28 Black Films Black Film Critics Need to See Before Pulling Someone's Ghetto Pass

I don't do lists.  Lists are for lazy people.  More often than not, a list, no matter how good the intentions, leaves off deserving candidates.  At other times, lists are created to lend the author or authors the appearance of credibility.  I came across an example of the latter the other day on Facebook in a link to a 2014 blogpost on Scott Woods Makes Lists from "librarian, writer, poet, and critic" Scott Woods titled 28 Black Films You Need to See To Keep Your Race Card.  The title King of All Blacks is conspicuous by its absence from Woods' blurb.

In scanning through the list, there are certainly a number of no-brainers: Love Jones, Do The Right Thing, Boyz n The Hood, A Soldier's Story.  There are several iffy entries, including Purple Rain and Waiting to Exhale.  But the list is undone with the inclusion of some real dogs, like Harlem Nights, The Wiz, and... Beat Street.

Beat Street?  WTF?!?!?

So without further ado I'm submitting for readers' consideration my own list of 28 Black Films Black Film Critics Need to See Before Pulling Someone's Ghetto Pass (ranked in no particular order):

1. Juice
2. Down in The Delta
3. Pootie Tang
4. If God is Willin' and da Creek Don't Rise
5. Shaft (1972)
6. Brother From Another Planet
7. Def by Temptation
8. The Inkwell
9. Bird
10. Malcolm X
11. Fear of a Black Hat
12. Good Hair
13. Cornbread, Earl, & Me
14. Paid in Full
15. House Party
16. When The Levees Broke
17. Dead Presidents
18. Coming to America
19. Bird
20. Mississippi Masala
21. Always Outnumbered
22. Cooley High
23. American Pimp
24. Dreamgirls
25. Antwone Fisher
26. Deep Cover
27. Baby Boy
28. Car Wash.