Movies: Alfre Woodard

The modern history of the Congo, the heart of Africa, is a terrifying tale of appalling brutality: how the greedy and incredibly ruthless King Leopold II of Belgium (1935-1909) turned a vast country into his private estate (1885-1908) and how he plun...

The story of the legendary steel-driving folk hero born with a hammer in his hands, who pitted his strength against a mighty railroad-building machine....

At a luxury Florida resort, health food lobbyists choose their new president at their annual convention. As the conference progresses, underhanded tricks, backroom corruption and bizarre personal behavior threaten to undermine the entire affair....

Pat Conroy, an ambitious, slightly rebellious idealistic teacher accepts Bennington county, SC's school board superintendent's offer to teach the all-black kids of the pauper fishery community on Yamacraw Island. Staffless 'head' mistress Brown incar...

When the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. Over 70 years later, the memories of some 2,000 slave-era survivors were transcribed and preserved by the Library of Congress. These first-person anecdotes, ranging from t...

Sinbad plays Ari, an alien who comes to Earth in a cereal box in order to warn a kid about an imminent alien invasion....

1930's Pittsburgh, a brother comes home to claim "my half of the piano", a family heirloom; but his sister is not wanting to part with it. This is a glimpse of the conditions for African-Americans as well as some of the attitudes and influences on th...

Donnie goes missing and the rest of the Thornberry family have various adventures (broken bones, getting lost in a cave, and a forest fire) while looking for him. It has been screened as a TV movie and as four episodes in season 4 of the TV series....

The Door, by Ava DuVernay, is a celebration of the transformative power of feminine bonds, and a symbolic story of life change....

Old and bitter, Alvin just wants some peace and quiet in his last days. His wish, however, is not granted when a young, vibrant and ironically full of life Kevin becomes Alvin's hospice roommate. Through this "odd couple" relationship, Alvin learns t...

Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams was a genius ahead of her time. From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, she never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But f...

During World War I, a poor black Southerner travels north to Chicago to get work in the city's slaughterhouses, where he becomes embroiled in the organized labor movement....

Ex-slave and former Union soldier Gideon Jackson represents other ex-slaves at the constitutional convention, and is soon elected to the U.S. Senate despite opposition from white landowners, law enforcement and the KKK. He unites with sharecropper Ab...

The powerful tales of seven diverse African-American women are woven together in this 1982 performance of Ntozake Shange's Obie Award-winning landmark play. A breakthrough portrayal of black women's experiences in America, the story combines music, p...

A single mother plagued by alcohol and drug addictions is sent with her children from Chicago to her ancestral home in the Mississippi Delta, to live with her uncle and aunt for the summer....

This documentary celebrates the Black cultural renaissance that existed in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, OK, and investigates the 100-year-old race massacre that left an indelible, though hidden stain on American history....

When the world's first spaceship is close to its goal (Mars), the TV-network GNN begins its live coverage of the last two hours of the mission and then the problems start. The landing-computer malfunctions, the captain Eugene Slader gets very sick an...

The film follows intrepid reporters Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and actor/advocates Malin Akerman, Mia Farrow, Ronan Farrow, Jennifer Garner, Regina Hall, Ashley Judd, Blake Lively, Eva Longoria, and Alfre Woodard to Colombia, Haiti, Kenya, an...

Documents the race riot of 1921 and the destruction of the African-American community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With testimony by eyewitnesses and background accounts by historians....

When his brother disappears, mentally disabled Langston Bellows (Gbenga Akinnagbe) is left without a protector in Brooklyn's housing projects. Now under the control of his abusive mother (Alfre Woodard) Langston must take his future into his own hand...