Celebrating Black Artists in the Film Industry | Part 2 of 4

In honor of Black History Month, we continue our four-part series that remembers the legends who paved the way for today’s performers and highlights breakout stars of the last decade who continue their legacies and represent the rich diversity of Black culture and history. Part two takes a look back at recent award winning films and performances.

The 2021 Oscars included multiple nominations and awards for films that told true stories of Black Americans. “Judas and the Black Messiah” earned six nominations and won two, including Best Supporting Actor for British-Ugandan actor Daniel Kaluuya. Kaluuya portrayed Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. Lakeith Stanfield also earned a nomination for his portrayal of FBI informant William O’Neal, whose betrayal of Hampton led to Hampton’s assassination by law enforcement. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” starring the late Chadwick Boseman, was up for five awards and won two. Viola Davis portrayed influential blues singer Ma Rainey during a particularly difficult recording session in 1920s Chicago. Boseman played the fictional trumpeter Levee Green, a composite character that represented the experiences shared by many Black musicians from that era.

Another film with a predominantly Black cast that fared well at last year’s Oscars was Disney/Pixar’s “Soul,” which won Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. The film follows a music teacher voiced by Jamie Foxx who finally gets his big break as a jazz musician but must first reunite his soul and his body after they are accidentally separated.

Other films that have found success on the awards circuit over the last five years include 2016’s “Fences,” directed by Denzel Washington and adapted from August Wilson’s play; “Hidden Figures,” starring Octavia Spencer, Taraji P. Henson, and Janelle Monáe as real-life NASA mathematicians Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine G. Johnson, and Mary Jackson who helped the U.S. win the space race in the 1960s; 2017’s “Get Out,” which won director and writer Jordan Peele an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay; 2018’s “Black Panther,” one of the top-grossing films of all time; “BlacKkKlansman,” directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel’s son John David Washington - filmed at Broadway Stages; “If Beale Street Could Talk,” directed by Barry Jenkins and based on James Baldwin’s novel; and 2019’s “Harriet,” starring Cynthia Erivo as abolitionist Harriet Tubman, with Leslie Odom Jr. and Janelle Monáe.