11 Astonishing Black Female Filmmakers Who Captivated the 20th Century
Tracing the Rise of Black Women in Cinema
Each year, I broaden my understanding of cinema’s rich and varied past, revealing a universe of interesting narratives from both American and international auteurs.
So far this year I’ve discovered Rungano Nyoni’s surreal Zambian folktale I Am Not A Witch (2017), Claire Denis’ brilliant French classic Beau Travail (1999), and Tracie Laymon’s heartwarming American comedy Bob Trevino Likes It (2024).
After months of chipping away at my massive watchlist, I was left with two pressing questions: Why are there so few classic films by and about African American women, and why are the ones that do exist so hard to find?
My discovery exposed a troubling reality in Hollywood: Black women face underrepresentation and inaccessibility, in front of and behind the camera.
The 2024 edition of the UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report supports this worrying trend.
As the report’s co-author, Ana-Christina Ramón (2024), noted in the Los Angeles Times, “Last year, we celebrated some historic highs for people of color in the industry. But 2024 saw a widespread reversal, as film studios retreated from racial and ethnic diversity in front of and behind the camera.”
Women made up just 15% of theatrical film directors in 2024, as per the UCLA Diversity Hollywood Report, with less than 20% being Black women and no Latino or mixed-race women.
The reason for this shameful statistic isn’t a shortage of talented Black female directors. Black women filmmakers have been creating personal and poignant contemporary films since the 1980s to normalize their stories.
Even today, they bring complex Black female characters to life, breaking long-held stereotypes that reduced them to roles like maids, mammies, girlfriends, or best friends, often viewed through a white lens.
‘Movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.’
Thanks to the pioneering work by Black female storytellers, Black actresses receive more chances of playing substantial lead roles. A full-circle moment Hattie McDaniel, the first Black woman to win an Oscar, likely never imagined when she accepted her statue eighty-four years ago.
While we admire Ava DuVernay, Gina Prince-Bythewood, and Alice Diop, let’s not forget the valiant modern women who made their success possible.
A lot of viewers are unfamiliar with the storied legacy of Black women filmmakers. To make things worse, finding these movies is difficult because of their initial limited or nonexistent release.
This compilation highlights eleven bold, trailblazing Black female filmmakers and their influential 20th-century films, a vital but often overlooked chapter of cinematic history.
Barrier Breakers: Black Women Who Changed Film
These courageous Black women broke barriers and shattered glass ceilings, creating an alternative path for others to follow. Despite immense hardships, they persevered, paving the way for EVERY future generation of female filmmakers.
Jessie Maple (Will, 1981)
A former college basketball star, now struggling with heroin addiction, raises his 12-year-old adopted son with his wife. As his addiction deepens, the story reveals its devastating toll on individuals, families, and entire communities.
This film’s rarity doesn’t diminish its undeniable importance to this list and to cinema, thanks to Jessie Maples’ historic contributions.
Maples achieved a landmark feat in independent cinema as the first Black woman to direct a feature-length independent film post-civil rights era. In 1975, after a protracted legal battle, she broke another record as the first African-American woman admitted to the New York camera operators’ union.
Shot in Harlem on a shoestring $12,000 budget using 16mm film, Maples wrote, directed, and produced this hard-hitting drama about drug use—a taboo topic then.
Defying expectations, Maples and her husband, Leroy Patton, used their LCJ Film Productions banner to distribute the film to African American community centers, churches, and schools. New York drug rehabilitation centers also screened her controversial but hopeful film for educational purposes.
The Library of Congress inducted Maples’ film into the National Film Registry in 2024, a year after her death.
Maple’s pioneering work as an activist, filmmaker, and cinematographer continues to expand the rights and opportunities of ALL women in film.
Where to Watch: Unavailable to stream.
Kathleen Collins (Losing Ground, 1982)
A distinguished philosophy professor, married to a successful painter, contemplates an extramarital affair because she feels undervalued by her spouse. Jealousy and insecurity fuel impulsive decisions, foreshadowing a tragic outcome.
