11 Black Shows And Films You Need To Add To Your Watch List This Fall

I love a good film or series that highlights all that is complex, amazing, endearing, and entertaining about Black culture, especially when it’s filled with strong Black entertainers, historians, culture critics and public figures. And since these sorts of lists seem to be super-popular (just ask Google), here are the top Black shows and films you need to add to your watch lists this fall and beyond:

Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground Productions, this biographical drama covers the life of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, and stars Chris Rock, Glen Thurman, Jeffrey Wright, and Coleman Domingo as Rustin.

It’s a thriller based on a book and includes icons like Denzel Washington and Mahershala Ali (of “Moonlight” and “Luke Cage”). Need I say more?

Premieres: November 17 

Brandy co-stars in this Christmas film, and who wouldn’t love a feel-good holiday movie with Brandy? The film includes all that’s great about these types of seasonal films: friendship, rivalry, facades of a perfect life, and a lesson at the end.

Premieres: November 16

If you loved “The Wire,” you’ll definitely love this British crime drama, highlighting the lives of hustlers, everyday blue-collar workers, and all the romantic, political, and socioeconomical issues that link the two. And if the hundreds of TikTok and IG spoofs haven’t convinced you, let this be the confirmation you need to binge all the seasons.

Series Finale Now Streaming

This is a superhero series set on a college campus where the stars compete against each other and tackle typical life situations of love, loss and morality at the same time.

Premieres: September 29

The tall, dark, and savvy French trickster is back for another season of drama, action, and mystery. If you weren’t hooked by season 2, go back and watch, and if you’re new to the series, you have time to catch up.

Premieres: October 5

Based on the best-selling book by Charmaine Wilkerson, this is a family-focused drama with murder in the mix. There’s lots that unfolds after the death of a matriarch and more intrigue about her life moving from the Caribbean to the U.S.

Premieres: November 1

This show follows a Black editorial assistant navigating very-real issues of race, belonging, and office politics, with a hint of the supernatural.

Now Streaming

The drama continues in the lives of the cast, all growing up, expanding empires, falling in and out of love, and continuing the gritty criminal acts. This is another one that if you’ve missed, you’re sleeping on a good thing.

Now streaming

This post-Reconstruction drama is all about legendary real-life lawman Bass Reeves, the first Black U.S. Marshall, and stars David Oyelowo. 

Premier: November 5

Set in Lagos, Nigeria, this is an animated series set in the future and has been compared to a comic Wakanda-like fantasy. There will reportedly be themes of “class, innocence, and challenging the status quo.”

Premieres: Fall 2023