50 Fun Facts About Black Movie

Who was the first African American to win an Academy Award, for playing Mammy in Gone with the Wind?

She could not attend the film's Atlanta premiere because it was held in a whites-only theatre.

Sidney Poitier became the first Black actor to win Best Actor in 1964 for which film?

He was also the first Bahamian to win, and had been the first African American nominated for Best Actor for The Defiant Ones in 1958.

Halle Berry became the first African American woman to win Best Actress for which 2001 film?

She had earlier played Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American woman ever nominated for Best Actress, for Carmen Jones in 1954.

Louis Gossett Jr. became the first African American to win Best Supporting Actor for which 1982 film?

He played the drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, and had won an Emmy for Roots five years earlier.

Denzel Washington's second Oscar came for which 2001 film, in which he plays a corrupt LAPD officer?

His character Alonzo Harris takes rookie Ethan Hawke through one 24-hour shift; Hawke was nominated too.

Glory tells the story of which Civil War regiment?

Matthew Broderick plays Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, with Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman as fictional soldiers in the unit.

Whoopi Goldberg won her Oscar for playing a psychic in which 1990 film?

She became only the second African American woman to win an Oscar and is one of the few entertainers with an EGOT.

The 1985 film The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. How many did it win?

Quincy Jones scored and produced it, the only Spielberg film up to then not scored by John Williams.

Which 2016 film was the first LGBTQ-themed feature with an all-Black cast to win Best Picture?

The win was announced only after La La Land had been read out by mistake, thanks to a mixed-up envelope.

Which film was wrongly announced as Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars before Moonlight was declared the winner?

Warren Beatty had been handed the duplicate Best Actress envelope, which named Emma Stone's film.

12 Years a Slave is based on the memoir of which man, kidnapped in 1841?

Its win made Steve McQueen the first Black director of a Best Picture winner, and Lupita Nyong'o won Best Supporting Actress.

Jordan Peele's Get Out was made for a budget of about how much?

It grossed nearly $260 million and won Peele the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in his directing debut.

In Get Out, what is the surname of Rose's family, whom Chris travels upstate to meet?

The film introduced the phrase 'the Sunken Place' into everyday speech.

The doppelgängers who terrorise Adelaide's family in Jordan Peele's Us are called what?

Lupita Nyong'o plays both Adelaide and her double, and much of the film was shot in Santa Cruz.

Black Panther was the first superhero film to receive a nomination for which Oscar?

It grossed over $1.3 billion, the most ever for a film by a Black director, and won three Oscars.

In Black Panther, who challenges T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda?

Michael B. Jordan's villain wants to end Wakanda's isolation and start a global revolution.

Ryan Coogler's 2025 horror film Sinners stars his frequent leading man in a dual role as what?

It is set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, and Ludwig Göransson scored it, as he did Black Panther.

Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing is famous for its soundtrack use of which Public Enemy song?

The film premiered at Cannes and is set over one scorching day in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Spike Lee's feature debut, She's Gotta Have It, was shot in 1986 for a budget of about how much?

It grossed $7.1 million and won him the Award of the Youth at Cannes.

Spike Lee's 1992 'Malcolm X' was based on an autobiography written with which author?

Denzel Washington's title performance won the New York Film Critics Circle award and an Oscar nomination.

With Boyz n the Hood, John Singleton became the youngest and first African American nominee for which Oscar?

He was 24, and the film also marked the screen debuts of Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut and Regina King.

Boyz n the Hood takes its title from a 1987 song by which rapper?

The song was written by Ice Cube, who plays Doughboy in the film opposite Cuba Gooding Jr. and Laurence Fishburne.

The 1993 film Menace II Society was the directorial debut of which sibling filmmakers?

It follows Caine Lawson in Watts and gave Jada Pinkett her theatrical film debut.

In New Jack City, Wesley Snipes plays which crack-era drug lord?

Mario Van Peebles directed it as his feature debut, with Ice-T as the undercover cop out to bring him down.

In Coming to America, Eddie Murphy plays Akeem, crown prince of which fictional African nation?

He goes to Queens, New York, to find a bride who will love him for himself; Murphy and Arsenio Hall each play several roles.

