The 50 Best Films by Black Directors

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this interview.

Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, joins The Takeaway to speak with Aisha Harris, a staff writer and culture critic for Slate.

Her latest project pays tribute to the 50 greatest films by black directors. The list includes old favorites like "Car Wash," and others you may not have heard of before, like a film by director Spencer Williams from 1941 called "The Blood of Jesus."

Check out the full list below, and click on the 'Listen' button above to hear why Harris chose some of these films.

(Titles appear alphabetically)

1. 12 Years a Slave | Steve McQueen
2. The 25th Hour | Spike Lee
3. Ashes and Embers | Haile Gerima
4. Belle | Amma Asante
5. Bessie | Dee Rees
6. Black Girl | Ousmane Sembène
7. Boyz n the Hood | John Singleton 
8. The Blood of Jesus | Spencer Williams 
9. Car Wash | Michael Schultz
10. Cooley High | Michael Schultz 
11. Creed | Ryan Coogler 
12. Crooklyn | Spike Lee
13. Daughters of the Dust | Julie Dash
14. Devil in a Blue Dress | Carl Franklin
15. Do the Right Thing | Spike Lee 
16. Eve's Bayou | Kasi Lemmons
17. Friday | F. Gary Gray 
18. Fruitvale Station | Ryan Coogler 
19. Hollywood Shuffle | Robert Townsend 
20. House Party | Reginald Hudlin
21. I Like It Like That | Darnell Martin
22. Juice | Ernest Dickerson 
23. Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. | Leslie Harris 
24. Killer of Sheep | Charles Burnett
25. The Learning Tree | Gordon Parks
26. Losing Ground | Kathleen Collins
27. Love and Basketball | Gina Prince-Bythewood
28. Malcolm X | Spike Lee 
29. Medicine for Melancholy | Barry Jenkins
30. Middle of Nowhere | Ava DuVernay
31. Mo' Better Blues | Spike Lee 
32. Night Catches Us | Tanya Hamilton 
33. O.J.: Made in America | Ezra Edelman
34. Pariah | Dee Rees
35. Sankofa | Haile Gerima
36. Selma | Ava DuVernay
37. Shaft | Gordon Parks
38. The Spook Who Sat by the Door | Ivan Dixon
39. Sugar Cane Alley | Euzhan Palcy
40. Super Fly | Gordon Parks Jr.
41. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song | Melvin Van Peebles
42. Their Eyes Were Watching God | Darnell Martin
43. Timbuktu | Abderrahmane Sissako
44. To Sleep With Anger | Charles Burnett
45. Tongues United | Marlon Riggs
46. Touki Bouki | Djibril Diop Mambéty
47. Waiting to Exhale | Forest Whitaker
48. The Watermelon Woman | Cheryl Dunye
49. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts | Spike Lee
50. Within Our Gates | Oscar Micheaux