Rafiki (2018)

IMDb rating: 6.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 94%

“Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena and Ziki long for something more. When love blossoms between them, the two girls are forced to choose between happiness and safety.

Winner of 16 international awards but still banned in Kenya, Rafiki catapulted director Wanuri Kahiu onto Time Magazine’s 100 Next list in 2019 and earned her two nominations at Cannes, for the Un Certain Regard and Queer Palm Awards, as well as a 2002 GLAAD Media Award nomination. She is currently adapting bestselling books like Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed and Ali Benjamin’s The Thing About Jellyfish for the screen, among other projects.

Rafiki has a 94% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Variety calling it “impossible not to celebrate”; RogerEbert.com “a lyrical ode to finding a kindred spirit amidst an uncaring majority”; AV Club “bursting with life”; and Washington Post “a small revelation, not least because it marks the breakthrough of a filmmaker of such exhilarating, cheerfully courageous vision.”