This was a really fun and very difficult to curate badge. It was inspired by the John Hughes Movie Club badge and took over a year to complete watching due to heaviness of some of the movies and not feeling up for it emotionally. We had all seen most of the movies and had seen all of them between us. A friend wanted to revisit her favorite movies from childhood and curate a badge celebrating the New Black Cinema movement of the 90s. There was such an explosion of incredible mainstream movies featuring black actors that were also written and/or directed by black directors during that timeframe. It really started in the late 80s but my friend is on the younger side and the most iconic movies are firmly in the 90s, thus Black to the 90s was born.

The selection criteria for this badge is:
1. Released in the 90s.
2. Main cast is black actors.
3. Directed by a black director.
4. Significant cultural impact.

It was incredibly difficult to cap this at 10, but we have decided 10 is ambitious for our group to complete in a reasonable timeframe so as to not forget we are actually doing a movie project. We tried very hard to not repeat a director, especially since this was such a prolific timeframe for Spike Lee. We decided to only include one of his films, and he is getting his own movie club badge. If you’re asking yourself, “Out of all the Spike Lee movies, why He Got Game?” It’s because my friend is a basketball player and it was ultimately her list to curate lol. We did wind up repeating F. Gary Gray, but we simply could not decide between Set it Off and Friday, so they both got to stay. Leaving off Poetic Justice in favor of Boyz n the Hood was painful under John Singleton’s movies. Seriously, this was such a difficult list to curate. We also needed to make sure there were some lighter movies on the list since so many of the movies carry heavy themes. We needed some laughter and joy in there too.

Without further ado, the list with Title/Director.

1. He Got Game – Spike Lee
2. Menace II Society – Hughes Brothers
3. Waiting to Exhale – Forest Whittaker
4. House Party – Reginald Hudlin
5. New Jack City – Mario van Peebles
6. Friday – F. Gary Gray
7. Boyz n the Hood – John Singleton
8. A Low Down Dirty Shame – Keenan Ivory Wayans
9. Set it Off – F. Gary Gray
10. The Players Club – Ice Cube

There is a really fantastic badge design for this that is very beyond my design capabilities. It’s an abstracted gumby cut with “Black to the 90s” in the Martin font. It’s great but looks terrible in my hands. I can’t wait to find someone who can complete it and we can get it printed for ourselves and get it up on here for you lovelies to use for yourselves as you complete this excellent badge.