15 Powerful Movies to Add to Your Queue This Black History Month

Art is at its best when it reflects the world around us, offers insight into others' lived experiences, teaches us something about our history or holds a mirror up to our own lives. And if we're lucky, it's all of the above. Regardless of your background, adding more diverse films to your movie night diet shows Hollywood how important they really are. Not only does watching more movies about Black History and films that center on Black stories offer a learning experience, but it helps the cause of aligning media with what the world we live in actually looks like. According to the most recent UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, the United States population is currently 40% non-white, but the screen doesn't quite reflect that. People of color are still underrepresented in every facet of the industry, outnumbered two to one in onscreen leads, three to one among directors and five to one among writers.

One of the best ways of urging production companies to produce more diverse films is by putting our money (and our eyeballs) into it: By watching movies that are made by and prominently feature Black talent. We asked members of the African American Film Critics Association to help choose films that we shouldn't miss. Add these to your watchlist this February, and all year round.