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A director, writer, producer, and rapper (!), Ava DuVernay is a one-woman movement. From the beginning of her stage career dropping rhymes in the musical duo Figures of Speech to her visits to the Emmys and the launch of her Array Alliance's curated film series this fall, DuVernay has amassed a body of work that aims to go beyond just entertaining an audience. Rather, DuVernay has set out to shift cultural perception and reshape the entertainment industry as we know it. The womanto say the leastis very busy.

Here, we take a look at that body of work: movies, videos, and TV series shes either produced, directed, starred in, or all three. Its an impressive resume. Over the years, the extraordinaire has helmed a powerful hip-hop production starring the music industrys most notorious power couple (Beyonc and Jay-Z), offered a different take on a historical figure everyone thought they knew through and through (Selma), secured a cameo in one of 2018s most notable additions to the female-fronted raunch comedy (Girls Trip), and so much more.

With the announcements of The New Gods, her DC Comics adaptation, and Battle of Versailles, a historical fashion film housed by HBOboth of which shes writing and directingher decade-plus-spanning career isnt slowing down anytime soon. Read on to see all of the critically acclaimed pit stops the filmmaker and television producer has made along the way.

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1This Is the Life

This Is the Life, DuVernays very first foray into helming a feature-length project, is a documentary that lends the mic to the emcees of The Good Life Cafe and their movement of unprocessed hip-hop that found its voice during the '90s, a time when artists like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg dominated the West Coast music scene.

Then a member of the rap duo Figures of Speech, DuVernay and her film focused on bringing forth the sound emanating from a Los Angeles hot spot (including her own, as she makes an appearance in the film). But its the praise coming from critics one cant drown out: Rich, thoroughly enjoyable, and exceptional are just a few of the descriptors film critics use to refer to the film.

2I Will Follow

A shoestring-budget film that explores every facet of a single human emotion, grief, this early-career DuVernay gem doesnt skimp on quality storytelling. In what feels like a more soulful and independent Waiting to Exhale, one woman (Beverly Todd of Crash and Lean on Me fame) packs away the life of her aunt who only recently died from breast cancer.

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3Middle of Nowhere

Before marching in Selma with David Oyelowo and sowing a wrinkle in time with Oprah, DuVernay was getting her bearings in the Middle of Nowhere. One of her earliest films, the 97-minute drama written and directed by DuVernay is also one of her best.

Emayatzy Corinealdi stars as Ruby, a woman who spends every waking minute either working a nursing shift or tending to the needs of her incarcerated husbandwhich includes making the four-hour trip weekly for visits. A journey to self-discovery, the film watches Ruby go from somebodys wife to her own person. And just like everything DuVernay touches, Middle of Nowhere found its way into many a winners circle.

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4Selma

DuVernay is the first Black female director to score a Best Picture Oscar nomination. And she rightfully did so with Selma, a peek into the moral and social complexities of Martin Luther King Jr. during the time when he led the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. It also features a glorious cameo by Oprah, who plays activist Annie Lee Cooper. The film did take home a statue for the best original song, Glory, performed by Common and John Legend, not to mention a slew of other awards and accolades.

But, really, this is all just to say that Selma is a groundbreaking film the helped to shatter cinema walls and usher in Black stories. While it glimpsed our nations history, it was making history of its own. And with a woman leading the way.

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5Queen Sugar

Recently renewed for a fifth season on the OWN network, the female-directed Queen Sugar follows the lives of Nova (Rutina Wesley from True Blood), Charley (Dawn-Lyen Gardner from Unforgettable), and Ralph Angel (Kofi Siriboe from Awkward), a trio of Bordelon siblings living in Deep South Louisiana.

Show creator DuVernay shares executive producer responsibilities with the Oprah Winfrey and told Variety that shes thrilled to further explore the beauty, pain and triumph of this African-American family, with hopes that their story will continue to resonate with audiences who see themselves in the Bordelons. Its a real honor to create this work with Warner Horizon and OWN as their support is rock-solid and wonderful.

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6Girls Trip

No, DuVernay doesnt direct the comedy about a group of best friends who converge on the streets of NOLAthat job went to Malcolm D. Lee. And, no, shes not one of the executive producers of the hit that made Tiffany Haddish a household namethose gigs went to the makers of Birth of a Nation and Think like a Man. Girls Trip is actually included on this list, thanks to a DuVernay cameo.

When the women are at the Essence Festival, DuVernay can be seen being interviewed onstage. In real life, she had this to tweet about the films insta-success: History: Film centering four black women having fun with no big cause, mission, problem or catastrophe hits big at box office, and included a GIF to depict a stunned Hollywood.

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713th

A searing portrait of a prison system that not only isnt working, its enslaving the American population, 13th is DuVernays return to nonfiction. Posing the idea that todays prisons just might be the new plantations, the film traces the roots from the abolition of slavery in 1865 to the current system of locking up as many Black Americans as quickly as possible.

Through interviews with leaders in their industries, including Senator Cory Booker, news commentator Van Jones, and activist Angela Davis, the Oscar-nominated film takes a no-nonsense approach to exploring mass incarceration and the 13th Amendment.

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8A Wrinkle in Time

A delightful and visually impressive time-hopping addition to the Disney Vault, A Wrinkle in Time has serious star power in the form of its three magical beings: Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling play a trio of Mrs. who help a 12-year-old and her younger brother navigate, bend, and fold the layers of time in a quest to find their missing father.

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9Family Feud

Lest we not forget, DuVernay has roots in hip-hop: As we mentioned before, she was one-half of the duo Figures of Speech and went by the stage name MC Eve.

Here, MC Eve directs a fellow 90s-era hip-hop artist, Jay-Z, in a nearly eight-minute music video thats titled Family Feud and features his wife, Beyonc. More a cultural-event short film, Family Feud employs an all-star castincluding Michael B. Jordan, Thandie Newton, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Brie Larson, Constance Wu, and Emayatzy Corinealdito depict a future after women rewrite the Constitution.

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10When They See Us

Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise, the men who were falsely accused of rape and assault in 1989 and became known through news headlines as the Central Park Five, have had their stories adapted for the masses in just about every form, from book to documentary to miniseries.

DuVernay applies the latter to When They See Us, a loosely based-on-truth reenactment of the events that have forever changed the Black and Latino men who spent years behind bars, serving time for a crime DNA proved they did not commit.

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11The Red Line

As executive producer on the CBS cop drama that premiered just this past April, DuVernay threw her creative weight behind a project that once again explores criminal justice through a racially charged lens.

I read the script to the first episode and thought it was really beautifully done. It had a story that touched points across race, gender and sexual identity. I wanted to support it, so I came on board with [co-executive producer] Greg Berlanti to help get it on air, DuVernay said to Rolling Stone in April.

Even though Deadline has reported that The Red Line has aired its final episode, the limited series, which stars Noah Wylie (ER) and Emayatzy Corinealdi (Middle of Nowhere), is a valiant effort at exposing the aftermath of a police shooting.

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11 of Ava DuVernay's Must-Watch Movies and TV Series - Oprah Mag