Murder In Harlem

Murder In Harlem 1935

4.60

A Black night watchman at a chemical factory finds the body of a murdered white woman. After reporting it, he finds himself accused of the murder.

1935

Body and Soul

Body and Soul 1925

6.21

A minister is malevolent and sinister behind his righteous facade. He consorts with, and later extorts from, the owner of a gambling house, and betrays an honest girl, eventually driving them both to ruin.

1925

The Exile

The Exile 1931

4.90

An idealistic young man is torn between a sultry Chicago nightclub owner and a Scottish South Dakotan farmgirl.

1931

God's Step Children

God's Step Children 1938

5.20

Naomi, a light-skinned Black child, is abandoned by her mother and raised by the virtuous Mrs. Saunders. When the girl's fixation with whiteness turns her against her own race, she is sent to a convent. Hopelessly in love with her adoptive brother Jimmie, Naomi consents to marry his friend, but is repulsed by his darker skin and unrefined ways.

1938

Ten Minutes to Live

Ten Minutes to Live 1932

4.70

A movie producer offers a nightclub singer a role in his latest film, but all he really wants to do is bed her. She knows, but accepts anyway. Meanwhile, a patron at the club gets a note saying that she'll soon get another note, and that she will be killed ten minutes after that.

1932

The Girl from Chicago

The Girl from Chicago 1932

5.80

An undercover government agent on a case in Mississippi meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman who's being menaced by a local crime boss.

1932

Birthright

Birthright 1938

5.20

After graduating from Harvard University, Peter Siner returns to his small Tennessee hometown, where he hopes to start a school for black children.

1938

Swing!

Swing! 1938

5.00

Ted Gregory is trying to be the first black producer to mount a show on Broadway, but he has trouble with his star singer.

1938

The Notorious Elinor Lee

The Notorious Elinor Lee 1940

4.00

Gangsters use a woman to get to a boxer and convince him to throw a big fight.

1940

The Darktown Revue

The Darktown Revue 1931

3.20

With a series of long takes and frontal camera set-ups, Michaeux provides a record of several cabaret acts, using intertitles to separate the individual numbers. This quietly outrageous film begins with the high-toned Heywood Choir singing "Watermelon time" and concludes with Amon David playing a preacher using heavy blackface. Amon Davus was known as "the Back Biting Comedian, Par Excellence", and his sermon is one of Michaeux's many notable send-ups of the clergy.

1931

The Symbol of the Unconquered

The Symbol of the Unconquered 1920

5.30

Eve Mason, a white-passing black woman, moves to a remote cottage she inherited from her late father. She makes the acquaintance of her neighbor, a dashing black settler named Hugh Van Allen, and quickly falls for him. Trouble brews as the local cadre of racist hucksters want the valuable land Van Allen lives on, and will do anything to take it from him.

1920

The Betrayal

The Betrayal 1948

1

In this film, African-American Leroy Collins struggles with the onus placed on him by Society when he falls in love with a white woman.

1948

Lying Lips

Lying Lips 1939

4.80

A nightclub singer refuses to "date" customers, so she's framed for the murder of her aunt.

1939

Veiled Aristocrats

Veiled Aristocrats 1932

5.00

A young woman plans to marry, but her mother and brother--a lawyer--don't like her prospective husband and scheme to prevent the marriage.

1932

The Gunsaulus Mystery

The Gunsaulus Mystery 1921

1

The Gunsaulus Mystery is a 1921 American silent race film directed, produced, and written by Oscar Micheaux. The film was inspired by events and figures in the 1913-1915 trial of Leo Frank, a Jewish man, for the murder of Mary Phagan, a Christian girl. The film is now believed to be lost.

1921

Underworld

Underworld 1937

1

A young college student falls under the influence of a murderous gambler.

1937

Deceit

Deceit 1923

1

Deceit (sometimes referred to as The Deceit) is a 1923 American silent black-and-white film. It is a conventional melodrama directed by Oscar Micheaux. Like many of Micheaux's films, Deceit casts clerics in a negative light. Although the film was shot in 1921, it was not released until 1923. It is not known whether the film currently survives, which suggests that it is a lost film. The 1922 film The Hypocrite was shown within Deceit as a film within a film.

1923

The Dungeon

The Dungeon 1922

1

The Dungeon is a 1922 race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux, considered the African-American Cecil B. DeMille due to his prolific output of films during the silent era, one of his greatest works being Body and Soul (1924). The Dungeon was his first horror effort, an early blaxploitation take on the Bluebeard legend. No print of the film is known to exist and it is presumed to be a lost film.

1922