Nothing But a Man

Michael Roemer's 1964 film is the story of a Black man working on the railroad in the American south. Living as an itinerant labourer, Duff meets a schoolteacher and decides to marry and settle. From there the film shows how systemic racism operates in daily life: finding work, having to keep quiet once you have it, a father-in-law's accommodating manner, and a reckoning with the father who left. The telling is close to Italian neorealism, shot plainly and without display in real locations. It drew great praise at its first screenings and won prizes at Venice, but the major studios refused to distribute it and it stayed invisible for years. It entered the National Film Registry in 1993. Today it is regarded as a forerunner of American films that treat Black characters through their inner lives. Who it's for: viewers who like American independent film and cinema of the civil rights era. Who it's not for: anyone looking for plot and a dramatic peak; the film stays inside the everyday.