Danielle Amir Jackson is a Memphis-born writer and the former editor of Oxford American. She is writing a book about women in the blues.

While in New York City for a theatrical run of his 1984 film The Runner, the Iranian filmmaker took a trip into our closet, where he gravitated to ambitious, sprawling works like A Brighter Summer Day and Dekalog.

Mar 8, 2021 — “I see the beauty now,” my mother told me when I asked her what she thought of Cicely Tyson’s face, about a week after the pathbreaking actor died in January at ninety-six. “But I didn’t then.” By “then,” she meant...

May 27, 2025 — A landmark of independent cinema, Charles Burnett’s debut feature captures daily life in Watts, Los Angeles, with a depth and precision that evokes the history of Black American music.

Jan 30, 2024 — A kaleidoscopic work of literary adaptation, Dee Rees’s fourth feature film is anchored in a powerful fraternal bond between two men from opposite sides of the color line.

Jun 20, 2023 — Two young San Francisco residents navigate the potential for romance and their opposing views on race in Barry Jenkins’s moving debut feature.

Mar 29, 2022 — About half an hour into love jones, Theodore Witcher’s romance from 1997 starring Larenz Tate and Nia Long, the two main characters amble along a Chicago block as raindrops fall, soft but insistent. The colors are warm, naturalistic—browns, mauves, and...

Oct 13, 2020 — I know I need somethingOr someone. From “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day” (1978), by Nikki Giovanni While the screen is still dark, Gladys Knight’s voice drifts in, in a strong, sincere belt: “How can I / Work out this...

Jan 31, 2026 — In the spotlight this week: Amir Naderi, Bahram Beyzaie, Hlynur Pálmason, Robert Aldrich, Reginald Hudlin, and the late Béla Tarr.

Mar 19, 2024 — One of the first postrevolutionary Iranian films screened and celebrated internationally, Amir Naderi’s autobiographical masterpiece is a lyrical exploration of childhood that showcases the director’s gift for radical simplicity.