Barry Jenkins

Directing

Barry Jenkins

Born 1979-11-19 · Miami, Florida, USA

Barry Jenkins (born November 19, 1979) is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film My Josephine (2003), he directed his first feature film, Medicine for Melancholy (2008), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. He is also a creative collaborator and a member of The Chopstars collective. Following an eight-year hiatus from feature filmmaking, Jenkins directed and co-wrote the LGBTQ-themed independent drama Moonlight (2016), which won numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. Jenkins received an Oscar nomination for Best Director and jointly won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay with Tarell Alvin McCraney. He became the fourth Black person nominated for Best Director and the second to direct a Best Picture winner. He released his third directorial feature If Beale Street Could Talk 2018, to critical praise and earned nominations for his screenplay at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. He is also known for his work in television. In 2017, Jenkins directed "Chapter V" of the Netflix series Dear White People. In 2021, he created and directed the Amazon Video limited series The Underground Railroad, based on the novel of the same name. The series received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series or Movie nomination and won a Peabody Award. In 2017, Jenkins was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Description above from the Wikipedia article Barry Jenkins, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Mufasa: The Lion King poster
7.3

Mufasa, a cub lost and alone, meets a sympathetic lion named Taka, the heir to a royal bloodline. The chance meeting sets in motion an expansive journey of a group of misfits searching for their destiny.

Mufasa: The Lion King

2024

Moonlight poster
7.4

The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

Moonlight

2016

Moonlight poster
7.4

The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

Moonlight

2016

Aftersun poster
7.6

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.

Aftersun

2022

Sorry, Baby poster
6.9

Agnes feels stuck. Unlike her best friend, Lydie, who’s moved to New York and is now expecting a baby, Agnes still lives in the New England house they once shared as graduate students, now working as a professor at her alma mater. A ‘bad thing’ happened to Agnes a few years ago and, since then, despite her best efforts, life hasn’t gotten back on track.

Sorry, Baby

2025

If Beale Street Could Talk poster
6.9

After her fiance is falsely imprisoned, a pregnant African-American woman sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence.

If Beale Street Could Talk

2018

If Beale Street Could Talk poster
6.9

After her fiance is falsely imprisoned, a pregnant African-American woman sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence.

If Beale Street Could Talk

2018

If Beale Street Could Talk poster
6.9

After her fiance is falsely imprisoned, a pregnant African-American woman sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence.

If Beale Street Could Talk

2018

The Fire Inside poster
7.3

Claressa Shields, a high school junior from Flint, Michigan, aided by her tough-love coach, Jason Crutchfield, pushes past all limitations to become the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing. But even at the pinnacle of success, Claressa has to reckon with the fact that not all dreams are created equal, and the real fight has only just begun.

The Fire Inside

2024

The Fire Inside poster
7.3

Claressa Shields, a high school junior from Flint, Michigan, aided by her tough-love coach, Jason Crutchfield, pushes past all limitations to become the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing. But even at the pinnacle of success, Claressa has to reckon with the fact that not all dreams are created equal, and the real fight has only just begun.

The Fire Inside

2024

Preparation for the Next Life poster
5.9

Aishe, a Uyghur woman trained by her military father, migrates to New York City where she finds herself laboring in Chinatown’s underground kitchens. She fatefully encounters Skinner, a young American soldier who has just returned from three tours in the Middle East. While falling in love, they discover the possibility of a better life together than the ones they believed they were destined to live alone.

Preparation for the Next Life

2025

Remigration poster
9.0

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn't obsolete, but it's scarce. The city has created a program to "remigrate" long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

Remigration

2011

Remigration poster
9.0

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn't obsolete, but it's scarce. The city has created a program to "remigrate" long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

Remigration

2011

Remigration poster
9.0

Upon returning to their countryside cabin one day, Kaya, his wife Helen, and their daughter Naomi are confronted by two suited men: representatives of the San Francisco Remigration Program. The men explain that San Francisco is now occupied entirely by the wealthy class. But stoplights still burn out and trains occasionally jump their rails. Blue-collar labor isn't obsolete, but it's scarce. The city has created a program to "remigrate" long-gone working class families from their inland homes back to the city that once pushed them out. Kaya, Helen, and Naomi return to San Francisco and join a handful of other potential remigrants for a tour of what can be expected in their new lives. But can they learn to trust their old home once again?

Remigration

2011

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt poster
5.4

Tender caresses and enveloping embraces are portals into the life of Mack, a Black woman in Mississippi. Winding through the anticipation, love, and heartbreak she experiences from childhood to adulthood, the expressionist journey is an ode to connection — with loved ones and with place.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

2023

No artwork available
NR

A feature adaptation of the 2014 Oscar-nominated documentary VIRUNGA.

Untitled Barry Jenkins 'Virunga' Adaptation

No artwork available
NR

A biopic about the life and career of Ronnie Spector, the lead singer of the Ronettes, an American girl group from Spanish Harlem, New York.

Be My Baby

Medicine for Melancholy poster
6.1

Waking from a one-night stand that neither remembers, Micah and Joanne find themselves wandering the streets of San Francisco, sharing coffee and conversation and searching for a deeper connection.

Medicine for Melancholy

2009

Medicine for Melancholy poster
6.1

Waking from a one-night stand that neither remembers, Micah and Joanne find themselves wandering the streets of San Francisco, sharing coffee and conversation and searching for a deeper connection.

Medicine for Melancholy

2009

My Josephine poster
6.6

Aadid tells us his life in seven minutes. He's an Arabic-speaking young man working the night shift at a laundromat and dry cleaners somewhere in the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, they wash U.S. flags for free. He says they get six or seven per day. He tells us about Napoleon's two wives: Marie Louise for an heir, Josephine for love. Aadid likes Adela, his co-worker. She's his Josephine. We watch Aadid and Adela hand wash the flags and put them in dryers. They fold them. They dance. They stand side by side outside the door of the laundromat looking at the dawn. Will this companionship become something more?

My Josephine

2003

My Josephine poster
6.6

Aadid tells us his life in seven minutes. He's an Arabic-speaking young man working the night shift at a laundromat and dry cleaners somewhere in the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, they wash U.S. flags for free. He says they get six or seven per day. He tells us about Napoleon's two wives: Marie Louise for an heir, Josephine for love. Aadid likes Adela, his co-worker. She's his Josephine. We watch Aadid and Adela hand wash the flags and put them in dryers. They fold them. They dance. They stand side by side outside the door of the laundromat looking at the dawn. Will this companionship become something more?

My Josephine

2003

Untitled Alvin Ailey Project poster
NR

The life story of acclaimed American choreographer Alvin Ailey.

Untitled Alvin Ailey Project

Tall Enough poster
6.1

Love knows no borders in this stylish snapshot of interracial coupledom. Two Brooklyn photographers (she, African-American; he, Chinese-American) meet and their romance blossoms and endures back home, amidst a poetical widescreen mix of images both seductive and sedate.

Tall Enough

2009

Tall Enough poster
6.1

Love knows no borders in this stylish snapshot of interracial coupledom. Two Brooklyn photographers (she, African-American; he, Chinese-American) meet and their romance blossoms and endures back home, amidst a poetical widescreen mix of images both seductive and sedate.

Tall Enough

2009