Film

The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Name: The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Genre: Drama
Released: 2019
Cast: Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, Rob Morgan, Tichina Arnold, Mike Epps

Social drama
Slow-burning

A poetic, deeply felt portrait of two young Black men navigating gentrification and displacement in San Francisco. Jimmie's obsession with reclaiming his family's Victorian house becomes a meditation on home, heritage, and whether belonging is something you can build or something that must be given. Visually stunning and emotionally precise.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you care more about a city's changing texture and a friendship's loyalty than about plot, and you like films that linger on quiet, handsome images of San Francisco.

Skip it if you need brisk narrative drive, since this drifts through long stretches of hanging around and shrugs off clear goals for much of its running time.

What it asks of you: Settle in for just over two hours of unhurried attention; its melancholy mood builds slowly through atmosphere and long silences rather than scenes that announce themselves.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Moonlight2016

Three interlinked chapters exploring Black masculinity, identity, and love with extraordinary tenderness. Like The Last Black Man, it finds poetry in vulnerability and refuses easy answers about who gets to thrive.

But Moves deliberately and asks a lot from the viewer. Some find its minimalist dialogue frustrating rather than intimate.

If Beale Street Could Talk2018

Barry Jenkins' adaptation of James Baldwin examines injustice and family bonds with the same visual grace and emotional depth. Centered on Black love and resilience against systemic pressure.

But Heavy subject matter about wrongful conviction and racism. Not cathartic or uplifting; it's a film that grieves.

First Reformed2018

Paul Schrader's portrait of alienation and spiritual crisis in a changing America. Shares the same contemplative obsession with place and belonging, filtered through a protagonist in freefall.

But Austere and sometimes bleak. The protagonist's despair can feel suffocating rather than clarifying.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Last Black Man in San Francisco

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Passing2021

Both examine what it costs to claim a home (literal or social) in a city that has other plans. Both centered on Black protagonists fighting systems designed to deny them belonging.

Rebecca Hall's black-and-white debut about two light-skinned Black women in 1920s New York who are passing for white. Same engine: identity, belonging, and the cost of claiming a place in a city that wants to erase you. Gorgeous and devastating.

But Period piece with literary dialogue that some find stilted. The pacing is glacial, and the ending offers no catharsis—only truth.

The Florida Project2017

Sean Baker's tender, unflinching look at poverty and childhood on the margins. Uses the same visual poetry and long takes to find dignity and joy in places society has written off.

But Depicts child neglect and economic precarity. Some scenes are hard to watch because they feel true rather than dramatized.

Eighth Grade2018

Bo Burnham's debut captures adolescent dislocation and the search for identity with excruciating accuracy. Shares an interest in how young people navigate spaces that don't quite fit them.

But The secondhand embarrassment is real and relentless. If you hate cringe comedy, you'll find this excruciating.

Parable of the Sower

Limited series based on Octavia Butler's novel about community and survival in a fractured America. Explores belonging and home-building with similar philosophical weight and specificity about Black experience.

But Dystopian premise can feel grimly relevant. Slow-burn narrative that takes patience to invest in.

Waves2019

A.V. Rockwell's chronicle of a middle-class Black family in crisis—structured around music, movement, and the spaces between words. Visually striking meditation on how quickly belonging can shatter.

But The first half is brutal and relentless. Some viewers find the tonal shift in the second half incongruous.

Medicine for Melancholy2009

Barry Jenkins' debut follows two strangers through San Francisco in a single day, exploring race, connection, and the city itself as a character. Intimate precursor to his later masterpieces.

But Deliberately low-key with minimal plot. More interested in conversation and mood than narrative momentum.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always2020

Eliza Hittman's precise, compassionate study of two young women navigating systems designed to exclude them. The same quiet determination and refusal to sentimentalize hardship.

But Subject matter involves abortion and coercion. Deliberately unglamorous approach may feel bleak to some viewers.

Naked1993

Both use the city as antagonist and confessional. Both explore what happens when people are locked out of the life they're owed and keep moving anyway.

Mike Leigh's savage, brilliant dark comedy about a misanthrope wandering London. Structurally different but spiritually aligned: two men adrift in a city that has moved on without them, held together by friendship and bitterness. Bleaker and much funnier.

But Unrelentingly cynical and sometimes cruel. The protagonist is deliberately unlikeable, and the world offers no redemption. Very much a 1990s British arthouse film.

A Ghost Story2017

Both treat a house as the site of metaphysical longing. Both ask what we're really searching for when we chase a place—permanence, identity, proof that we mattered.

David Lowery's haunting meditation on time, loss, and the places we inhabit. A ghost cannot let go of his house—a literal version of Jimmie's spiritual bind. Gorgeous, strange, and philosophically devastating.

But Experimental structure with a long, wordless sequence that tests patience. Some find it pretentious. The melancholy is absolute and never relents.