American poet and playwright Kathleen Collins wrote and directed this semi-autobiographical drama about a wealthy young Black couple entangled in a dangerous romance.
Through intellectually gifted but morally flawed characters, she explores passion, betrayal, and artistic freedom. Her unconventional portrayal of young Black love offered a fresh perspective on African American stories, countering the dominant narrative of hardship and adversity.
Bypassing traditional theatrical release and debuting only at film festivals, the once-overlooked Losing Ground is now praised by film scholars for its innovation.
The collaborative restoration of Kathleen Collins’ trailblazing film, a project involving her daughter Nina Lorez Collins, Yale Film Archive, The Film Foundation, and Milestone Films, debuted at Lincoln Center in 2015. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2020.
Collins served as a professor of film history and screenwriting at City College of New York. She passed away from breast cancer in 1988 at age 46. Her legacy of promoting stories about multi-dimensional people of color remains a priceless model.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Euzhan Palcy (Sugar Cane Alley, 1983, and A Dry White Season, 1989)
Set in 1930s Martinique and 1970s apartheid South Africa, Sugar Cane Alley and A Dry White Season show the colonial oppression of young Black men under white supremacist regimes, standing as monumental achievements in mainstream cinema.
Martinican director, screenwriter, and producer Euzhan Palcy challenged Hollywood norms by highlighting colonialism’s enduring harm to modern society. She’s the sole Black filmmaker to feature an authentic look into apartheid from an American perspective during Nelson Mandella’s wrongful incarceration.
Palcy made history in 1989 when A Dry White Season earned Marlon Brando an Oscar nomination, marking her the first Black director to receive an Oscar nomination in an acting category.
While Palcy’s influential films may not showcase prominent Black women, her extensive work in Black cinema secures her position on this list. The Academy awarded Palcy an honorary Oscar in 2022, celebrating her transformative impact on cinema.
Palcy remains one of the most decorated Black female filmmakers on the international stage. Over several decades, her career, driven by a pursuit of social justice and meaningful change, has transcended race and gender, inspiring filmmakers around the world.
Where to Watch: Sugar Cane Alley - NA, A Dry White Season - Prime Video, MGM+, Tubi, Pluto Tv
The Mavericks: L.A. Rebellion
The first generation of African American filmmakers to attend UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television (late 1960s–1980s) were the exceptionally talented L.A. Rebellion. Their avant-garde films, shaped by the Watts riots and Italian neorealism, illustrated the unique struggles of Black families.
Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust, 1991)
Three generations of Gullah women, living independently on South Carolina’s Saint Helena Island, embark on The Great Migration northward in 1902. Despite the eldest matriarch’s doubts, younger leaders balance progress with preserving their precious cultural heritage.
In her stunning debut as both writer and director, Dash poetically explores the complex identities and ancestral trauma of Black women. She honors the strength and resilience of the independent Gullah Geechee who carved their own path in America.
A trailblazing accomplishment, Daughters of the Dust was the first feature-length film by a Black woman director to receive a nationwide U.S. theatrical release. Notably, the production also featured a largely female crew, an uncommon practice at the time.
The Library of Congress added Dash’s celebrated film to the National Film Registry in 2004. Countless Black female filmmakers, including Beyonce’s Lemonade, draw artistic inspiration from Dash’s seminal film.
Dash, a leading member of the DGA and a tenured professor at Spelman College, shattered racial and gender barriers. Through film and acclaimed museum installations, she tirelessly works to uplift Black voices in cinema, reflecting the perseverance of women in film.
Where to Watch:The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Kanopy
Zeinabu irene Davis (Compensation, 1999)
A deaf seamstress and an illiterate hearing man fall in love in early 20th-century Mississippi, as she teaches him literacy and ASL. Their story runs parallel to that of a contemporary librarian and artist, with both couples navigating love and commitment amid the public health crises of tuberculosis and AIDS.
Directed, produced, and co-edited by Zeinabu irene Davis, an often overlooked member of the L.A. Rebellion, this Chicago-based romantic drama sheds light on the challenges faced by disabled individuals. Davis’s poignant film confronts the societal and healthcare barriers that endanger their well-being, while advancing representation of the hearing impaired on screen.
