February is Black History Month, so I made a list of must-see movies by Black filmmakers for the students in my African American Studies course. Rather than focusing on films that are frequently mentioned in lists like these, such as Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing or Jordan Peele’s Get Out, or well-watched classics from the 1990s, such as Forest Whitaker’s Waiting to Exhale or F. Gary Gray’s Friday, I wanted to highlight lesser-known movies that deserve more attention than they usually get in mainstream media.
Read more125 Best Films from the Past 25 Years
Since folks have been sending me the New York Times “Century’s Best Movies” list, I decided to make my own. There is some overlap, of course, but my list is better, in my humble opinion. My process was not very scientific, but I tried to consider the totality of each film in terms of cinematography, script, direction, editing, and performance, as well as the uniqueness of the subject matter. So, here are 125 of the best films from 2000 to 2025, listed in chronological order.
Read moreFour (More) Movies Directed by Women to Watch During Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month is a great time to catch up on some lesser-known movies by women filmmakers. As a follow-up to the previous article that explored eleven films by women directors, here are four more movies directed by women to check out, as well as a list of some others that did not make the final cut but are still worth watching.
Read moreQueer Cinema
A friend asked me to suggest some of the best films from queer cinema for Pride Month. This list is not exhaustive, but it includes classic films that deal with LGBTQ themes, gender-bending, non-hetero sexualities, generally queer-related topics, or that have significant LGBTQ characters. The majority of these stem from the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s.
Read moreAmerican Fiction Literature
After discussing with a friend what works one would include in a course on American history using fiction literature, I decided to make a list of significant literary works by American authors. This list only contains fiction literature, such as novels, short stories, poems, or plays. It does not contain non-fiction works, such as letters, diaries, essays, memoirs, or literary criticism. Some works from the New Journalism era that are technically factual but read like novels are included, however. The list also does not contain (with a few exceptions) children’s books or graphic novels. Books are listed chronologically so that it is easy to determine which works would fit into a history course that treats literature as cultural texts.
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