‘Hollywood Black’ Review – An Essential Docuseries for Any Movie Lover

Black films with Black creators and Black casts have become commonplace these days. From the Black Panther films to Tyler Perry‘s Madea movies, even fun horror flicks like The Blackening, Black culture has become pop culture. While we all still have a lot of work to do, Black films have come a long way over the past hundred years — and the new MGM+ four-part docuseries Hollywood Black covers it all. Based on the writings of film historian Donald Bogle, executive produced by Forest Whitaker, and hosted by director Justin Simien (Dear White People, Haunted Mansion), Hollywood Black doesn’t just cover the usual basics. It moves from Birth of a Nation, to Blaxploitation, to Eddie Murphy, to the rise of Jordan Peele, but with every episode being nearly an hour long, it has time to get truly in-depth with lesser-known films through conversations between Simien and guests including Ryan Coogler, Steven Caple Jr., W. Kamau Bell, Ava DuVernay, and Issa Rae. Hollywood Black is a docuseries for any film fan, no matter your background.

What Is ‘Hollywood Black’ About?

Hollywood Black started as a book written by Donald Bogle and published by Turner Classic Movies, 2019’s Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers. Bogle’s book covered the entire history of Black film, from the silent era of a hundred years to the popularity of Black films and actors today. The book is brought to life on screen through a four-part series, with each hour-long episode taking a look at a certain era of film through chapters titled “Built on Our Backs,” “The Defiant Ones,” “The Price of Admission,” and “Dear Black People.”

Hollywood Black is so much more than a clip show. Instead, it’s a discussion between the series’ host, Justin Simien, whose 2014 feature film debut, Dear White People, landed him in the history of Black film, and important names of the past and our current times. It’s never preachy or elitist in its approach, with some scenes even going so far as to show Simien bringing up a movie his guest has never heard of, before showing them a clip and discussing it. In those moments, a director like Ryan Coogler becomes the audience, just like us. Hollywood Black doesn’t expect its viewers to come in knowing everything, and it doesn’t talk down to them for it, either. It’s simply two people talking about a film or an actor, letting their opinions bounce back and forth to form a narrative, and nothing more. At one moment, Simien might be talking to a guest about a film that has nothing to do with them, but in later episodes, he has the opportunity to speak to Ava DuVernay about Selma, or with Coogler about Fruitvale Station.

Hollywood Black breaks down the history of Black film into four distinct eras. It knows it can’t tell its story without beginning with the highly controversial Birth of a Nation and minstrel shows, but this era is about more than shame — because there is also the emergence of the first well-known Black filmmaker, Oscar Michaeaux, whose works aimed to show how his people really were, exposing white audiences to their first glimpse of Black people as just that and not caricatures. All four episodes refuse to shy away from the racism and stereotypes of Black film history, but it’s also not a guilt trip meant to shame anyone. Hollywood Black knows you can’t tell a story without telling all of it. The good of now had to be born from so much bad.

‘Hollywood Black’ Digs Deeper Beyond the Films You Know

Hollywood Black does cover all the Black films and actors you’d expect. There are lengthy dialogues about Hattie McDaniel being the first Black person to win an Oscar for her role in Gone With the Wind. The docuseries also spends considerable time with Sidney Poitier, the Blaxploitation era of Shaft and Pam Grier, the rise of Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington being so popular that they were more famous than almost every white actor, and how Black Panther became the biggest movie on the planet. While all important, obviously, those parts of Black film history have been covered so much that speaking about them alone could cause them to lose their impact. Hollywood Black corrects this by putting these larger milestones alongside smaller films and their creators, who mean just as much to history. If you’re a film fan, get a notebook ready, because you’re going to be writing down a lot of titles to look up later.

Hollywood Black is a celebration of the entirety of Black film. One scene might be about Hattie McDaniel or Lena Horne, but the next will challenge you with a history lesson about Paul Robeson, the first Black leading man. You can’t talk about the 1970s without a discussion about the positives and negatives of Blaxploitation, an era that pushed the flamboyant but also often offered cartoonish representations of Black people. A counter to that is Melvin Van Peeble‘s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, a more serious movie that had its characters fighting back, but which is nowhere near as popular as other Black films of the decade. The late ’70s saw a time of change, as Black filmmakers aimed to be seen as they were and not cater to a white audience, leading to the popularity of Spike Lee and the hip-hop era of Black unity. You might know about Boyz n The Hood and Menace II Society, but have you ever seen a movie just as jolting, 1989’s black-and-white silent film, Sidewalk Stories? Probably not. You can thank Hollywood Black for the introduction.

The final chapter of Hollywood Black is one of both hope and frustration. The 2000s and onward might have given us our first Black U.S. President, which led to Black filmmakers having more of a choice over what they created, but there was also an influx of white savior movies (The Blind Side and The Help come to mind), and the infamous Oscars So White controversy of 2015 and 2016. Hollywood Black ends with each Black artist being asked what they want to see happen next, and each gives their own different answer. That’s because Hollywood Black is not an agenda series, but a discussion. Just like anyone else, Black filmmakers only want their audience to listen to their story and not try to tell it themselves. Early on, one of Simien’s guests says she doesn’t know how to describe a Black film, but she knows one when she sees one. This reviewer knows a good docuseries when he sees one, and the latest is Hollywood Black.

Hollywood Black (2024)

Hollywood Black sets itself from other documentaries about Black films by taking a deep dive into the history, good and bad, while also putting a spotlight on lesser-known films whose influence produced more mainstream titles.

Pros

• A plethora of big-name filmmakers help voice the history of Black films.
• It comes across as a tragic turned uplifting history lesson that will expose its viewers to films they’ve never heard of.

Hollywood Black is available to watch in the U.S. on MGM+ starting August 11.

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