The Criterion Collection, UCLA Film & Television Archive, Wimmin With a Mission Productions, and the Sundance Institute collaborated to restore the film in 4k. After finally receiving long-overdue critical acclaim, Janus Films re-released Davis’s revolutionary film in select theaters nationwide this past August, 22 years after its original premiere.
The Library of Congress added Compensation to their National Film Registry in 2024.
Black feminist filmmaker Davis expanded her influence beyond the screen by teaching at leading institutions like Northwestern and UC San Diego, shaping a new generation of filmmakers.
Where to Watch: Unavailable to stream.
The Reformers: N.Y.C. Renaissance
Influenced by the LA Rebellion, a new wave of Black women filmmakers portrayed the social and racial realities of African Americans in East Coast cities. By embracing diverse cultural and economic backgrounds, they redefined representations of Black family life.
Leslie Harris (Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., 1992)
In the early 1990s, a hip, intelligent 17-year-old African American from Brooklyn’s public housing dreams of becoming a doctor. Challenging family dynamics, urban inequities, and her immaturity result in unavoidable lifestyle changes.
A self-assured, culturally specific tone defines Leslie Harris’s bombastic African American coming-of-age story, which she wrote, directed, and produced. Set against a pulsating hip-hop soundtrack, her work offers a distinct female lens on race, class, and gender. Through this perspective, she reveals the devastating impact of systemic poverty on Black communities.
Harris became the first African American director, writer, and producer to win a Special Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. Her sole feature film, a brilliant time capsule, achieved international distribution in twenty countries via Miramax.
Harris’s successful film helped spark a wave of coming-of-age stories centered on young Black women, including Akeelah and the Bee (2006) and The Hate U Give (2018). She went on to teach and lecture on filmmaking at top universities, including Columbia and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Where to Watch: Paramount+, Hoopla, Kanopy
Darnell Martin (I Like it Like That, 1994)
Lisette, a boisterous Puerto Rican mother of three from the South Bronx, is married to Chino, her unfaithful husband. An unexpected blackout leads to Chino’s arrest. With nowhere else to turn, Lisette leans on her transgender sister, Alexis, with plans to rebuild her life, and her place in the family, by finding work.
This vibrant American romantic comedy marks Darnell Martin’s debut as a writer and director. She tackles the pitfalls of immature love and the fragility of family ties. While weighed down by its melodrama, I Like It Like That remains a richly layered study of faith, love, and persistence rooted in urban Latin culture.
Martin’s sharp script and the cast’s powerful performances earned them multiple nominations, including a prestigious Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. Martin also made history as the second African-American woman to direct a major studio film, which was released by Columbia Pictures.
With a career spanning over thirty years, Martin is a prolific TV director known for her work on hit shows, including ER, New Amsterdam, The Walking Dead, and Grey’s Anatomy. She also wrote and directed Cadillac Records (2008), a lavish period drama set in the 1940s Blues scene and centered on the legendary Chess Records label.
Where to Watch: Tubi, The Roku Channel
The Change Makers: Re-Defining Representation
Inspired by their predecessors, this group played a vital role in expanding Black cinema. Their stories, shaped by evolving times, reflected shifting cultural narratives around feminism, queer love, and the growing complexity of Black storytelling.
Ayoka Chenzira (Alma’s Rainbow, 1994)
Alma, a salon owner, lives with her tomboyish teenage daughter, Rainbow, in a Brooklyn brownstone. Their lives are upended when Ruby, Rainbow’s glamorous, showbiz aunt, returns from Paris after a ten-year semi-estrangement. Caught between her mother’s traditional values and her aunt’s Josephine Baker-esque flair, Rainbow begins to forge her own sexual path.
Ayoka Chenzira independently wrote, directed, produced, and financed her poignant coming-of-age debut film. She explores the choices that unequal gender power dynamics compel women to make, offering a fresh perspective on Black femininity in film.
A 4k restoration by the Academy Film Archive, the Film Foundation, and Milestone Films, presented by Julie Dash, gave Alma’s Rainbow a wider theatrical release in 2022, 28 years after its initial limited release. Slate magazine also included it on its 2023 list of 75 greatest films by Black filmmakers.
