6: Black Life on Film

The Letterboxd Show

This episode is dedicated to films about the Black experience. Our guest is Letterboxd member Adam Davie, creator of the extensive Black Life on Film list. Adam explains why he has spent three years creating the list and why it includes “the good, the bad and the ugly as it relates to the Black experience”.

Links

• Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford, 1989)
• The Story of a Three-Day Pass (Melvin Van Peebles, 1968)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Rodney Rothman/Peter Ramsey/Bob Persichetti, 2018)
• Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
• I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016)
• 13th (Ava DuVernay, 2016)
• Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
• LA 92 (T.J. Martin/Daniel Lindsay, 2017)
• Support The Girls (Andrew Bujalski, 2018)
• The High Note (Nisha Ganatra, 2020)
• Beyond the Lights (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2014)
• The Wound (John Trengove, 2017)
• Rafiki (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018)
• Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)
• I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007)
• If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2017)
• Black Dynamite (Scott Sanders, 2009)
• Miami Connection (Y.K. Kim/Woo-sang Park, 1987)

This episode was recorded in Pittsburgh, PA and Auckland, NZ and edited by Morgan Avery. Our podcast artwork is by Ann Davenport and our theme music is ‘Hitchcock’ by The Phoenix Foundation. Leave a voice message telling us your favorite Studio Ghibli film, or a ‘so bad it’s good’ film you’ve been rewatching in isolation for our upcoming episodes.

Listeners in the US can watch Josephine Decker’s Shirley via our virtual screening room—we’re donating all proceeds to film non-profit Firelight Media. For other links, resources and places to donate in the fight for justice, here are some anti-racism resources for white people. This Letterboxd review of I Am Not Your Negro also contains useful links. Black Lives Matter.