The 1995 comedy Friday, starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker, was directed by whom?

Ice Cube co-wrote it with DJ Pooh; the same director went on to make Set It Off and Straight Outta Compton.

The 1990 comedy House Party starred which hip-hop duo?

Reginald Hudlin based it on his award-winning Harvard student film, and Martin Lawrence and Robin Harris co-star.

Love & Basketball, the 2000 film starring Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps, was the directing debut of whom?

Spike Lee produced it, and she went on to direct The Woman King in 2022.

Waiting to Exhale, starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett, was the directing debut of which actor?

The 1995 film adapts Terry McMillan's novel about four friends in Phoenix.

In Set It Off, four friends in Los Angeles turn to what crime?

Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox and debutante Kimberly Elise star; each has her own reason for the heist.

Which Lee wrote and directed the 1999 film The Best Man?

The ensemble led by Taye Diggs and Nia Long also marked Regina Hall's debut.

The 2002 film Barbershop, starring Ice Cube, is set on the South Side of which city?

Cedric the Entertainer's barber Eddie stirred controversy with jokes about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

Bad Boys (1995) was the feature debut of which director, later known for Transformers?

The plot involves $100 million of stolen heroin and a witness played by Téa Leoni.

The Wiz (1978) featured the King of Pop in his only feature film role, playing which character?

Diana Ross played Dorothy as a 24-year-old Harlem teacher, and Sidney Lumet directed.

Prince's film Purple Rain won which Academy Award?

It was Prince's feature debut, and When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy and the title track all went platinum.

The 1971 film Shaft was directed by which photographer turned filmmaker?

Isaac Hayes became the first Black man to win the Best Original Song Oscar for its theme.

Which 1971 film did Melvin Van Peebles fund himself and shoot in 19 days after no studio would back it?

Huey Newton made it required viewing for the Black Panther Party.

Junius Griffin coined 'blaxploitation' in 1972 as a local branch president of which organisation?

The genre's mainstream breakthrough came with Cotton Comes to Harlem, followed by Sweet Sweetback and Shaft.

Which blaxploitation queen starred in Coffy and Foxy Brown, and later Jackie Brown?

Tarantino's 1997 film came nearly three decades after her first starring role.

Oscar Micheaux, the first major African American feature filmmaker, produced more than how many films?

He worked in silent and sound eras and had earlier been a homesteader in South Dakota.

Whose story does Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991), the first US feature by an African American woman, tell?

Set in 1902, it follows three generations of the Peazant family preparing to move north; Beyoncé's Lemonade later paid homage to it.

The 1943 musical Stormy Weather starred Lena Horne, Cab Calloway and which legendary tap dancer?

It was one of two all-Black Hollywood musicals released that year, both starring Horne; the other was Cabin in the Sky.

Jamie Foxx won Best Actor for playing which musician in the 2004 film Ray?

The same year he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Collateral.

Dreamgirls, Jennifer Hudson's Oscar-winning debut, is loosely based on which record label and its star group?

The former American Idol contestant won Best Supporting Actress; Eddie Murphy and Beyoncé co-starred.

Where do the three Black women mathematicians of Hidden Figures work?

Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe star, and the cast won the SAG ensemble award.

Ava DuVernay's Selma dramatises the 1965 voting rights marches. Who plays Martin Luther King Jr.?

The film won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Glory by Common and John Legend.

Judas and the Black Messiah tells of the betrayal of which Black Panther leader by an FBI informant?

Daniel Kaluuya won Best Supporting Actor as Hampton, with LaKeith Stanfield as informant William O'Neal.

Will Smith won Best Actor for King Richard, playing the father and coach of which athletes?

The sisters served as executive producers on the film.

Which 1954 musical made Dorothy Dandridge the first African American nominated for Best Actress?

Her singing was dubbed by opera star Marilyn Horne, and she lost the Oscar to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl.

Viola Davis won her Oscar for Fences, a film set in the 1950s in which city?

Denzel Washington directed and starred, reprising the Troy Maxson role that had won him a Tony in the 2010 Broadway revival of August Wilson's play.