▲'Black Panther' was directed by black cinematographer Ryan Coogler and the star-studded cast is mainly comprised of black actors, including the late Chadwick Boseman who played the Marvel superhero.

▲The movie is a pioneer when it comes to creating roles specifically for black actors. The story is set in the fictitious northern Africa kingdom of Wakanda, of which Black Panther is the king.

▲The winner of the 2014 Oscar for Best Picture tells the story of Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejioforé), a free man who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold as a slave.

▲In a small town in Georgia, 1906, 14-year-old Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) is impregnated twice by her abusive father. After becoming infertile and having her children taken from her, Celie spends her life trying to reconnect with her sister Nettie (Akosua Busia).

▲The documentary dwells on the tragic life of American singer and pianist Nina Simone, who performed for the likes of Malcom X, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

▲The movie which gave Jamie Foxx the Oscar for Best Actor is about music genius Ray Charles, who had been blind since he was a child. He was a phenomenon in the world of music but had his personal life and career tainted by drug use.

▲Inspired by the life of Cecil Gaines, it tells the story of the US through the eyes of the White House butler who worked for eight presidents. Forest Whitaker plays the lead role.

▲This is the story of a hotel manager, played by Don Cheadle, who saved over one thousand refugees in a war-torn country.

▲The winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture last year tells the story of three big moments in the life of Chiron, a young black man who lives in a poor community in Miami.

▲Based on true facts, this movie tells the story of Jesse Owens, an African-American track and field athlete who won the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, fighting the white supremacy Nazi wave that was starting at the time.

▲Directed by Quentin Tarantino, 'Django Unchained' is about the life of an ex-slave who joins a bounty hunter in a quest to save his wife from a plantation owner.

▲This hit TV show is a suspense thriller about a group of ambitious Law School students and their brilliant defense law teacher. Viola Davis's character ends up finding herself involved in a murder plot that will rock the university and change the course of their lives.

▲One of the most critically-acclaimed shows of 2016, it is a reconstruction of the scandal surrounding convicted criminal and former American football player Orenthal James Simpson, who had been previously accused of brutally killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend in 1994.

▲Will Smith is a family dad who is struggling financially but manages to get a spot as an intern in a big brokerage firm. His wife leaves him and he's forced to raise his five-year-old son on his own.

▲This movie starring Idris Elba tells the story of Nelson Mandela, including his childhood spent in a small village, his school years and his 27 years in jail before becoming the first democratically elected president in South Africa.

▲The Netflix show is about the Marvel superhero, who fights criminals in Harlem and racial prejudice at the same time!

▲Starring Samuel L. Jackson, this movie is a sequel of the 1971 classic about detective John Shaft, who has to face the return of a criminal he had once put behind bars.

▲A flight attendant is forced to get into money trafficking by a weapon dealer. When the police offer her a deal to hand in the criminal, she decides to trick everyone involved. The 1997 Tarantino movie stars Pam Grier as Jackie Brown.

▲An abused and overweight teenager decides to change her life by applying to a special school. Starring Gabourey Sidibe and Mariah Carey.

▲In 1961, the US and the Soviet Union were competing in the space race at the same time as American society was dealing a deep racial division. The problem also affected NASA, where a group of brilliant black women were forced to work behind the scenes without getting recognition.

▲Starring Kerry Washington, the award-winning show follows Olivia Pope, a former White House aide who dedicates her life to being a crisis manager for the nation's elite, preventing huge scandals from blowing up.

▲Inspired by the real story of an 84-year-old Kenyan who signs up to school and finds himself in a class of six-year-olds, learning how to read.

▲A cultural war between whites and blacks at a college campus in a predominantly white institution is the basis for this Netflix series.

▲Starring Idris Elba, this movie depicts the life of a boy training to become a soldier in an African country engulfed by civil war.

▲Starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, 'Fences' tells the story of a retired baseball player who dreamed of becoming a huge sports star when he was younger, but finds himself collecting trash for a living.

▲Gunslinger Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) goes around the world in search for the Black Tower, a magical building which is about to vanish. That quest also involves an intense chase for Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey), time travels and a blurred line between real and imaginary. It is based on the book by Stephen King.

▲Starring Beyoncé and Adam Brody, 'Cadillac Records' reflects on the history of music from the 1940s to the 1960s, focusing on a record label based in Chicago. It featured the stories of legendary blues singers such as Etta James, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and Little Walter, among others.

▲This two-season Netflix show follows youngsters from several minorities living on the Bronx during the emergence of the hip-hop scene and the final days of disco music.

▲Donald Glover's award-winning comedy series follows two cousins living in Atlanta who struggle to break into the rap industry in order to make a living for their families.

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'Empire' introduces us to Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), a young rapper who eventually founds his own label. When he finds out he is terminally ill, he must choose one of his three sons to take over the company. What he didn't expect was that his ex-wife Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) would return from prison and try to get back everything she left behind.

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'Black Panther' was the first Marvel movie to star a black superhero as the lead character, and it doesn't only boast an almost entirely black cast, but it's also directed by Ryan Coogler.

Click here to see other movies that have been contributing to the rise of leading black characters in Hollywood!