To the world, she’s just “Oprah,” a household name for decades. Why? Well, for starters, Oprah Winfrey has worn many hats after all these years: American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, philanthropist. She is perhaps best known for The Oprah Winfrey Showwhich ran in national syndication for 25 years.
“We are all looking for the same thing,” Winfrey said recently during her… Variety’s power of women speech. “This Is The One Lesson I Didn’t Take” The Oprah Winfrey Show. The common denominator of our experiences is that we all want to know that we matter and we want a show that reflects our values.”
Winfrey has won many accolades throughout her career, including 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and Chairman’s Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, Peabody, and more. On the big screen, she has rightfully earned two Oscars nods. And behind the camera, Winfrey has become a powerhouse. It’s no wonder, then, that she was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences last year. Here’s a closer look at Winfrey’s best movies as a producer.
In DreamWorks Photos’ The journey of a hundred feetthe opening of a new Indian restaurant in the south of France next to a famous Michelin-starred eatery almost sparks a heated battle between the two establishments – until Le Saule Pleureur’s icy owner, Madame Mallory (Dame Helen Mirren), recognizes her rival’s undeniable genius for preparing masterful meals. The journey of a hundred feet rich in flavors that burst on the tongue. A stimulating triumph over exile, blooming with passion and heart, the end result is a portrait of two worlds colliding and a young man’s drive to find the comforts of home, in any pot, wherever he is.
“Oprah Winfrey” [has a] great sensitivity and understanding of women, and she has an instinctive, great understanding of people in general,” Mirren once said Good housekeeping about working with Winfrey. “Just having that life force around you is an amazing experience.”
4/5 Beloved (1998)
lover is a 1998 American psychological horror film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Thandiwe Newton. Based on Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel of the same name, the plot revolves around a former Civil War slave (Winfrey), her pursuit by a poltergeist, and the visit of her reincarnated daughter. In addition to producing the film, Winfrey will give a tour-de-force performance.
“[A] hard, hard dialogue to get through was what she said about freedom: ‘Wake up in the morning’ and decide for yourself what I’m going to do with the day.’ That rule was life-changing for me,” Winfrey once said Roger Ebert about her character in the film. “It was the purest definition of freedom. But to say that rule was hard, hard, hard. Until I was in the moment with Danny, I never thought it would be this hard. Finally, Jonathan Demme said to me: “We’re going to turn the camera on Danny and have you come back and try again tomorrow.” I felt like a failure. I’m ruining it. But I really had to come back because I was so emotional about it losing touch with Sethe. Because she’s just telling, she’s just telling. She’s not quite there; she just tell it.”
3/5 The Great Debaters (2007)
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Marshall, Texas, by James Farmer Jr. Described as “the last town to surrender after the Civil War”, it is home to Wiley College. In the 1930s, inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and his clandestine work as a union organizer, a Wiley professor (played by Denzel Washington) coaches the debate team to a nearly undefeated season that sees the first debate between white and black American students. colleges and ends with an invitation to take on the national champions of Harvard University. The team of four, consisting of a college student and a very young James Farmer (Nate Parker), is put to the test in a Jim Crow-heated melting pot, sexism, a lynching, an arrest and near riot, a love affair, jealousy and a national radio audience. The great debaters is a heartbreaking, inspiring story successfully brought to life with the help of Winfrey as producer.
2/5 Precious (2009)
In 1987 Harlem, 16-year-old Claireece Jones, who goes by her middle name Precious, is illiterate, overweight and pregnant – for the second time, by the same man: her biological father, who has abused and raped her since she was a child. , but she doesn’t see it any other way. Her daughter, nicknamed Mongo because she has Down syndrome, lives with Precious’s grandmother; Precious herself lives with her mother Mary (Mo’Nique, in an Oscar-winning turn), who abuses her physically and emotionally. Mary does nothing but smoke, watch TV and collect benefits through fraud. To escape her life, Precious daydreams of herself in glamorous situations. Due to her current pregnancy, the principal of Precious transfers her to an alternative school, where the likeable teacher Miss Blu Rain (Paula Patton) tries to convince her that she can have a future if she learns to read and write, and Precious begins to believe her. . precious is another heartbreaking story successfully adapted to the big screen with the help of executive producer Winfrey.
1/5 Selma (2014)
And then there is Selma, the Oscar-nominated, artfully photographed masterpiece. Winfrey delivers a supporting turn of the caliber in addition to producing the film. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy as a civil rights leader has cast such a huge shadow that it’s hard to imagine what the movement would be like without him. In 2014, Ava Duvernay lent her directing skills to create the powerfully crafted end result that is Selma. The story revolves around Dr. King, beautifully played by David Oyelowo, who seeks to give African Americans the right to vote without being hampered by systemic oppression and voter blocking. The film was nominated for Best Picture and won Best Original Song for John Legend and Common’s rousing “Glory”. It acts as a reflection of what America was like in the 1960s, a time of increased racial bigotry, unrest and strife. Go back and check it out, if you haven’t already!