Former president Barack Obama has already shared his top books of 2019—so it makes sense that he also shares what he is watching on the big and small screens.
Some of his top film picks include Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx’s legal drama Just Mercy, Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Mati Diop’s Cannes favorite, Atlantics, and Amazing Grace, the concert film of Aretha Franklin’s 1972 performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
He also made sure to add a documentary from his own production company: American Factory. The doc follows the lives of workers who join a new American factory opened by a Chinese billionaire in an Ohio town.
“Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America,” Netflix says in the description of the film.
When it comes to TV, Obama also showed off his tastes. Damon Lindelof’s critical darling Watchmen was one of three shows Obama picked.
In the critically-acclaimed HBO series, ESSENCE cover star Regina King plays Angela Abar or Sister Night in an alternate reality where Robert Redford has been President for 30 years and police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma wear masks to protect their identities.
King reacted to her show being listed as one of the former president’s top picks with a tweet of her own.
“How you feel when your show makes your favorite President’s ‘list of favorites’…” she tweeted with a meme of Obama tearing up.
Check out Obama’s top books of 2019 list here.