Inspired by real events in the life of Breathless (1960) star and French New Wave icon Jean Seberg, who in the late 1960s was targeted by Hoover's FBI, because of her political and romantic involvement with civil rights activist Hakim Jamal.

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Low-key biopic of graffiti vandal turned New York darling Jean-Michel Basquiat. Catapulted to art-world super-stardom after a chance meeting with Andy Warhol, the obscene amounts of money his paintings suddenly command soon sends him down the slippery slope of big-time drug abuse. Enthralling. find out more...

Halle Berry won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Dorothy Dandridge in this engrossing biopic. As the first black performer to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar back in 1954, Dandridge should have had the world at her feet, but a combination of racism, treachery, drugs and her own weakness saw her career and life ruined. Not exactly a barrel of laughs, painting as it does a shocking portrait of the racism rife in '50s Hollywood, but fascinating stuff. find out more...

Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.

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Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, Harriet tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.

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Spike Lee's mainstream take on the ex-petty crook turned Islamic preacher and leading 60s Civil Rights spokesman Malcolm X. Washington's performance is riveting in this epic. find out more...

A generic, but nevertheless, reasonably good warts and all biopic of Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious B.I.G., from a drug dealing chilhood in a Brooklyn ghetto, through arrest, prison, his relationship problems, basic criminality and on to his success as a rap artist before his 1997 murder. find out more...

Jesse Owens' quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.

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A mesmerising dramatisation of one of the kings, Ray Charles. Unsurprisingly the soundtrack is pure bliss, but it is Jamie Foxx in the title role that pulls everything together, an hypnotic performance of a music legend, through all his highs and lows, and one of those increasingly rare examples of a leading actor Oscar that actually makes sense. find out more...

A little known passage of British history - the fate of the black men who volunteered for the King's Men in the American War of Independence. At least the Empire didn't abandon them to the slaver George Washington and his thugs, instead dumping them on the desolate Novia Scotia coastline. But where there's life there's hope and enter the radical Thomas Clarkson's brother, a young naval officer named John, who, energised by their living conditions, collected the remnants and shipped them to Freet find out more...