americans have always stereotyped African Americans. But the rigid definitions of "Blackness" that African Americans impose on each other, Riggs claims, have also been devastating. Is there an essential Black identity? Is there a litmus test defining the real Black man and true Black woman?
Brother Outsider by Bennett Singer, Nancy Kates
Publication Date: 2002

On November 20, 2013, Bayard Rustin was posthumously awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Who was this man? He was there at most of the important events of the Civil Rights Movement - but always in the background. BROTHER OUTSIDER asks "Why?" It presents a vivid drama, intermingling the personal and the political, about one of the most enigmatic figures in 20th-century American history. One of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the march on Washington, intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Bayard Rustin was denied his place in the limelight for one reason - he was gay. This film contributes a fascinating new chapter to our understanding of both progressive movements and gay life in 20th-century America.
Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash
Publication Date: 1991

At the dawn of the 20th century, a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina - former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors' Yoruba traditions - struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots. The first wide release by a black female filmmaker, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST was met with wild critical acclaim and rapturous audience response when it initially opened in 1991. Casting a long legacy, DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST still resonates today, most recently as a major in influence on Beyonce's video album Lemonade.
Driving While Black
Publication Date: 2020

Chronicling the history and personal experiences of African Americans on the road from the advent of the automobile through the seismic changes of the 1960s and beyond – Driving While Black explores the background of a phrase rooted in realities that have been a part of the African American experience for hundreds of years – told in part through the stories of the people who lived through it.
Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask by Isaac Julien
Publication Date: 1995

This documentary was the first film to explore Frantz Fanon, the pre-eminent theorist of the anti-colonial movements of this century. Fanon's two major works, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, were pioneering studies of the psychological impact of racism on both colonized and colonizer. This innovative film biography restores Fanon to his rightful place at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity.
I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin, Raoul Peck
Publication Date: 2016

Acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck mined James Baldwin's published and unpublished oeuvre, selecting passages from his books, essays, letters, notes, and interviews that are every bit as incisive and pertinent now as they have ever been. Weaving these texts together, Peck brilliantly imagines the book that Baldwin never wrote about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King.
Subjects of Desire
Publication Date: 2021

Subjects of Desire explores the cultural shift in North American beauty standards towards embracing Black female aesthetics and features while exposing the deliberate and often dangerous portrayals of Black women in the media.
Style Wars
Publication Date: 1983

When Style Wars premiered in 1983, the world received its first full immersion in the phenomenon that had taken over New York City. The urban landscape was physically transformed by graffiti artists who invented a new visual language to express both their individuality, and the voice of their community. In Style Wars, New York's ramshackle subway system is their public playground, battleground, and spectacular artistic canvas. As MC's, DJ's and B-boys rock the city with new sounds and new moves, we see street corner breakdance battles turn into performance art.
White Like Me by Jeremy Young, Scott Morris, Sut Jhally, Tim Wise
Publication Date: 2013

White Like Me, based on the work of acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. In a stunning reassessment of the American ideal of meritocracy and claims that we've entered a post-racial society, Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class, and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today.

Further Suggestions

The following films may be available on various commercial streaming services or for a small rental fee. Also, check the link below to the Criterion Collection, a film distributor that has lifted their paywall for many films about the Black experience.

13th (Ava DuVernay, 2016)
Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 (Göran Olsson, 2011)
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1986)
Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013)
The Hate U Give (George Tillman Jr., 2018)
Killer of Sheep (Charles Barnett, 1977)
Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992)
Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1921)
Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2015)
Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018)

Criterion Collection
Criterion has removed the paywall on many films that focus on Black Lives, including works by early pioneers of African American Cinema such as Oscar Micheaux; classics by Maya Angelou, Julie Dash, William Greaves, Kathleen Collins, Cheryl Dunye, and Charles Burnett; contemporary work by Khalik Allah and Leilah Weinraub; and documentary portraits of black experience by white filmmakers Les Blank and Shirley Clarke.
A Guide to Essential, Underrated, and Flat-Out Extraordinary Films by Black Women Directors
A list of films from the Tribeca Film Festival highlighting works by Black women directors.