18 Powerful Movies to Watch on Father's Day
We compiled a list of movies from the BlackCinemadb.com database and found some awesome movies starring Black actors that played (im)perfect fathers or father-like figures. These onscreen men were shining examples of what fathers should be. So, if you happen to be home and want to watch a feel good movie with your dad, grandfather, uncle, husband or any other important man in your life, check out some of these films - some of which are currently streaming on Netflix. Out of the 18 films listed, 10 of them are based on a true story.
1. Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Director: Doug Atchison
Writer: Doug Atchison
Starring: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Keke Palmer
Estimated budget: $8 million
Worldwide: $18,948,425
Akeelah, an 11-year-old girl living in South Los Angeles, discovers she has a talent for spelling, which she hopes will take her to the National Spelling Bee. Despite her mother's objections, Akeelah doesn't give up on her goal. She finds help in the form of a mysterious teacher (played by Laurence Fishburne), and along with overwhelming support from her community, Akeelah might just have what it takes to make her dream come true.
2. Antwone Fisher (2013) (Based on a true story)
Director: Denzel Washington
Writer: Antwone Fisher
Starring: Denzel Washington, Derek Luke
Estimated budget: $12.5 million
Worldwide: $23,367,586
The touching story of a sailor (Derek Luke) who, prone to violent outbursts, is sent to a naval psychiatrist (Denzel Washington) for help. Refusing at first to open up, the young man eventually breaks down and reveals a horrific childhood. Through the guidance of his new doctor, he confronts his painful past and begins a quest to find the family he never knew.
3. Boyz 'n the Hood (1991)
Director: John Singleton
Writer: John Singleton
Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut
Estimated budget: $6 million
U.S. Box Office: $57,504,069
Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is sent to live with his father, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne), in tough South Central Los Angeles. Although his hard-nosed father instills proper values and respect in him, and his devout girlfriend Brandi (Nia Long) teaches him about faith, Tre's friends Doughboy (Ice Cube) and Ricky (Morris Chestnut) don't have the same kind of support and are drawn into the neighborhood's booming drug and gang culture, with increasingly tragic results.
4. The Butler (2013)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Lee Daniels
Writer: Danny Strong, Wil Haygood (article)
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo
Estimated budget: $30 million
Worldwide: $176,598,908
After leaving the South as a young man and finding employment at an elite hotel in Washington, D.C., Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he is hired as a butler at the White House. Over the course of three decades, Cecil has a front-row seat to history and the inner workings of the Oval Office. However, his commitment to his "First Family" leads to tension at home, alienating his wife (Oprah Winfrey) and causing conflict with his anti-establishment son.
5. Coach Carter (2005)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Thomas Carter
Writers: Mark Schwahn, John Gatins
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Rick Gonzalez
Estimated budget: $30 million
U.S. Box Office: $76,669,806
In 1999, Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to his old high school in Richmond, California, to get the basketball team into shape. With tough rules and academic discipline, he succeeds in setting the players on a winning streak. But when their grades start to suffer, Carter locks them out of the gym and shuts down their championship season. When he is criticized by the players and their parents, he sticks to his guns, determined that they excel in class as well as on the court.
6. Crooklyn (1994)
Director: Spike Lee
Writer: Spike Lee, Joie Lee, Cinque Lee
Starring: Zelda Harris, Alfre Woodard, Delroy Lindo
Estimated budget: $14 million
U.S Box Office: $13.6 million
As her teacher mother, Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), and her jazz musician father, Woody (Delroy Lindo), worry over monthly bills, grade-schooler student Troy Carmichael (Zelda Harris) banters and bonds with her four brothers. Against her will, Troy is sent to her aunt's southern home for a summer visit, but when she returns to her bustling Brooklyn neighborhood, she learns that a family member is gravely ill. Already mature, Troy is forced to face to some very grown-up facts about life and loss.
7. Daddy's Little Girls (2007)
Director: Tyler Perry
Writer: Tyler Perry
Starring: Idris Elba, Gabrielle Union
Estimated budget: $10 million
Worldwide: $31,609,243
Monty (Idris Elba), a mechanic, struggles to make ends meet and raise his three young daughters alone. When his drug-dealing ex-wife wins custody of the girls in court, he enlists the help of Julia (Gabrielle Union), a successful attorney, to get the girls back. Romance unexpectedly blooms between the pair, but the couple must come to terms with their very different lives and find a way to keep Monty's family together.
Streaming on Netflix
8. Fruitvale Station (2007)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Ryan Coogler
Writer: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer
Estimated Budget: $900,000
U.S. Box Office: $16.1 million Worldwide: $17,385,830
Though he once spent time in San Quentin, 22-year-old black man Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) is now trying hard to live a clean life and support his girlfriend (Melonie Diaz) and young daughter (Ariana Neal). Flashbacks reveal the last day in Oscar's life, in which he accompanied his family and friends to San Francisco to watch fireworks on New Year's Eve, and, on the way back home, became swept up in an altercation with police that ended in tragedy.
