Charles Burnett Movies

Tells the poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. Central to the story is the...

In 1831, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in the United States that resulted in the murder of local slave owners and their families, the eventual...

Shelby Coles (Halle Berry) is engaged to marry talented white jazz musician Meade Howell, but the pair face opposition from both Meade's family, who...

A teenage boy leaves a moment of boredom while his father works on his old car, and the mother wishes to go out for a stroll around the block. One...

Filmmaker Thomas Penick explores race, gender and violence in this provocative, disturbing drama set on a hot, summer day in 1969. When a woman...

An Iranian couple (Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mohsen Marzban) declare themselves political refugees after police detain them on their way to Cuba.

Director Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep, My Brother's Wedding, To Sleep with Anger) presents a tale about a young boy's encounter with his family...

An improvised late '60s short-subject student film, and debut movie of Charles Burnett, done in the neo-realist, documentary film style. A...

In 1965 Alabama, an 11 year old girl is touched by a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. and becomes a devout follower. But her resolution is tested...

An African American woman living away from her family in Los Angeles yearns to be recognized for more than her physical attributes. In cultivating...

A musician spends New Year's Day trying to help his friend pay the rent.

After the death of his father, a former football star reunites with the family that he abandoned years earlier.

This video work intermingles fiction with actuality in a poignant confrontation with homelessness.

Filmmaker Robert Townsend executive-produced the following fifty-six-minute program for Criterion’s Meet the Filmmakers series in 2018. In it,...

A single mother ekes out a living from welfare check to welfare check, struggling to provide for her daughter.

A Little League baseball game becomes the unlikely context for this lyrical drama about memory and loss, told from the perspective of a...

A woman in a Hollywood dubbing studio struggles with race and preconceptions. The short film depicts the life of an African American woman passing...

Sa-I-Gu, literally translated in Korean as April 29, is the day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots or uprising. Three months after the events, the...