Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #160. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Blackbird

Published on February 7, 2014

Blackbird

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Writers: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Producers: Stephanie Allain, Reggie Rock Bythewood, Ryan Kavanaugh
U.S. Distributor: Relativity Media
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Minnie Driver, Danny Glover, Nate Parker

Sharing the same title (for now) as David Mamet’s next film is director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s latest, her first since 2008’s The Secret Life of Bees. Once again, she’s gathered an interesting cast for what sounds like an excellent character piece. 2014 should be a big year for Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whose 2013 film Belle, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, will also hit theaters. It’s been well over a decade now since Bythewood’s debut, Love and Basketball, and this technically serves as her third feature film (Disappearing Acts was made for HBO), so it’s great to see her with a new project that’s already got distribution and ready to go.

Gist: A talented young musician on the brink of super stardom struggles with the pressure of her new-found success. br>

Release Date: Theatrical release currently set for November 14, 2014.

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Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.