Runner Up - I Am Not Your Negro
Oscar Tidbit: I Am Not Your Negro was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2017 Oscars. The award went to O.J.: Made in America. Other nominees included 13th, Fire at Sea, and Life, Animated. This one should have won!
Watching this film feels like being invited to a rare and intimate lecture—one where you're granted access to the mind of the brilliant James Baldwin. His voice, piercing and prophetic, resonates even more powerfully today than it did half a century ago. Baldwin, an American writer and civil rights activist, was a poet of both the page and the podium. I’ve read Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk, and each book only deepens my admiration for his ability to capture the complexities of race, identity, and love. I can’t wait to read more.
This film isn’t a conventional biopic—it doesn’t dwell on Baldwin’s childhood or death, nor does it trace his literary career in chronological order. Instead, it draws from an unfinished manuscript in which Baldwin reflects on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Through Baldwin’s words—read with quiet power and precision by Samuel L. Jackson—we’re pulled into a profound meditation on race in America.
Baldwin, a Black gay man in 1950s America, knew what it meant to live partially in the shadows. He understood that racism was not just a societal ill but a symptom of white America's unresolved inner turmoil—a disfigurement projected outward. Until this self-reckoning happens, Baldwin believed, the country cannot heal.
The film also highlights Baldwin’s thoughts on the cultural influence of Hollywood—the idea that a single movie, a single image, has the power to shift public consciousness. He references In the Heat of the Night as one such example. He also speaks about finding a sense of liberation abroad that he never felt in his own country.
Though Baldwin’s words are often heavy with sorrow, they’re also charged with an urgent, enduring hope. If even one person watches this film and walks away with a deeper understanding of race, acceptance, and love—then his voice continues to do its work.
