Movies and Books About Race and Racism

Movies

This page includes titles of movies and books that can add to your understanding of race and racism. Works of both fiction and nonfiction are included. Additional movies and books can be found using the links in the “Resources” section at the bottom of the page.

Documentaries

  • 13th (2016)
  • I Am Not Your Negro (2017)
  • Whose Streets (2017)

Feature Films

  • 12 Years A Slave (2013)
  • Do The Right Thing (1989)
  • Fences (2016)
  • Fruitvale Station (2013)
  • If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
  • The Glass Shield (1994)
  • The Hate U Give (2018)

Books

Fiction and Poetry

  • Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine (2014)
  • The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison (1970)
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

Nonfiction

  • Between The World and Me, Ta-Nahesi Coates (2015)
  • Death of Innocence, Mamie Till-Mobley (2003)
  • Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson (2016)
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X, As Told to Alex Haley (1965)
  • The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1963)
  • The Hidden Wound, Wendell Berry (2010)
  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, Beverly Daniel Tatum (1997)

Resources