The four influential movies that took Ryan Coogler from Oakland to the Oscars
If there’s one Hollywood director to get excited about over the next five years or so, then it surely has to be Ryan Coogler.
The spectacular success of last year’s visual treat Sinners brought an end to his first decade of directing films, during which he set an infeasibly high bar, but now you get a sense he’s going to do things that could change cinema for good.
Still not yet 40, Coogler introduced himself, and his partnership with ‘Best Actor’ Oscar winner Michael B Jordan, to the world back in 2013 with the brilliant Fruitvale Station, a film that genuinely stays with you long after the credits have rolled and with which Coogler illustrated that even at just 26, he was going to be a master behind the camera.
What that movie also showed was that Coogler inherently understood the medium he was working in; he was evidently a student of film, someone who had immersed himself in the work of the greats before him and replicated it even on a budget. He had indeed studied cinematic arts before he wrote and directed that debut for less than a million dollars, and picked up ‘Best Film’ at the Cannes Film Festival in the process.
That kind of thing doesn’t go unnoticed, and he was handed the reins to Creed two years later, the Rocky spin-off, again starring Jordan, that became a massive critical and commercial hit, earning the director more acclaim and convincing Marvel that he should be trusted with a major superhero franchise. What followed with Black Panther was beyond what could have been expected, however, as the movie and its 2022 sequel brought in over $2billion at the box office.
Coogler, much like his mentor Christopher Nolan, who has an alarmingly high hit rate, is yet to make a bad movie, or even a disappointing one for that matter, and it will be interesting to see if he can continue to meet the standards he has set so far. His films are often quoted as favourites by Hollywood stars who have the Letterboxd microphone thrust at them, and so it was fascinating recently to witness Coogler get the same treatment as he was ordered on the red carpet to pick his own four favourite films.
He answered, “I have trouble rating things and listing things, because film is my life, and I get stressed about it”, but did then prove he was a good sport by going for a selection of the first movies he remembered seeing in cinemas rather than picking a definitive list of his favourites. He kicked things off with 1991’s Boyz n the Hood, before adding Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, Denzel Washington and Spike Lee’s Malcom X and rounding off with Steven Spielberg’s dino-romp Jurassic Park from 1993.
About Boyz n the Hood and Malcolm X, Coogler said, “I was probably way too young, but I’m glad my dad took me anyway”, and so are we, because it sparked a passion in Coogler that has led to him becoming someone who is pushing boundaries in what’s possible on the big screen.
Next up for the director is Black Panther 3, which doesn’t yet have a definitive release date but is likely to feature a role for Denzel Washington. Production on the film moved a step closer this week as Marvel filed to create the production company that will be in charge of creating the movie, which is likely to start rolling in 2027 and release in 2028 once Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars have been released over the next two years.
