Raymond Lawrence 'Boots' Riley (born April 1, 1971) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, rapper, and communist activist. He is the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. He made his feature-film directorial debut with Sorry to Bother You (released July 2018), which he also wrote. In 2023, the streaming series I'm a Virgo premiered on Prime Video, which Riley wrote and directed.
Donya, a lonely Afghan refugee and former translator, spends her twenties drifting through a meager existence in Fremont, California. Shuttling between her job writing fortunes for a fortune cookie factory and sessions with her eccentric therapist, Donya suffers from insomnia and survivor's guilt over those still left behind in Kabul as she desperately searches for love.
Release Date2023-08-25
Charactersd Restaurant Patron (uncredited)
Vote Count107
1971 post civil rights San Francisco seemed like the perfect place for a black Korean War veteran and his family to realize their dream of economic independence, and a chance for him to be his own boss. Charlie Walker would soon find out how naive he was. In a city full of impostors and naysayers, he refused to take "No" for an answer. That is, until a catastrophic disaster opened a door that had never been open to a Black man before. This is a story about what happened when he stepped through that door with both feet.
Release Date2022-06-10
Charactersd Bartender Ray
Vote Count7
From neighborhood ciphers to the most notorious MC battles, "Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme" captures the electrifying energy of improvisational hip-hop--the rarely recorded art form of rhyming spontaneously. Like preachers and jazz solos, freestyles exist only in the moment, a modern-day incarnation of the African-American storytelling tradition. Shot over a period of more than seven years, it is already an underground cult film in the hip-hop world. The film systematically debunks the false image put out by record companies that hip-hop culture is violent or money-obsessed. Instead, it lets real hip-hop artists, known and unknown, weave their story out of a passionate mix of language, politics, and spirituality.
Release Date2000-04-14
Charactersd Himself
Vote Count13
The Dope wakes up after his victory, but now the leader of The Martial Art Mafia is out for revenge... and he's got a new trick up his sleeve!
Release Date2015-01-12
Charactersd Mayor
Vote Count9
Some of this year's most talked about talent open up about the challenges and triumphs of creating critically acclaimed series and performances.
Release Date2015-08-02
Charactersd Self
Episode Count1
Vote Count19
The epic story of the actors, writers, directors, and producers who fought for their place on the page, behind the camera and on the screen. From blackface to Black Panther, this series is a definitive chronicle of more than a century of the black experience in Hollywood and a powerful reexamination of a quintessentially American story – in brilliant color.
Release Date2024-08-11
Charactersd Self
Episode Count4
Vote Count1
William Francome is a fairly typical, white middle-class guy. Typical except for the fact that he is about to embark on a journey into the dark heart of the American judicial system; the tangled world of renowned Death Row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Release Date2008-01-18
Charactersd Self
This award winning documentary, narrated by Lou Reed, explores the breadth and depth of Occupy Wall Street and how it quickly grew from a small park in lower Manhattan to an international movement. The film highlights why people from diverse age, ethnic and financial backgrounds support the movement and its focus of removing money from politics in order to reclaim democracy from entrenched corporate interests so that critical issues including job creation, affordable access to health and education, protecting the environment and gun safety can be fully addressed. Featuring interviews with a wide range of subjects including Occupiers, economist Jeffrey Sachs and business magnate Russell Simmons.
Release Date2013-09-06
Charactersd Self
Vote Count7
The Coup is one of the most notoriously political groups in the history of rap music. This DVD features music videos and interviews with Boots Riley and DJ Pam the Funkstress.
Release Date2006-04-04
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Charactersd Self
A coming-of-age joyride about Cootie, a 13ft tall young Black man in Oakland, CA. Having grown up hidden away, Cootie soon experiences the beauty and contradictions of the world for the first time. He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters his idol, a real life superhero named The Hero.
Release Date2023-06-22
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Episode Count7
Vote Count59
A fearless crew of inventive young women turns shoplifting into a radical act of defiance. Led by Corvette, they move across Oakland, boosting coveted goods as both survival and protest—challenging a system built on exclusion and excess. They even offer a community service, selling their stolen wares at deep discounts to make fashion accessible to all. When their exploits draw unwanted viral attention and their feud with fashion mogul Christie Smith turns personal, the Boosters plan one final, audacious heist. Joined by unexpected allies wielding supernatural powers and time-bending technology, they discover a chance to ignite revolutionary change.
Release Date2026-05-22
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, black telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success – which propels him into a macabre universe.
Release Date2018-07-06
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count1737
Nearly a century after a nuclear holocaust, a new civilization is stumbling its way into the future, and old scraps of pop culture have become the basis for their oral storytelling. A group of survivors share a campfire and begin to piece together the plot of their bizarre sacred text – a story known to their ancestors as The Simpsons episode “Cape Feare”.
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Set in the early 1990’s of San Jose and Asmara, a family prepares to leave the US for Eritrea during the formative years of their country’s newly won independence. Everyone is an alien in navigating a free Eritrea— the diaspora moving back home, the citizens who never left, and the aliens from outer space who picked a strange and beautiful time to make contact.
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
Sixty years & a million records ago, Robert Christgau invented Rock music criticism. Anyone who has ever read or written a Pop music review has been influenced by Christgau, who canonized legends from The Ramones to Public Enemy & infuriated icons from Lou Reed to Billy Joel. Now in his eighties, Bob is still at it—amazingly with the same vigor, wit, concision and craft that has defined his expansive career. But in a world where albums are irrelevant, where print is dead & where algorithms have eclipsed critics we are forced to ask: What happens next—for Bob, but also for all music criticism? Is this the end of something? Is Robert Christgau the last critic?
Release Date2026-03-14
FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter - building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream.
Release Date2009-02-04
Vote Count4
