Modern black-and-white films: 21 picks
Weekly collection in the app for the week of October 16, 2026.
Long after color became the default, a new generation of directors kept choosing black and white on purpose: to evoke a period, to hold a story at a distance, or to borrow the gravity of early cinema. This collection follows that choice around the world, from The Artist's silent-era homage and Paweł Pawlikowski's Polish elegies Ida and Cold War to Joel Coen's stage-bare The Tragedy of Macbeth.
These 21 films ran as the weekly theme in the I Like Movies Discover tab for the week of October 16, 2026, featuring The Artist. Most are in black and white, and the list closes with Woody Allen's Manhattan from 1979, made when black and white was already a deliberate choice.
The collection
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The Artist 2011 Hazanavicius A silent-movie star in 1927 Hollywood refuses to accept talking pictures while the young dancer he helped discover becomes a sound-era star; an almost entirely silent film that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Cast: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman -
Cold War 2018 Pawlikowski A pianist and a singer from a Polish folk ensemble fall in love in postwar Poland and keep finding and losing each other across borders for fifteen years; it won Paweł Pawlikowski Best Director at Cannes. Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc -
Ida 2013 Pawlikowski A novice nun in 1960s Poland learns from her only relative, a hard-drinking judge, that she was born Jewish, and the two set out to find where her parents are buried; winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Cast: Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik -
Aferim! 2015 Jude In 1835 Wallachia a constable and his teenage son ride across the countryside hunting a runaway Roma slave for a nobleman; Radu Jude's darkly comic western about Romania's history of slavery. Cast: Teodor Corban, Mihai Comănoiu, Toma Cuzin -
Tabu 2012 Gomes In present-day Lisbon an elderly woman's neighbors piece together her past, and the film's second half flashes back, almost without dialogue, to a forbidden love affair in colonial Africa. Cast: Teresa Madruga, Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira -
Nebraska 2013 Payne An aging Montana man convinced a sweepstakes letter has made him a millionaire sets out to collect in Lincoln, Nebraska, and his son agrees to drive him; Alexander Payne's dry family road movie. Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb -
The Lighthouse 2019 Eggers Two keepers on a remote New England lighthouse island in the 1890s are stranded by a storm and slide into drink, rivalry and madness; shot in a nearly square frame. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Valeriia Karaman -
The Tragedy of Macbeth 2021 Coen Shakespeare's Scottish general, urged on by his wife, murders his king for the crown and is consumed by guilt; Joel Coen stages it on bare, angular sets with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Cast: Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Alex Hassell -
Mank 2020 Fincher Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, laid up with a broken leg in 1940, races to finish the script of Citizen Kane while looking back on the Hollywood power players who inspired it. Cast: Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins -
Passing 2021 Hall Two Black women who grew up together meet again in 1920s New York, one of them now living as white and married to a racist; Rebecca Hall's first film as director, from Nella Larsen's novel. Cast: Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland -
C'mon C'mon 2021 Mills A radio journalist recording interviews with children across America ends up looking after his young nephew for weeks, and the two slowly learn how to talk to each other. Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann, Woody Norman -
Anomalisa 2015 Kaufman & Johnson A customer-service author on a business trip to Cincinnati hears everyone around him speak in the same voice until he meets one woman who sounds different; a stop-motion drama for adults written by Charlie Kaufman. Cast: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan -
Computer Chess 2013 Bujalski Programmers gather in a drab hotel for an early-1980s weekend tournament where chess programs play each other, while a self-help group shares the building; shot on vintage black-and-white video cameras. Cast: Patrick Riester, Myles Paige, James Curry -
A Field in England 2013 Wheatley Deserters fleeing a battle of the English Civil War are forced by an alchemist to dig for treasure in a field, helped along by mushrooms; Ben Wheatley's psychedelic period film. Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley, Richard Glover -
Hard to Be a God 2013 German Scientists from Earth watch over a planet stuck in its own Middle Ages, and one of them, living there as a nobleman, is forbidden to intervene; Aleksei German's nearly three-hour vision of mud and cruelty. Cast: Leonid Yarmolnik, Yuriy Tsurilo, Natalya Moteva -
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki 2016 Kuosmanen In 1962 a Finnish boxer from a small town trains for a world featherweight title fight in Helsinki just as he falls in love; based on a real fight, and winner of Un Certain Regard at Cannes. Cast: Jarkko Lahti, Oona Airola, Eero Milonoff -
Stations of the Cross 2014 Brüggemann A 14-year-old girl from a strict Catholic family prepares for her confirmation and tries to live her faith without compromise, told in fourteen fixed-camera scenes named after the Stations of the Cross. Cast: Lea van Acken, Franziska Weisz, Florian Stetter -
Much Ado About Nothing 2012 Whedon Shakespeare's comedy of the sparring lovers Beatrice and Benedick and a wedding wrecked by slander, moved to a modern California house; Joss Whedon shot it at his own home in twelve days. Cast: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion -
Frantz 2016 Ozon In a German town after the First World War, a young woman mourning her fiancé meets a Frenchman who leaves flowers on his grave and says he knew him; François Ozon moves between black and white and color. Cast: Pierre Niney, Paula Beer, Ernst Stötzner -
The Mountain 2018 Alverson In the 1950s a withdrawn young man whose mother is in an asylum goes on the road with a doctor who performs lobotomies at institutions around the country; Rick Alverson's bleak drama. Cast: Tye Sheridan, Jeff Goldblum, Hannah Gross -
Manhattan 1979 Allen A twice-divorced New York TV writer dating a 17-year-old student falls for his best friend's mistress; Woody Allen's black-and-white portrait of the city, set to Gershwin. Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy
Keep your place
Several of these films are hard to come across by chance. Add the collection to your watchlist in I Like Movies, tick each one off as you see it, and rate it so the app learns which corners of world cinema you keep coming back to. A new themed collection arrives in the Discover tab every Friday.
Questions people ask
Why do modern directors still shoot in black and white?
Directors give different reasons. Some recreate the look of the era a film is set in (The Artist, Mank, Cold War); others use it to strip a story down to faces and landscapes (Nebraska, Ida) or to make the past feel remote and strange (The Lighthouse, A Field in England).
What are the best modern black-and-white movies?
Three have the strongest records: The Artist won the Oscar for Best Picture, Ida won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and Cold War won Paweł Pawlikowski the Best Director prize at Cannes. From there, Nebraska, The Lighthouse and Frantz show how differently directors use it.
The week before: Film noir: 21 essential films. See every weekly theme, or browse every guide, watch order and comparison.