Streaming on Netflix
9. Get on the Bus (1996)
Director: Spike Lee
Writer: Reggie Rock Bythewood
Starring: Thomas Jefferson Byrd, De'aundre Bonds, Ossie Davis, Charles S. Dutton
Estimated budget: $2.4 million
U.S. Box Office: $5.7 million
A disparate group of African-American men climb on a bus bound for the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. -- among them, Evan Sr. (Thomas Jefferson Byrd) and his son, Smooth (De'aundre Bonds), who have been shackled together as a condition of Smooth's temporary probation. Although the group begins the trip as strangers, their shared stories and experiences unite them as their discourse builds a portrait of what it means to be black in America.
10. The Great Debaters (2007)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Denzel Washington
Writer: Robert Eisele
Starring: Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker
Estimated Budget: $15 million
U.S. Box Office: $30,236,407
Poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) teaches at the predominately black Wiley College in 1935 Texas. He decides to start a debate team, something nearly unheard of at a black college. While at first he butts heads with the influential father (Forest Whitaker) of one of his best debators, eventually he is able to form a team of strong-minded, intelligent young students, and they become the first black debate team to challenge Harvard's prestigious debate champions.
11. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Terry George
Writers: Keir Pearson, Terry George
Starring: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo
Estimated Budget: $17.5 million
U.S. Box Office: $33,882,243
Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a Hutu, manages the Hôtel des Mille Collines and lives a happy life with his Tutsi wife (Sophie Okonedo) and their three children. But when Hutu military forces initiate a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tutsi minority, Paul is compelled to allow refugees to take shelter in his hotel. As the U.N. pulls out, Paul must struggle alone to protect the Tutsi refugees in the face of the escalating violence later known as the Rwandan genocide.
12. Imperial Dreams (2014)
Director: Malik Vitthal
Writers: Malik Vitthal, Ismet Prcic
Starring: John Boyega, Glenn Plummer, Rotimi
A reformed gangster's devotion to his family is tested when he is released from prison and returns to his old neighborhood.
Streaming on Netflix
13. Lean on Me (1989)
(Based on a true story)
Director: John G. Avildsen
Writer: Michael Schiffer
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Beverly Todd, Robert Guillaume
Estimated Budget: $10 million
In this fact-based film, a New Jersey superintendent, Dr. Frank Napier (Robert Guillaume), watches helplessly as East Side High becomes the lowest-ranked school in the state. With nowhere else to turn, Dr. Napier enlists maverick ex-teacher Joe Clark (Morgan Freeman) to take over as principal of the declining school. Unfortunately for Clark, before he can focus on improving the student body's state exam scores, he has to somehow rid the school of its gang and narcotics problems.
14. Pariah (2011)
Director: Dee Rees
Writer: Dee Rees
Starring: Adepero Oduye, Kim Wayans
U.S. Box Office: $769,522
Teenage Alike (Adepero Oduye) lives in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood with her parents (Charles Parnell, Kim Wayans) and younger sister (Sahra Mellesse). A lesbian, Alike quietly embraces her identity and is looking for her first lover, but she wonders how much she can truly confide in her family, especially with her parents' marriage already strained. When Alike's mother presses her to befriend a colleague's daughter (Aasha Davis), Alike finds the gal to be a pleasant companion.
Streaming on Netflix
15. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Writer: Steve Conrad
Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith
Estimated budget: $55 million
Worldwide: $307,077,295
Life is a struggle for single father Chris Gardner (Will Smith). Evicted from their apartment, he and his young son (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) find themselves alone with no place to go. Even though Chris eventually lands a job as an intern at a prestigious brokerage firm, the position pays no money. The pair must live in shelters and endure many hardships, but Chris refuses to give in to despair as he struggles to create a better life for himself and his son.
16. Remember the Titans (2000)
(Based on a true story)
Director: Boaz Yakin
Starring: Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Wood Harris
Writer: Gregory Allen Howard
Estimated budget: $30 million
Worldwide: $136,706,683
In Virginia, high school football is a way of life, an institution revered, each game celebrated more lavishly than Christmas, each playoff distinguished more grandly than any national holiday. And with such recognition, comes powerful emotions. In 1971 high school football was everything to the people of Alexandria. But when the local school board was forced to integrate an all black school with an all white school, the very foundation of football's great tradition was put to the test.
17. The Retrieval (2014)
Director: Chris Eska
Writer: Chris Eska
Starring: Ashton Sanders, Tishuan Scott, Keston John
U.S. Box Office: $50,257
During the Civil War, a boy (Ashton Sanders), who has been sent to lure a freedman (Tishuan Scott) back to the South, forms an unexpected bond with the man.
18. Rosewood (1997)
(Based on a true story)
Director: John Singleton
Writer: Gregory Poirier
Starring: Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle
Estimated budget: $25 million
U.S. Box Office: $13.1 million
Rosewood, Florida, is a small, peaceful town with an almost entirely African-American population of middle-class homeowners, until New Year's Day 1923, when a lynch mob from a neighboring white community storms the town. Among the carnage, music teacher Sylvester (Don Cheadle) and mysterious stranger Mann (Ving Rhames) stand tall against the invaders, while white grocer John (Jon Voight) attempts to save the town's women and children.
