I Am Not Your Negro

I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 documentary film directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript "Remember This House". Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin's reminiscences of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.
Synopsis.
This 95-minute feature documentary is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and is inspired by James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript, "Remember This House", a collection of notes and letters written by Baldwin in the mid-1970s. The memoir recounts the lives of his close friends and civil rights leaders Malcolm X (murdered in 1965), Martin Luther King Jr. (murdered in 1968), and Medgar Evers (murdered in the summer of 1963).
In 1968, on the "The Dick Cavett Show", Dick Cavett tells James Baldwin, "I'm sure you still meet the remark that -- 'What are the negroes...Why aren't they optimistic? They say, it's getting so much better. There are negro mayors, there are negroes in all of sports."
As a 10-year-old child, Baldwin is very studious and likes to read books. Baldwin's female teacher's name is "Bill" Miller. In 1965, Baldwin bemoans at the University of Cambridge debate that prominent movie heroes such as Gary Cooper are white.
Malcolm X tells interviewer Kenneth Clark, "Martin Luther King is just a 20th century or modern Uncle Tom or a religious Uncle Tom...to keep the Negroes defenseless in the face of attack."
In May 1963, novelist James Baldwin and head of the Justice Department Bobby Kennedy hold a meeting. Female playwright Lorraine Hansberry attends the meeting.
Singer Bob Dylan sings "Only a Pawn in Their Game" after the assassination of Medgar Evers in 1963. 
Footage of the 1950 movie "No Way Out" directed by Joseph Mankiewicz is shown depicting racial hate. Stanley Kramer's 1958 movie "The Defiant Ones" is shown with a black and white man fistfighting and later developing a friendship.
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is a 1967 movie about interracial marriage. In 1965, at the Cambridge University debate, James Baldwin responds to the statement that "it was conceivable that in 40 years in America, we might have a negro President."
H. Rap Brown calls for violence after the assassination of Malcolm X.
Release.
The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the . Shortly after, Magnolia Pictures and Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released for an Oscar-qualifying run on December 9, 2016, before re-opening on February 3, 2017.
Box office.
"I Am Not Your Negro" grossed $7,089,174 in the United States . The film industry website IndieWire attributed, in part, the financial success of the movie to the release shortly before the announcement of Academy Award nominees, opening in an unusually high number of cities, and in non-traditional movie theaters that would generate a word of mouth following.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 99% based on 206 reviews, with an average rating of 8.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""I Am Not Your Negro" offers an incendiary snapshot of James Baldwin's crucial observations on American race relations—and a sobering reminder of how far we've yet to go." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 95 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The film received low user-generated ratings upon its release on IMDb and Metacritic, leading to accusations of vote brigading.
Joe Morgenstern from "The Wall Street Journal" said, "the film is unsparing as history and enthralling as biography. It's an evocation of a passionate soul in a tumultuous era, a film that uses Baldwin’s spoken words, and his notes for an unfinished book, to illuminate the struggle for civil rights."
Awards and nominations.
"I Am Not Your Negro" was nominated for numerous international awards and won over a dozen, including the following: