Oscar Micheaux Filmography

Born:
January 2, 1884 in Metropolis, Illinois
Occupation:
Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:
Though independent filmmaker Oscar Micheaux was an important and prolific contributor to early black American cinema, his work has been largely ignored by film historians. Part of this is due to the fact that few of the forty films he made between 1919 and 1948 have survived, but it is also due to...Read More

  • The Betrayal

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Actors: Lou Vernon, William Byrd

    Synopsis: Legendary African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux was generally able to transcend the shabby production values of his films with sincerity and good intentions. The Betrayal is blessed with a workable premise: Black farmer Leroy Collins struggles with the onus placed on him by Society when he Read More

    1948

  • The Notorious Elinor Lee

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    1940

  • Lying Lips

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: In this all-African American mystery from director Oscar Micheaux, a singer is framed for murder, prompting her boyfriend to turn sleuth to find the real killer. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

    1939

  • Birthright

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: A remake of the 1924 film of the same name, Birthright tells the story of an idealistic young black Harvard graduate who is confronted by prejudice. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

    1939

  • Swing

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: Oscar Micheaux directed this lively musical drama that was designed especially for black audiences. Dance sequences from the Tyler Twins provide the movie's highlights. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

    1938

  • God's Stepchildren

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: A light-skinned African-American girl, Naomi (Jacqueline Lewis), denounces her own race in this controversial melodrama produced, written, and directed by prolific black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. When Naomi's teacher (Ethel Moses) takes umbrage to the girl's statement that "God didn't make Read More

    1938

  • Underworld

    Crew: Director, Producer

    Synopsis: In this crime drama an African-American college graduate leaves his Southern home and goes to seek his fortune in Chicago. He stays at a hotel which later turns out to be a cathouse. One of the proprietors takes a shine to the lad and tries to con him into a life of crime. The boy refuses, so the Read More

    1937

  • Temptation

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: A young black model, Ethel Moses), who has gotten herself in deep with a couple of gangsters (Alfred "Slick" Chester and Andrew Bishop, attempts to go straight in this crime drama written, produced, and directed by African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Lorenzo Tucker, known as "the black Read More

    1936

  • Lem Hawkins' Confession

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    1935

  • Harlem After Midnight

    Crew: Director

    1934

  • Ten Minutes to Live

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: Low-budget auteur Oscar Micheaux directs this early crime drama concerning a Harlem nightclub dancer and presumed gangster's moll who receives a most unsettling note. Informed that in ten minutes she will be escorted into the back alley and unceremoniously pumped full of lead, the young dancer Read More

    1932

  • Black Magic

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    1932

  • Veiled Aristocrats

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: A rare presentation of the man known as the "Black Valentino" is the focus in this program. This film was once thought to be lost. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

    1932

  • Girl From Chicago

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: An African-American Secret Service agent (Carl Mahan) saves a young girl from a fate worse than death in this typical low-budget "all-black" melodrama produced, written, and directed by Oscar Micheaux. Returning from Europe, Secret Service agent Alonso White (Mahan) is assigned to a case in Read More

    1932

  • Darktown Revue

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    1931

  • The Exile

    Crew: Director, Screenwriter, Short Story Author

    Actors: Charles Moore

    Synopsis: One of the more controversial black films of the early sound era, this Oscar Micheaux production was billed as the "first Negro talker." Stanley Morrell starred as Jean Baptiste, an honest black youth whose girlfriend, Edith (Eunice Brooks), turns down his proposal of marriage in favor of running Read More

    1931

  • A Daughter of the Congo

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: Released by the African-American Oscar Micheaux Corp., this highly controversial silent melodrama featured Katherine Noisette and the handsome Lorenzo Tucker, who was widely known by African-American movie patrons as "The Black Valentino." Noisette played Lupelta, a beautiful mulatto girl stolen Read More

    1930

  • Easy Street

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Actors: Richard B. Harrison

    1930

  • Thirty Years Later

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    1928

  • The Spider's Web

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: This "all-black" silent melodrama was produced and directed by Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific supplier of screen entertainment for African-American movie theaters. Micheaux's leading lady, Evelyn Preer, starred as a young Chicago girl visiting her aunt in Mississippi. The girl is accosted by Read More

    1926

  • Body and Soul

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Actors: Paul Robeson, Jr., Mercedes Gilbert, Julia Theresa Russell

    Synopsis: Written and directed by independent auteur Oscar Micheaux, the low-budget silent film Body and Soul is significant as the film debut of actor Paul Robeson. He leads the largely African-American cast as the Reverend Isaiah T. Jenkins, a minister who lies, cheats, and steals. He's really an escaped Read More

    1925

  • Birthright

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: Produced, written and directed by pioneering African-American auteur Oscar Micheaux, this low-budget silent race melodrama starred J. Homer Tutt as an idealistic Negro college graduate who discovers bigotry and brutality from both races in a small southern town. Micheaux regulars Evelyn Preer and Lawrence Chenault Read More

    1924

  • Gunsaulus Mystery

    Crew: Director, Producer

    Synopsis: Produced, written, and directed by Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific African-American filmmaker of his generation, this silent murder melodrama was apparently based on a real event in Georgia in which a white man was convicted of murder due to the testimony of a black janitor. Myrtle Gunsaulus, a Read More

    1921

  • Symbol of the Unconquered

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Actors: Lawrence Chenault, Walker Thompson, Iris Hall, E.G. Tatum, Jim Burris

    Synopsis: This early-black cinema silent was produced and directed by the era's most prolific African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Iris Hall played Evon Mason, "a beautiful Negress" travelling West to inspect her inheritance, a gold mine. She is thrown out of the area's only hotel but is cared for by Read More

    1920

  • Within Our Gates

    Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Actors: Evelyn Preer, Charles D. Lucas, William Stark, Matty Edwards, Flo Clements

    Synopsis: This film is one of the earliest surviving examples of a film by an African American filmmaker. Sylvia Landry is engaged to a black soldier, but her rival Alma Pritchard arranges for him to catch Sylvia in an innocent but compromising situation. No longer engaged, she moves to the South to work as Read More

    1920

  • The Brute

    Crew: Director, Producer

    1920

  • The Homesteader

    Crew: Book Author, Director, Producer, Screenwriter

    Synopsis: The very first film made by Oscar Micheaux, the most prolific black filmmaker of his time, The Homesteader was scripted by Micheaux himself and ostensibly based on his experiences as the only African-American farmer in Iowa. Funded in part by white Iowa farmers befriended by Micheaux, the film Read More

    1918

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Oscar Micheaux not available

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