Ava DuVernay has only made five narrative features, but she’s one of the busiest women in Hollywood.
Before 2023, the California-born filmmaker’s last feature was her “A Wrinkle in Time” adaptation, released in theaters in 2018 — a five-year gap between releases that’s partially attributable to projects that sputtered in development like DC’s “New Gods” film and a Prince biopic. And yet, DuVernay has remained a constant presence during that relatively long gap, translating her numerous talents to producing and TV work. She created and directed the acclaimed Netflix miniseries “When They See Us,” about the controversial Central Park Five case. Several other TV projects followed, including OWN’s “Cherish the Day,” Netflix’s “Colin in Black and White,” and The CW’s “Naomi.” But while many of those projects have been terrific, it’s great to see the director of great films like “Middle of Nowhere” and “Selma” back on the big screen where she belongs.
Originally a journalist and publicist, DuVernay came to filmmaking in her 30s. After short films and small documentaries, her first feature “This is the Life” — a doc about Los Angeles’ Good Life Cafe and the alt hip hop movement — released in 2008. Her narrative feature debut “I Will Follow” and its follow-up “Middle of Nowhere” established her as an acclaimed indie filmmaker, one with a specific point of view and interest in depicting Black stories. It was 2014’s “Selma,” a biopic depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1965 voting rights marches, that propelled DuVernay to the mainstream, and she’s stayed there ever since.
Sadly, DuVernay’s talents aren’t always recognized despite the obvious quality of the films she produces. “Selma” infamously didn’t receive a Best Picture or Director nomination, and her latest project “Origin,” got snubbed and completely shut out at the 2024 Oscars. As IndieWire’s Marcus Jones writes, a Black female director has never been nominated by the Academy, making her snubs all the more disappointing.
DuVernay herself has spoken out about Black artists receiving more recognition in Hollywood, and given her status as a champion for representation both onscreen and behind camera, it’s unsurprising that many of the films she has named as all-time favorites center Black stories. In 2019, DuVernay curated a list of her favorite classic films for Turner Classic Movies’ “The Essentials” series. In addition to some mainstream favorites like “West Side Story” and “Dog Day Afternoon,” DuVernay also highlighted several more obscure films from Black filmmakers like “Losing Ground,” a semi-autobiographical feature from Kathleen Collins about the tense relationship between a professor and her artist husband. Other Black-led films on her essentials list include “Sounder,” “Claudine,” and “Daughters of the Dust,” while foreign classics like Satyajit Ray “Pather Panchali” and Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” were also featured
With “Origin” still out in theaters, IndieWire decided to round up the films that DuVernay has named as her favorites or important references during her Essentials series. Films listed are sorted in chronological order of release date. With that said, read on for 10 of Ava DuVernay’s all-time favorite films.
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“Pather Panchali” (dir. Satyajit Ray, 1955)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection In 2019, Ava DuVernay curated a selection of her favorite classic films for Turner Classic Movies’ “The Essentials” series. One of the films she selected was “Pather Panchali,” the debut film of master filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The Bengali-language film is the first chapter in Ray’s acclaimed “Apu Trilogy,” and was famously shot on a shoestring budget with amateur actors and a crew with zero experience. Despite this, the film — which depicts the day-to-day difficulties of a poor Bengal family — is frequently regarded as a masterpiece.
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“West Side Story” (dirs. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection DuVernay also selected the 1961 film version of “West Side Story” in her “The Essentials” series. The faithful adaptation of the iconic stage musical tells the Romeo and Juliet love story of two teenagers on opposite sides of a New York City gang war. In her discussion of the film, DuVernay said that watching the movie after her aunt introduced it to her helped inspire her to pursue filmmaking.
“It was such a seminal moment for me,” DuVernay said.
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“The Battle of Algiers” (dir. Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Gillo Pontecorvo’s acclaimed “The Battle of Algiers” focuses on the lives of rebels during the Algerian War against France, featuring a primarily amateur cast of people who lived through the titular battle.
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“Sounder” (dir. Martin Ritt, 1972)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Based on William H. Armstrong’s novel, Martin Ritt’s “Sounder” stars Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, and Kevin Hooks as a family of Depression-era Black sharecroppers who struggle to make ends meet when the patriarch is sent to prison. The film received critical acclaim and four Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) at the time of its release.
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“Claudine” (dir. John Berry, 1974)
Image Credit: ©20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection Romantic drama “Claudine” stars Diahann Carroll as the titular single New York mother, who works as a maid for wealthy suburban families and develops a romance with handsome garbage collecter Roop (James Earl Jones).
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“Dog Day Afternoon” (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1975)
Image Credit: Everett Collection / Everett Collection Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-nominated “Dog Day Afternoon” is based on the true story of John Wojtowicz, who robbed a bank to pay for his partner’s sex reassignment surgery and ended up in an hours-long stalemate with the police. Al Pacino plays Wojtowicz in the film, lightly fictionalized as Sonny Wortzik. DuVernay included the classic crime drama in her list of favorite classic films for “The Essentials” series.
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“Harlan County U.S.A.” (dir. Barbara Kopple, 1976)
Image Credit: Everett Collection / Everett Collection Barbara Kopple’s acclaimed documentary “Harlan County U.S.A.” won Best Documentary at the 1977 Oscars ceremony, for its on-the-ground depiction of a coal miner’s strike and labor effort in a small Kentucky town.
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“Losing Ground” (dir. Kathleen Collins, 1982)
Image Credit: ©Milestone/Courtesy Everett Collection Kathleen Collins’ 1982 drama “Losing Ground” stars Seret Scott as a philosophy professor whose summer upstate her artist husband (Bill Gunn) puts their rocky relationship to a test. The film, a semiautobiographical picture inspired by Collins’ real life, was never released outside of the film festival circuit before Collins’ death in 1988.
“It was just a slice of life from her perspective and yet because she was a woman and because she was black it went nowhere,” DuVernay said in her “The Essentials” discussion of the film. “And now that film has been forgotten by so many — not even forgotten, it’s never been known.”
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“Gandhi” (dir. Richard Attenborough, 1982)
Image Credit: ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Richard Attenborough’s Oscar-winning epic “Gandhi” stars Ben Kingsley as the titular, highly influential Indian activist who became a major figure in the movement to free his country from British rule. The film won eight Oscars, including for Best Picture and Best Director and Actor trophies for Attenborough and Kingsley.
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“Daughters of the Dust” (Julie Dash, 1991)
Image Credit: Everett Collection / Everett Collection Set at the turn of the 20th century, Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” focuses on three generations of a Gullah family on South Carolina’s Saint Helena Island as they prepare to move to the mainland. The acclaimed film is notable as the first feature from a Black American woman to receive a general theatrical release, and was the only film from a Black woman to top Sight & Sound’s list of the Top 100 films of all time in 2022.
