Pop Culture Happy Hour, Small Batch Edition: Slate's Black Film Canon

Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan in the 2000 romantic drama Love and Basketball.

Sidney Baldwin/New Line/The Kobal Collection

On May 30, Slate published a feature called The Black Film Canon, a list of the 50 greatest films by black directors. Some will be familiar to you, some will be less so, but the list — and its accompanying video supercut, which you can see below or see on Slate — is an intriguing jumping-off point for people who are looking for some fine films to seek out.

Aisha Harris, who wrote the feature with Dan Kois, talks to us in this segment about why they wanted to put together a black film canon at all, about the inclusion of comedies and romances and other films that don't always make it onto lists like this, and about some of the films she was most pleased to highlight.