Black Book

Jun 26, 2020 — This week’s history-seeped highlights explore queer cinema legacies, black stories on screen, and marketing movies while a pandemic rages.

Mar 3, 2020 — American cinema is over 125 years old, and African Americans have been a part of it from the beginning. This participation has often been fraught, stymied, and curtailed, but the desire to use motion pictures to craft a self-image has...

Jul 5, 2019 — This week, we look back on the making of If...., black filmmakers in the 1990s, and the golden age of Mexican cinema.

Jan 23, 2017 — In his radical debut feature, Ousmane Sembène reveals the agony of the postcolonial experience through the story of a Senegalese migrant abused by her French employers.

Aug 4, 2003 — Shohei Imamura’s lurid black comedy showcases the director’s passion for everything that’s kinky, lowlife, or irrational in Japanese culture.

Aug 27, 2026 — The illuminating 1982 documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine follows the celebrated author on a journey through the American South, as he attempts to reckon with the legacy and losses of the civil rights movement.

Aug 27, 2026 — She was a winning presence on the big screen, even if her movies were only a fraction of her monumental impact on popular culture.

Aug 18, 2026 — The Academy Museum has outfitted its theater to present a series of “ultra-rare VistaVision prints as well as 70 mm remasters and new 6K digital scans.”

Aug 5, 2026 — MIFF 2026 revives films by Manoel de Oliveira, Lino Brocka, Mary Stephen, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Michael Almereyda, and Mary Harron.

Jul 24, 2026 — Names on our minds this week: Mike Mills, Jean Renoir, Ronee Blakley, and Luchino Visconti.