Roger Ross Williams

How to Build a Library (2025)

Two intrepid Nairobi women decide to transform what used to be a whites-only library until 1958 into a vibrant cultural hub. Along the way, they must navigate local politics, raise millions for the rebuild, and confront the lingering ghosts of Kenya's colo ...

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House (2025)

Out of the underground dance clubs on the South Side of Chicago, a group of friends turn a new sound into a global movement. ...

The Battle for Laikipia (2024)

The stakes escalate in a longstanding conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, as unresolved historical injustices and the impact of climate change come to the forefront. ...

Stone Mountain (2024)

A stirring portrait of residents in a small southern US town facing the contentious legacy of the world's largest Confederate monument, which looms over their home. ...

Makayla's Voice: A Letter to the World (2024)

A teen with autism unlocks a joyous world of self-expression as she shares her voice for the first time using a letter board. ...

Through Sunless Ways (2023)

Taking place over the course of a single day and night, five vignettes tell the story of five New Yorkers who find that their personal relationships to light mirror much larger systems of power playing out across the city. ...

Stamped from the Beginning (2023)

Using innovative animation and expert insights, this documentary based on Ibram X. Kendi's bestseller explores the history of racist ideas in America. ...

Cassandro (2023)

The true story of Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso that rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the "Liberace of Lucha Libre." In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world but also his ...

TLC Forever (2023)

The revolutionary top-selling American female group of all time, who broke boundaries, influenced an entire generation and survived against all odds, T-Boz and Chilli tell their story for the first time in this feature documentary. ...

Love to Love You, Donna Summer (2023)

The extraordinary story of disco queen Donna Summer through a rich archive of unpublished film excerpts, home video, photographs, artwork, writings, personal audio and other recordings that span the life of one of the most iconic performers ever to shake a ...

Magic Ring (2022)

Slipping between planes of consciousness and existence, filmmaker Alex Ashe's Magic Ring is a work of both subdued tenderness and wry comic surrealism in which an armed pursuit in Brooklyn results in a series of out-of-body experiences: a mystical encounte ...

Civil: Ben Crump (2022)

Crump's mission to raise the value of Black life as the civil lawyer for the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Black farmers and banking while Black victims, Crump challenges America to come to terms with what it owes his clients. ...

Master of Light (2022)

George Anthony Morton, a classical painter who spent ten years in federal prison, travels to his hometown to paint his family members. Going back forces George to face his past in his quest to rewrite the script of his life. ...

Ranger (2021)

RANGER is a story about a rite of passage. Set within Kenya's Maasai homeland, an intimate and contemporary story of self-discovery unfolds, as 12 women become East Africa's first all-female anti-poaching unit. Upending the male-dominated, reliance upon m ...

Between the World and Me (2020)

Based on Ta-Nehisi Coates' #1 New York Times bestseller and originally adapted and staged by the Apollo Theater, this special combines elements of that production - including powerful readings from Coates' book - with documentary footage from the actors' h ...

The Remix: Hip Hop x Fashion (2019)

The Remix: Hip Hop x Fashion highlights the hidden female figures that have curated and shaped hip-hop's dynamic streetwear and ultimately swayed the entire fashion industry. ...

Jaiquan's Sketch (2019)

Jaiquan's Sketch tells a story of the healing power of expressive arts. ...

After Maria (2019)

Strong Puerto Rican women forced to flee the island after Hurricane Maria have bonded like family in a FEMA hotel in the Bronx. They seek stability in their new life as forces try to pull them apart. ...

The Apollo (2019)

The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment. ...

Traveling While Black (2019)

An immersive virtual reality documentary experience about the risks faced by blacks on the road in mid 2Oth Century America, and the safe spaces as listed in the famous guide, The Green Book, where they could eat and sleep. ...

Take Back the Harbor (2018)

On New York's Governor's Island, an unprecedented program has the ambitious goal of restoring oysters and their environmental benefits back to New York Harbor. This documentary highlights the teenagers at a public high school that teaches stewardship of th ...

American Jail (2018)

In this deeply personal film, director Roger Ross Williams sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces of racism and greed currently at work in America's prison system. ...

The Rachel Divide (2018)

Rachel Dolezal became infamous when she was unmasked as a white woman passing for black so thoroughly that she had become the head of her local N.A.A.C.P. chapter. This portrait cuts through the very public controversy to reveal Dolezal's motivations. ...

Land of the Lost Sidekicks (2016)

A short, bringing all of the side kick characters in Walt Disney's animated films expressing their importance. ...

Life, Animated (2016)

At three years old, a chatty, energetic little boy named Owen Suskind ceased to speak, disappearing into autism with apparently no way out. Almost four years passed and the only stimuli that engaged Owen were Disney films. Then one day, his father donned a ...

Blackface (2015)

A week before the Sinterklaas festivities on December 5, global news channel CNN is digging into the Zwarte Piet controversy with a short documentary. Blackface was made by Oscar-winning documentary maker Roger Ross Williams who said his friends in America ...

Gospel of Intolerance (2015)

Tutu: The Essence of Being Human (2014)

God Loves Uganda (2013)

A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to infuse African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting sexual immorality and missionaries trying to convince Ugandan ...

Music by Prudence (2010)

Music by Prudence tells a self-empowering story of one young woman's struggle who, together with her band, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds and, in her own voice conveys to the world that disability does not mean inability. In addition to its sheer ...

Alone No Love (2007)

ALONE NO LOVE sheds light on child sex abuse in America. Through the work of the Chicago ChildrenaEU(tm)s Advocacy Center (CCAC), one of the nationaEU(tm)s largest and most progressive centers for sexually abused children, we can observe firsthand the chal ...

Amazing Families (2006)

Moroccan Style (2004)

New York Underground (2003)

Profiles the culture, lifestyles, and rituals within the New York City subways. ...

First Off The Tee (2003)

Power, Privilege & Justice (2003)

The Lives They Lived (2003)

Boys Will Be Girls (2003)

For these lipstick Cinderella's, balls are a real drag. With their duct tape D-Cups, these torch songbirds crown the drag queen within. From dudes to divas, these boys will be girls. ...

Secret Son (2002)

Challenge America With Erin Brockovich (2001)

A prime time special that chronicled the six day renovation of an historic amphitheater and rock-strewn soccer field in New York City with donated materials and pro bono services. The work was estimated to take one year. ...

Time (2001)

Reagan: A Life In Pictures (2000)

Discovered at Sundance (1997)

Documentary profiles four filmmakers whose films have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and the way their lives have changed since. ...

TV Nation: Volume One (1997)

A satirical news magazine for television, originally broadcast by NBC in the United States and BBC2 in the United Kingdom. The show blended humor and journalism into provocative reports about various issues. ...

Sex, Drugs and Consequences (1996)

People Yearbook '95 (1995)

People Magazine presents its retrospective of the most interesting people and events of 1995. ...

Blackface (2015)

Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams tries to understand why the notoriously liberal Dutch dress in blackface during the annual holiday of Sinterklaas. ...