5 Best Movies to Watch by CCH Pounder

actor › CCH Pounder
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Shot from the movie

, 2001

Artists take what’s intimate and personal and transform it into art, but, especially for those who became famous for their work, it can feel challenging to tackle certain subjects, profit from it, and make it part and parcel of your artistic identity, especially when it stems from personal trauma. Things Behind the Sun depicts a rock singer who became famous on her song about rape. It’s a tad harrowing, and the flashbacks get rather graphic, but through focusing primarily on Sherry’s journey and not forcing forgiveness between the characters, Things Behind the Sun is able to capture what it means to survive the horrible, to confront it again, and to actually heal.

Genre: Drama, Music

Actor: Alison Folland, Brittany Finamore, CCH Pounder, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Peña, Eric Stoltz, Gabriel Mann, Joshua Leonard, Kai Lennox, Kim Dickens, Patsy Kensit, Rosanna Arquette, Shawn Reaves

Director: Allison Anders

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, 1996

You would think that a film made with Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek and Cher would be a major theatrical release, but even in 1996, the topic of abortion rights was still quite controversial. If These Walls Could Talk may be relegated to the small screen because of this, or because of being an anthology of shorts, but with each lead starring each segment, the film outlines real experiences with abortion, from the dangerous ways women had to resort to without it, to the way, that even with the Court’s support, these rights were actively suppressed. Of course, it’s a harrowing, unsubtle watch, and it would have been great to have a segment depicting the safety of modern day procedures, but if you have a friend that’s unconvinced of the procedure’s necessity, or if they’re entirely new to the conversation, If These Walls Could Talk is a place to start.

Genre: Drama, TV Movie

Actor: Aaron James Cash, Aaron Lustig, Anne Heche, Ben Marley, Brendan Ford, Carmen Thomas, Catherine Keener, CCH Pounder, Cher, Chris Ellis, Christine Avila, Craig T. Nelson, Demi Moore, Diana Scarwid, Eileen Brennan, Geoffrey Nauffts, Georganne LaPiere, Harris Yulin, Hedy Burress, Ian Bohen, Jack Kehler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jason London, Joanna Gleason, Jordana Spiro, Judith Drake, Kevin Cooney, Lindsay Crouse, Lorna Scott, Lorraine Toussaint, Mary Portser, Matthew Lillard, Phyllis Lyons, Rita Wilson, Rob Camilletti, Robert Wisdom, Robin Gammell, Rusty Schwimmer, Sally Murphy, Sarah Koskoff, Shirley Knight, Sissy Spacek, Susie Spear Purcell, Tim DeKay, Xander Berkeley, Zack Eginton

Director: Cher, Nancy Savoca

Rating: R

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Shot from the movie

, 1987

This quirky 1988 adventure drama is newly available on Amazon Prime. It’s the classic that never was, the story of a rundown gas station motel in the Southern US where a lonely West German lady called Jasmin Munchgstettner ends up by accident.

The owner of the operation, a short-tempered woman by the name of Brenda, doesn’t really take to Jasmin. However, the longer the West German guest stays at the motel, the more a friendship forms between the two.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Alan S. Craig, Apesanahkwat, CCH Pounder, Christine Kaufmann, Darron Flagg, G. Smokey Campbell, Gary Lee Davis, George Aguilar, Hans Stadlbauer, Jack Palance, Marianne Sägebrecht, Mark Daneri, Monica Calhoun, Ray Young, Ronald Lee Jarvis

Director: Percy Adlon

Rating: PG

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, 2023

An unsung hero of the civil rights movement gets the customary Oscar bait treatment in this biopic. Though he was instrumental in organizing the historic March on Washington — which helped force the US government to enshrine civil rights — gay Black activist Bayard Rustin isn’t the household name his peers are. In an inversion of that narrative, figures like Martin Luther King appear here as supporting characters to Colman Domingo’s Bayard.

Domingo’s energetic, commanding performance holds the center of the film, but he’s ill-served by the formulaic approach to storytelling that unfolds around him. More than a few scenes feel like they were written, directed, and performed with an eye to making awards ceremony clips, giving the film a disjointed, self-aware air. And yet, for all the limits of its by-the-numbers approach, Rustin does manage to pack in glints of insight. By virtue of who he was, Bayard will never not make for a compelling central figure — so even lackluster filmmaking can’t sap this inherently radical material of all its power. Though not without its flaws, then, the film is valuable for the light it sheds on the polarising effect Bayard's identity as a gay Black man had within the movement and the intersectional depths he nevertheless brought to it. 

Genre: Drama, History

Actor: Adrienne Warren, Aml Ameen, Audra McDonald, Ayana Workman, Bill Irwin, Carra Patterson, CCH Pounder, Chanel Minnifield, Chris Rock, Collin Antrim Miller, Colman Domingo, Cotter Smith, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Dan Sauer, Daniel Johnson, Frank Harts, Glynn Turman, Grantham Coleman, Gus Halper, Hope Clarke, Ivan Moore, Jeff Hochendoner, Jeffrey Wright, Johanna McGinley, Johnny Ramey, Jordan Aaron Hall, Jules Latimer, Kevin Mambo, Lilli Kay, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, Michael Alban, Michael Potts, Rashad Edwards, Robert F. Kennedy, Scott Deal, Zuri Starks

Director: George C. Wolfe

Rating: PG-13

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