In addition to her film , TV, and digital media work, Chenzira led the Arts Division at Spelman College and championed independent Black filmmaking throughout the African continent.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel, Hoopla, Kanopy
Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman, 1996)
An aspiring Black queer filmmaker, working as a video store clerk, hustles to make a movie about a fictional, talented Black actress from the 1930s whose career was stifled by stereotypical roles.
Liberian-American filmmaker Cheryl Dunye wrote, directed, edited, and starred in this charming LGBTQ+ romantic dramedy, showcasing her multifaceted talent and creative control. She became the first openly Black lesbian to direct a U.S. feature film, a groundbreaking milestone in American cinema.
Dunye’s pioneering feature debut tackles the erasure of marginalized groups and improves their visibility in film, emphasizing the value of Black queer stories. Film scholars and Black lesbians deem The Watermelon Woman both a cultural landmark and a cinematic touchstone.
The Museum of Modern Art houses Dunye’s seminal queer film, also preserved in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.
Through her diverse work across genres, platforms, and subjects, Dunye has made a significant and enduring contribution to on-screen representation in film and television.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Bridgett M. Davis (Naked Acts, 1996)
Having lost a significant amount of weight, an actress snags her first big break. A nude scene forces the character to confront a key dilemma: reconciling her mother’s past as a provocative blaxploitation star and the present threat of objectification. She worries if the role is worth the risk.
Bridgett M. Davis both wrote and directed this overlooked Black independent film. Inspired by Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground, Davis offers a brilliant character study examining Black female sexuality and identity. Her emotionally raw cautionary tale shows the dehumanizing experiences of actresses, culminating in a liberating act of self-acceptance and love.
Despite Davis's debut film remaining unreleased, Maya Cade (creator and curator of Black Film Archive), the Lightbox Film Center at the University of the Arts Philadelphia, and Milestone Films collaborated to digitally restore and remaster this lost gem of Black cinema.
Unnoticed and uncelebrated, Davis and her distinctive voice faded away, never to direct another film.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel, Hoopla, Kanopy
Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, 1997)
A ten-year-old girl from an affluent 1960s Louisiana Creole family witnesses her father’s infidelity. Hidden family secrets and forbidden truths shatter her idyllic summer, endangering her precious family bonds.
Kasi Lemmons wrote and directed this award-winning American Southern Gothic tale. Her impressive debut masterfully weaves together Black girl magic, faith, courage, and resilience in a coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of unsettling horror.
She centers on a Black middle-class family, filled with well-developed Black female characters flourishing within their own rich African American community, unburdened by the white gaze. A radical departure from typical Black stories of that era.
The Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry in 2018.
Over the course of a 40-plus-year career, Lemmons has earned recognition in acting, directing, writing, and teaching. As a Film Independent board member, Sundance Lab advisor, and NYU Tisch associate professor, she has established herself as a trusted authority in independent film.
Where to Watch: Hoopla, Peacock, The Roku Channel
Black Women’s Stories Must Continue to Be Told
Although African-American women filmmakers like Eloyce King Patrick Gist, Zora Neale Hurston, Tressie Souders, Maria P. Williams, and Madame E. Touissant existed as early as the 1920s, substantial progress in the field didn’t happen for another sixty years.
The work of these 20th century visionary filmmakers highlights the important role theaters play in showcasing films of historical and cultural significance, making the debate over theatrical releases increasingly irrelevant.
We will likely continue uncovering more forgotten works by Black women directors who challenged narrow portrayals of Black womanhood on screen, reminding us that this list remains incomplete.
There’s real potential for lasting progress, so that future generations of Black women filmmakers don’t encounter the same barriers, stalled careers, or invisibility that many on this list endured.
Watching and supporting these films sends a clear message to studios: audiences demand more diverse representation, not less. It’s time to celebrate the groundbreaking contributions of these Black women directors whose legacies began more than four decades ago.
Which of these films are you most excited to watch? Share your picks in the comments below and help amplify their impact.