Skip to Main Content

Black Excellence Month: Directors

A guide celebrating African American [Black] Excellence Month!

Antoine Fuqua
(1965 - )

Fuqua is regarded as one of the most reliable action film directors of the last quarter century. Having gotten his break as a production assistant, Fuqua started directing music videos, which led to him receiving a MTV Video Music award for best rap video for his work on Coolio’s “Gangster’s Paradise.” His first film, The Replacement Killers, was a big hit, debuting at #2 in the box office behind the massive blockbuster Titanic on its opening weekend. Training Day was his next big hit, his first of several immensely successful collaborations with Denzel Washington, followed by the blockbuster King Arthur. Since then, he has continued to work consistently, with The Equalizer and the remake of The Magnificent Seven being some of his more recent successes.


FEATURED: King Arthur (DVD 386), The Magnificent Seven (DVD 1873), The Equalizer (DVD 2173)

Tyler Perry
(1969 - )

Perry has made a career being a multi-faceted artist, as he has consistently written, directed, produced and starred in the majority of his filmography as the character Madea. After breaking into the Atlanta theater scene with the second run of his self-produced production, I Know I’ve Been Changed, starting in 2005 he began a trend of creating a play, then adapting it to the big screen. The character Madea, a gun-toting grandmother played by Perry himself, was the prominent character in most of these productions. In more recent years, he has focused on broadening the scope of his filmmaking, from the thriller Acrimony to the Netflix show A Fall From Grace.


FEATURED: Madea Goes to Jail (DVD 2468), For Colored Girls (DVD 1276), Diary of a Mad Black Woman (DVD 2515)

Ava DuVernay
(1972 - )

DuVernay is viewed as one of the top female directors working in Hollywood over the past two decades. Having started off her film career in marketing, DuVernay made the transition to filmmaker in 2007 with the documentary This is the Life, which focused on the alternative hip-hop scene in LA during the 1990s. Her first feature film, Middle of Nowhere, enabled her to become the first African-American woman to win the Best Director award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. In 2014, Selma, a film chronicling the 1965 civil rights march, earned her a Golden Globe award, another first for African-American women in cinema. Since then, she has directed A Wrinkle in Time and the miniseries When They See Us. 


FEATURED: A Wrinkle in Time (DVD 2276), Selma (DVD 1757)

Ryan Coogler
(1986 - )

Coogler is one of the best up-and-coming directors of the past decade. Fruitvale Station, his debut film, was a launching pad for his career as it was critically acclaimed and his first collaboration with Michael B. Jordan. He and Jordan had several more smash hit collaborations, with the Creed franchise and Black Panther delivering big numbers at the box office, and Black Panther being the highest-grossing film with a predominately black cast in history.


FEATURED: Creed (DVD 1801), Black Panther (DVD 2035), Judas and the Black Messiah (DVD 2237)

Spike Lee
(1957 - )

Lee is regarded as one of the prominent African-American filmmakers in Hollywood history. Lee has spent the majority of his career discussing race and racism within the lens of American culture, often set in his hometown of New York City. His immersive approach to filmmaking, which leads to him writing, directing, editing and producing his films, is one of the most noteworthy aspects to his work. His films such as Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, and Jungle Fever also served as launching points for many African-American actors and actresses. While he has not won an award for Best Picture or Best Director, he did win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Blackkklansman.  


FEATURED: Do the Right Thing (DVD 1429), Malcolm X (DVD 7), Blackkklansman (DVD 2241)

Tim Story
(1957 - )

With eight of his films debuting as the top box office draw, Story was the first African-American director whose films surpassed a net box office total of $1 billion. He directed two of the earliest Marvel blockbuster films, Fantastic 4 and Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. His experiences shooting music videos aided him in his initial collaboration with Ice Cube with Barbershop. Their subsequent work together, the Ride Along franchise, has cemented his comedic credentials. 


FEATURED: Hurricane Season (DVD 2650), Barbershop (DVD 2541), Fantastic 4 (DVD 498)

John Singleton
(1968 - 2019)

A Los Angeles native who grew up near its most impoverished area, Singleton consistently spoke to the everyday racial tensions experienced in American culture. His directorial debut, Boyz n the Hood, earned him Academy Award nominations for best screenplay and best director, the latter being the first time an African-American was nominated for the award. He often featured musicians and other non-traditional actors in prominent roles in his films: Ice Cube (Boyz in the Hood, Higher Learning), Tupac and Janet Jackson (Poetic Justice), Ludacris (2 Fast 2 Furious), and Tyrese Gibson (2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers) were the most prominent to work with him. In his later years, he focused more on television, with his cocreation of Snowfall, a series about the 1980s crack epidemic in LA, being the most notable.


FEATURED: Poetic Justice: A Street Romance (DVD 2281), Shaft (DVD 2514), 2 Fast 2 Furious (DVD 2141)

F. Gary Grey
(1969 - )

Consistently one of the most versatile directors in Hollywood, Gray has made a career of creating successful films across a wide range of genres. He has found success doing classic blockbuster films like The Italian Job and The Fate of the Furious; robust comedy franchises such as Friday; action films such as Law Abiding Citizen and A Man Apart; and adaptations of novels and true stories, such as Be Cool and Straight Outta Compton. The highest grossing African-American director at the box office, Gray received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2019 for the cumulative success of his work.

 

FEATURED: The Italian Job (DVD 649), Straight Outta Compton (DVD 1547), Friday (DVD 2493)

Jordan Peele
(1979 - )

Peele has carved out a unique position in American cinema during the 21st century. He got his big break as a comedian working in the ensemble cast of MADtv, which led to his partnership with Keegan-Michael Key. Together, they created the Comedy Central show Key and Peele, which ran three seasons and earned them an Emmy. He made a sensational pivot with his directorial debut, Get Out, a horror film which enabled him to become the first African-American to win an Academy Award for best original screenplay. Since then, he has helped create the comedy series The Last O.G. and the relaunch of The Twilight Zone, in addition to continuing his directing career with the critically acclaimed films, Us and Nope.


FEATURED: Us (DVD 1882)

Melvin Van Peebles
(1932 - 2021)

Van Peebles was a trendsetting filmmaker who helped define the film genre "blaxploitation" in the 1970s. He spent his early years traveling the globe, including a time in Paris in the late 1960s when he began writing novels, including one he turned into his first feature film. In 1970, he made his Hollywood debut with the comedy Watermelon Man, but it was his next project, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, that launched his career properly. The film was polarizing with its primary theme of a black man fighting against white authority, scoring huge at the box office with African-Americans while angering white critics. His film career as an actor and director spanned throughout the next few decades until his death, with his son, Mario, following in his footsteps. 

 

FEATURED: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (DVD 264)