African cinema: 21 essential films

Weekly collection in the app for the week of May 22, 2026.

From Ousmane Sembène's pioneering Senegalese realism to Mati Diop's ghosts drifting back across the Atlantic, African cinema built one of the richest bodies of work in film history while most festivals looked elsewhere. They are catching up.

This collection of 21 films ran as the weekly theme in the I Like Movies Discover tab for the week of May 22, 2026, featuring Atlantics. It spans the continent: Senegal, Mali, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, and Algeria through The Battle of Algiers.

The collection

1. Atlantics (2019) Mati Diop Featured In Dakar, construction workers unpaid for months set out to sea for Spain; the women they left behind begin speaking with voices that are not theirs. A ghost story and a love story at once. Cast: Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow, Ibrahima Traore
2. Black Girl (1966) Sembène A young Senegalese woman hired by a French couple as a nanny finds herself their maid and their trophy on the Riviera; the film that announced African cinema to the world. Cast: Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinek, Robert Fontaine
3. Xala (1975) Sembène A Dakar businessman celebrating his third marriage is struck impotent by a curse; Sembène's satire of a postcolonial elite that has changed the flags but kept the masters' manners. Cast: Thierno Leye, Myriam Niang, Seune Samb
4. Touki Bouki (1973) Mambéty A cowherd with a longhorn-mounted motorcycle and a student girlfriend scheme and dream their way toward a boat to Paris; the avant-garde road movie of African cinema. Cast: Magaye Niang, Myriam Niang, Christoph Colomb
5. Hyenas (1992) Mambéty A fabulously rich woman returns to the poor town that once cast her out pregnant, offering fortunes for the death of the man who betrayed her; a parable of what money does to community. Cast: Djibril Diop Mambéty, Mansour Diouf, Ami Diakhate
6. Yeelen (1987) Cissé A young man carrying dangerous knowledge flees across ancient Mali pursued by his own sorcerer father; Bambara cosmology told with the weight of myth. Cast: Issiaka Kane, Balla Moussa Keita, Aoua Sangare
7. Timbuktu (2014) Sissako Under jihadist occupation, Timbuktu's residents negotiate absurd bans on music and football until a cattle herder's accident collides with the new law; grief delivered with unexpected grace. Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed
8. Bamako (2006) Sissako In a Bamako courtyard, a full trial is staged with real lawyers: African civil society versus the World Bank and IMF, while ordinary life flows around the hearing. Cast: Aïssa Maïga, Tiécoura Traoré, Maimouna Hélène Diarra
9. Tilai (1990) Ouedraogo Returning from a long absence, a man finds his father has married the woman promised to him; their forbidden love breaks the village's moral law and the family with it. Cast: Rasmané Ouédraogo, Ina Cissé, Roukietou Barry
10. A Screaming Man (2010) Haroun A hotel pool attendant in Chad, demoted in favor of his son, makes a quiet, terrible choice as civil war closes in; a father-son tragedy in a country running out of room. Cast: Youssouf Djaoro, Diouc Koma, Emile Abossolo M'bo
11. Lingui (2021) Haroun In Chad, where abortion is a crime and a sin, a single mother discovers her fifteen-year-old is pregnant and refuses to accept the ruin prescribed for her; a story of female solidarity. Cast: Achouackh Abakar Souleymane, Rihane Khalil Alio, Youssouf Djaoro
12. Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975) Lakhdar-Hamina Algeria's long road to revolution followed through one peasant's life, from famine and dispossession to armed uprising; the only African film ever to win the Palme d'Or. Cast: Yorgo Voyagis, Leila Shenna, Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina
13. Tsotsi (2005) Hood A Johannesburg gang leader carjacks a woman and discovers a baby on the back seat; keeping it cracks him open; an Oscar winner for best foreign film. Cast: Presley Chweneyagae, Jerry Mofokeng, Terry Pheto
14. Cairo Station (1958) Chahine A lame newspaper seller at Cairo's central station nurses an obsession with a beautiful lemonade vendor that tips into violence; Chahine cast himself in Egyptian cinema's boldest film. Cast: Farid Shawqy, Hind Rostom, Youssef Chahine
15. Buud Yam (1997) Kaboré In precolonial Burkina Faso, a young man distrusted by his village must journey through strange lands to find a healer for his dying sister; a quest tale and the country's best-loved classic. Cast: Serge Yanogo, Amssatou Maïga, Colette Kaboré
16. Ali Zaoua (2000) Ayouch When gang violence kills the smallest of them, three Casablanca street kids resolve to bury their friend like a prince; brutal reality shot through with children's mythology. Cast: Mounïm Kbab, Abdelhak Zhayra, Hicham Moussoune
17. Faya Dayi (2021) Beshir In the Ethiopian highlands, where the khat trade has swallowed the economy and the young chew to escape, a documentary drifts between harvests and dreams in hypnotic black and white. Cast: Mohammed Arif, Hashim Abdi, Biniam Yonas
18. Difret (2014) Mehari A young Ethiopian lawyer defends a fourteen-year-old who shot the man who abducted her for marriage, a custom the court is being asked to end; from a landmark real case. Cast: Meron Getnet, Tizita Hagere, Haregewine Assefa
19. Lamb (2015) Zeleke Sent to relatives after his mother's death, an Ethiopian boy refuses to let his beloved sheep be slaughtered for the feast; the first Ethiopian film ever selected at Cannes. Cast: Rediat Amare, Kidist Siyum, Wolela Assefa
20. The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020) Ben Hania A Syrian refugee lets a famous artist tattoo a Schengen visa across his back, becoming a living artwork that can travel where he cannot; a sharp fable about borders and the art market. Cast: Yahya Mahayni, Dea Liane, Koen De Bouw
21. The Battle of Algiers (1966) Pontecorvo The FLN's urban insurgency and the French paratroopers sent to crush it, restaged in the real Casbah with non-professionals so convincingly it opens with a disclaimer; still screened as a manual. Cast: Brahim Hadjadj, Mohamed Ben Kassen, Yacef Saâdi

Keep your place

Many of these take some finding, which makes a watchlist the difference between meaning to and watching. Keep the collection in I Like Movies and mark films as you track them down. New themed collections arrive in the Discover tab every Friday.

Questions people ask

Where do I start with African cinema?

Black Girl (1966), the film that effectively founded Sub-Saharan African feature filmmaking, then Touki Bouki (1973) and Atlantics (2019) to see how far the language traveled.

Is The Battle of Algiers an African film?

It is an Italian-Algerian co-production directed by an Italian, Gillo Pontecorvo, but it was made at Algeria's invitation, shot in the Casbah with Algerian non-professionals, and remains the defining film of the continent's anti-colonial struggle. It closes the collection for that reason.

The week before: Y2K romcoms: 21 films from the genre's last golden age. The week after: The long take: 21 films built on unbroken shots. See every weekly theme, or browse every guide, watch order and comparison.