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Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
2020 1h 34m R
Drama
,
Music
,
Musical
6.9
97%
73%
67%
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Tensions rise when trailblazing blues singer Ma Rainey and her band gather at a recording studio in Chicago in 1927.
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Directed By
George C. Wolfe
Written By
Ruben Santiago-Hudson
,
August Wilson
Studio
Escape Artists
,
Mundy Lane Entertainment
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Cast of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Viola Davis
Ma Rainey
Chadwick Boseman
Levee
Colman Domingo
Cutler
Glynn Turman
Toledo
Michael Potts
Slow Drag
Jeremy Shamos
Irvin
Jonny Coyne
Sturdyvant
Taylour Paige
Dussie Mae
Dusan Brown
Sylvester
Joshua Harto
Policeman
Quinn VanAntwerp
Band Singer
Chloe Davis
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Mayte Natalio
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Johanna Elmina Moise
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Onyxx Noel
Ma Rainey's Dancer
LaWanda Hopkins
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Sierra Stewart
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Malaiyka Reid
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Catherine Foster
Ma Rainey's Dancer
Antonio Fierro
Laborer (uncredited)
Daniel Johnson
Chicago Worker (uncredited)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Reviews
Vox
Alissa Wilkinson
Boseman plays Levee with an electricity that feels urgent.
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a small film with big ideas, bigger speeches, and two towering performances.
Chicago Reader
Arionne Nettles
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is pure art, just as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.
Mashable
Angie Han
The downside to the film's almost musical rhythm is that it never quite transcends its stagey feel... On the other hand, it's hard to argue against the power of seeing Boseman or Davis' faces fill the screen.
Salon.com
Melanie McFarland
Like Ma demanded in her time, Davis claims every scene in which she's centered without dimming the performances of her co-stars. As if that were possible.
NPR
Aisha Harris
This is a reclamation of Black music and culture as told through an array of distinct characters, crackling dialogue and sharp filmmaking.
New York Magazine/Vulture
Angelica Jade Bastién
Ma Rainey has the weight of Hollywood power players behind it, but it seems incapable or uninterested in taking advantage of the delights of what film can do.
Pajiba
Roxana Hadadi
The sense that we're beholden to the whims of unseen forces-that we're not the protagonists of our own stories-cuts deep in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
If the drama is galvanizing enough, that's all you need. And what we have here is more than enough: Viola Davis in one of her greatest performances, and the late Chadwick Boseman in his final and most powerful appearance.
leonardmaltin.com
Leonard Maltin
Two searing performances-by Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman-make this filmmore than just a faithful adaptation of a great theater piece and preserves one of August Wilson's enduring works for all time, enacted by a dream cast.
Andscape
Soraya Nadia McDonald
Each of the actors rises to the occasion in this production, riding a wave of heat crafted by screenwriter and Wilson whisperer Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
NPR
Bob Mondello
August Wilson's tale of what it means to be a Black artist in a racist society is hardly new, but the telling of that tale has never been more artful or more urgently performed than it is in this incarnation of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."
TIME Magazine
Stephanie Zacharek
The film occasionally suffers from the slight stiffness that often afflicts movies adapted from theater. But to watch these actors is pure pleasure...
Autostraddle
Shelli Nicole
The focus of the film is more on Levee, Chadwick Boseman's character. It felt like Viola was the pull but I was left wanting to learn even more about Ma Rainey than before. However, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the film because I absolutely did.
FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
Tim Cogshell
It has the sensibility of an Ernie Barnes painting throughout, capturing the many different hues of Black people... And then of course, there is the music, which is extraordinary. Good work all the way around.
Tribune News Service
Katie Walsh
Not just about art and artists but the entire Black experience in America in the early 20th century, a deeply traumatized history informed by racism, religion and violence, which is reflected in their creative output that is the blues.
Refinery29
Anne Cohen
Words, and who gets to say them, are a crucial element of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
The Atlantic
Hannah Giorgis
The story concerns itself chiefly with the role of music in documenting and, in some cases, defusing the unspeakable pains that birthed the blues.
Esquire Magazine
Nick Schager
Acting doesn't come much bolder and more blistering than in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.
FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
Christy Lemire
You never forget that you're watching a play on film, but that's okay because the dialogue snaps and leaps -- it's so intense and so exquisite, and yet the emotion beneath it is real.
Watch Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Videos
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Costanza Romero Introduction
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Stage To Screen (Featurette)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Glynn Turman On His Character
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Michael Potts On His Character
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Ann Roth On Joining The Project
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Becoming Ma Rainey (Featurette)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Mark Ricker On Joining The Project
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Dusan Brown On His Audition Process
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Taylour Paige On Her Audition Process
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: George C. Wolfe On The Plot Of The Film
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Branford Marsalis On His Role In The Film
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Todd Black On Bringing This Film To Netflix
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Viola Davis: Embodying Ma Rainey (Featurette)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Chadwick Boseman: A Man Among Men (Featurette)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Viola Davis On Her Connection To August Wilson's Work
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Colman Domingo On His Connection To August Wilson's Work
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Denzel Washington On His Experience Seeing Ma Rainey On Broadway
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: The Blues
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Got Talent
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: Deep Moaning
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