Bessie

Produced as part of a multiple-award-winning HBO series, this fictional biography takes a close-up look at the life of blues legend Bessie Smith (Queen Latifah). Born into a poor family in the Deep South and orphaned at an early age, Smith grows up fast and into the leading star at Columbia records earning the nickname "The Empress of the Blues," to become the most popular black female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. Rees's story takes us from the difficult childhood, the road to fame, and to her death by skillfully combining the singer's stormy life story and the then-provocative, proto-feminist music that touched on erotica, homosexuality, violence and Afro-American poverty after abolition. Smith's story, as told in a film by a director who has previously dealt with nonnormative sexuality in her debut Pariah, is uncompromising in showing the artist's sexuality, stormy marriage and her lifelong struggle with alcoholism. IndieWire took particular notice of the acting by Latifah, who "slides smoothly into Bessie's skin, understanding her complexity with fitting confidence and well-measured vulnerability."