Fox Searchlight

In the summer of 1969, a music festival in New York featuring legendary artists attracted hundreds of thousands of people. Nope, not Woodstock. I'm talking about the Harlem Cultural Festival, held that same summer over six weekends. It was a joyous celebration of Black culture. Around 40 hours of footage were captured, but those recordings -- largely unseen -- sat in a basement for nearly 50 years. Thanks to Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, that footage became the heart of the 2021 Documentary Summer of Soul. 

Among the glorious performances are those by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Sly and the Family Stone, The Fifth Dimension, and Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples. In his directorial debut, Thompson weaves together the live performances with moving interviews of musicians and concertgoers reflecting on that pivotal summer, amid the rise of Black consciousness and the Black Power movement, and only a year after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 

News footage also helps put into perspective other historical events, including the moon landing, centering what it meant to be a Black American in 1969. How lucky we are this piece of history is no longer buried. Fans clamoring for a soundtrack have finally gotten their wish: It arrives Jan. 28.

--Anne Dujmovic

Netflix

Not many shows spotlight Black Americans' contributions to the culinary world, but Netflix docuseries High on the Hog does an exceptional job, taking you backward and forward in time through food -- and culture. Through four episodes, host Stephen Satterfield travels to Benin and around the United States, connecting with, savoring and learning about Black chefs from the past and present. Check it out and be wowed by Gullah traditions, a Wall Street oyster empire in the 1800s, and the 200-year-old origins of mac and cheese in the US.

--Kourtnee Jackson

Disney

Nearly single-handedly leading the rise of the "visual album" (The Beatles started it all way back in the '60s), Beyoncé and her Black Is King meld together stunning visuals and music from the tie-in album she curated for The Lion King. A "love letter to Africa," the film's story is told with the help of some of today's outstanding black artists, including Beyoncé, who directs as well. 

With unbelievable cinematography, a score featuring traditional African music, instantly iconic costume design and powerful cultural themes, every second of this personal work of art needs to be glued to your eyeballs.

--Jennifer Bisset

Hulu

On the surface, this extraordinary documentary from Bing Liu is a love letter to skateboarding. But scratch a little deeper and you'll find Minding the Gap's vast depths. A rich and thoughtful tale of young people growing up in 21st century America, it explores domestic trauma, systemic racism and classism. It resonates beyond the skate park.

--Jennifer Bisset

Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET

A bunch of concert films on HBO Max provide tuneful snapshots of the 20th century's iconic musical movements. One of them, Wattstax, is a funky fresh film of a 1972 "Black Woodstock" in LA featuring the soul, funk and jazz artists of Stax Records, such as Isaac Hayes, interspersed with introductions by Richard Pryor. 

--Richard Trenholm

Sundance Institute

Miss Simone, goddamn. If you've never heard of one of the 20th century's most incredible recording artists, this 2015 documentary offers an intimate window into Nina Simone, from her childhood as a classical piano prodigy in the Jim Crow South to a legendary blues singer/musician electrifying the Civil Rights Movement and Black power movement. The documentary bursts with rare archival footage and recordings, giving Simone's political worldview, musical genius and personal battles an unrivaled authenticity. An artist is never born in a vacuum, and this film proves that society is the generator of both creativity and torment. 

--Laura Michelle Davis

Netflix

Anyone who's a fan of Michelle Obama should have already read her memoir and watched the companion documentary of the same name. In case you haven't seen it, though, I can tell you it's everything you would want it to be and more. It's a love letter to and from the former first lady. 

Becoming follows the sold-out national book tour for her 2018 memoir, as she interacts with adoring fans, with young women aspiring to follow in her footsteps and with family members who let loose around her. You visit her childhood home and see how she overcame obstacles, met a young man named Barack and grew into the amazing woman she is. 

I've (obviously) revered Michelle Obama ever since she stepped onto the national scene. But the documentary gave me a chance to get to know her as a person and to enjoy her personality, style and determination anew. 

--Natalie Weinstein

Amazon Studios

This 2016 documentary about author James Baldwin is phenomenal. It's simply one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.

Baldwin was a deep thinker and a powerful speaker who fearlessly exposed racism. His insights into his lived experience as a Black man in America floor me. His devastating observations at the start of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s until his death in the 1980s still ring absolutely true today. This is utterly depressing, but it also shows that Baldwin was extraordinarily prescient.

The documentary features archival footage, including the birth of the Black Lives Matter protest movement after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. But if you didn't know better, you'd swear the footage came from the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

That may be why Baldwin's decades-old insights still feel so current.

--Natalie Weinstein

Disney Plus

If you want a true, uplifting story, Hidden Figures ticks all the boxes. The Oscar-nominated biopic follows the Black female mathematicians who were instrumental in helping NASA during the space race. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson are the names that hopefully you'll remember after watching, and the three women are brought to life by the unwaveringly excellent performances of Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.

--Jennifer Bisset

Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET

This biographical film details Jackie Robinson's emergence as the first Black player in Major League Baseball. The late Chadwick Boseman may be known for Black Panther, but this may've been his most important role.

--Andy Altman

Disney Plus

If you're in the mood for a feel-good movie with a story of triumph over adversity, Queen of Katwe will more than satisfy. The best part is that it's based on a true story about the first titled female chess player in Ugandan chess history, Phiona Mutesi. Life in the Katwe slum is a constant struggle, but everything changes when she learns how to play chess. Starring Lupita Nyong'o and David Oyelowo, Queen of Katwe is a winning checkmate.

--Jennifer Bisset

Video screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET

Four months before Black Panther came out, Chadwick Boseman starred in this quiet movie that delved into the early life of a real-life hero: civil rights crusader Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice in the United States. 

Set in April 1941, Marshall introduces us to the then-32-year-old head lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who travels around the country defending Black people who have been accused of crimes because of their race. Played by a self-assured Boseman, Marshall is sent to Connecticut to defend Black chauffeur Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown) who's been wrongly accused of the rape of his employers's wife, a white socialite played by Kate Hudson. Marshall needs a co-counselor who's based in the state and knows local laws. He turns to a reluctant and unconvinced white insurance lawyer, Sam Friedman (an earnest Josh Gad), to be his lead counsel and argue it wasn't rape but consensual sex. 

As you watch the story unfold, you realize just how much of an uphill battle Marshall and Friedman faced in convincing an all-white jury that a Black man accused by a white woman was innocent -- even though the socialite's story is filled with inconsistencies and the police know it.   

The real-life case provided a rare a powerful moment, a victory for racial justice in the US. But as we think about Black Lives Matter and the events of 2020, the movie is also a reminder of how much things haven't changed. Even so, this early case for Marshall laid the groundwork for his many other legal victories, including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education. He argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court -- winning 29 of them -- before being appointed to the court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

--Connie Guglielmo

Astute Films

More than a decade after the 1954 Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education ruling outlawed school segregation, integrated classrooms had yet to be implemented in much of the American South. The Best of Enemies, which stars Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell, is one of the only movies to showcase the attempts to carry out desegregation in Durham, North Carolina, in 1971. 

You might find the evolving friendship of a KKK leader and a civil rights activist grotesquely quixotic -- I did, too, until I realized it was based on the true story of C.P. Ellis and Ann Atwater. While I don't believe history is changed by a single individual, this gripping film shows how individuals can change over the course of history. 

--Laura Michelle Davis

Netflix

Eddie Murphy returned from his acting break with a glorious performance as Rudy Ray Moore, a comedian who played a character called Dolemite in stand-up routines and blaxploit