Since getting her start on YouTube over a decade ago, it’s only been onwards and upwards for Issa Rae‘s career as an actress and writer. After her memoir The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl was published in 2015, Rae’s career really took off when her self-created HBO show Insecure was released in 2016. Since Insecure, Rae has continued to work on HBO projects, her most recent being the 2022 series Rap Sh!t.
Rae continues to both pick and create promising projects, many of which focus on telling relatable Black stories. Her star looks like it will continue to shine brightly as her production company Hoorae Media signed a five-year $40 million deal with HBO and WarnerMedia to fund future projects and her latest film, the highly anticipated Barbie, is set to be a smash. Here are the 10 best movies and TV shows Issa Rae has been a part of so far.
10. Vengeance (2022)
Rae co-stars in B.J. Novak’s directorial debut, Vengeance as Eloise, a professional podcast editor who also produces protagonist Ben’s (Novak) personal podcast. The film follows a New York-based writer who travels to Abilene, Texas for the funeral of a woman he hooked up with a few times but barely remembers. Her family believes he was in a committed relationship with their late daughter and her brother Ty (Boyd Hollbrook) enlists Ben to help him solve his sister’s “murder.” The movie is not as straight-forward as one might expect, and features great performances from supporting actors like Ashton Kutcher. Rae’s role is a small one, but she injects charm into what could have been a boring character if played by someone else.
9. The Photograph (2020)
Rae stars in her first romantic drama, The Photograph, as one of the main leads opposite LaKeith Stanfield. Stanfield plays Michael, a journalist who wants to uncover the life of a woman he sees in a photograph while working on a different assignment. His search for more information leads him to the woman’s daughter, an assistant curator named Mae (Rae), who is still grieving the loss of her mother, a New York-based photographer. The two develop an attraction and the film follows both their romance as well as the relationship between Mae’s mother and father. Critics responded positively to the film and the non-linear format is an intriguing way to tell the two couple’s stories.
8. Little (2019)
Body-switching comedies are nothing new in Hollywood; with Little being a reworking of Tom Hank’s Big, if the protagonist was a Black woman who finds herself transformed back into her 13-year-old self. CEO Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) was bullied as a child and has become a bully as a result, bossing her employees around and generally acting rude toward anyone who crosses her path. Rae plays April, Sanders’ long-suffering assistant who poses as her boss’ aunt when Sanders is forced to live life as a child and return to school. The film is predictable but not a bad watch, and Marsai Martin, who plays young Sanders, became the youngest executive producer on a big-budget Hollywood production.
7. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (2011-2013)
Rae first shot to prominence with her self-written, directed, and acted YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (commonly shortened to Awkward Black Girl) in 2011. As protagonist J, Rae navigated a different awkward scenario in every episode. Her inspiration to pursue the show came after Rae was inspired by an article by Leslie Pitterson about the lack of nerdy Black female characters on TV in the vein of Ugly Betty or Liz Lemon. The show’s success would eventually lead to Rae’s Insecure in 2016.
6. Hair Love (2019)
Initially getting its start as a Kickstarter campaign, Hair Love was eventually picked up by Sony Pictures and shown theatrically along with The Angry Birds Movie 2. The film was created by Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Rupert Toliver as a way to combat stereotypes about Black fathers as well as to create more representation of Black hair. The short film shows a young girl named Zuri struggling to do her hair for the first time and attempting to follow one of her mother’s hair tutorials. Her dad jumps in to help and after a rough start, the two successfully pull off the hairstyle Zuri wanted. Rae is the only voiced character in this Oscar-winning short, playing Zuri’s mother.
5. The Lovebirds (2020)
The Lovebirds, originally intended for a theatrical release, was released on Netflix in May 2020 during the COVID pandemic. Rae stars opposite Kumail Nanjiani as a couple who have decided to end things after four years together. Before they can officially breakup, their car is commandeered by a mysterious man who proceeds to kill a bicyclist with the vehicle. The couple must put aside their differences and clear their names before they are captured by the authorities. The Lovebirds is a silly romantic comedy with a premise similar to Date Night, but is enjoyable nonetheless.
4. The Hate U Give (2018)
Based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give follows Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg), a Black teenager who witnesses the death of her best friend Khalil when he is shot by a police officer. Rae appears as a civil rights lawyer and activist named April who encourages Starr to testify in a grand jury in order to defend Khalil. The film and the novel bring focus to the Black Lives Matter movement for an audience that might not have discussed it themselves, while also helping those who have been in similar circumstances feel less alone in their trauma.
3. Bojack Horseman (2014-2020)
Considered to be one of the best adult animated shows (if not one of Netflix’s best original series), Bojack Horseman is set in an alternate Hollywood where people live alongside anthropomorphic animals. While the show was initially marketed as an irreverent comedy, it gained a strong fanbase due to its darker subject matter and handling of serious topics. Bojack Horseman follows the eponymous main character, a washed-up former ’90s sitcom star who struggles with alcoholism and self-loathing in the town he’s grown to hate. Throughout the show, Bojack consistently participates in irredeemable actions that both harm himself and his friends, but the show’s social commentary makes it hard to stop watching. Bojack Horseman has had a stacked cast of guest actors, including Rae, who appeared as deuteragonist Diane Nguyeun’s therapist in two episodes of the show.
2. Insecure (2016-2021)
After the success of her YouTube series, Rae was inspired to create a pilot for a comedy series. Along with co-creator Larry Wilmore (a writer and producer behind shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Office) Rae landed on the title Insecure and HBO picked up the pilot in 2015. The show uses some of the same scenarios and plot points as Awkward Black Girl, but focuses more on the relationship between the protagonist Issa Dee (Rae) and her best friend Molly (Yvonne Orji) as they navigate their late 20s together. Audiences found Issa’s struggles with her love live, career, and a changing friend group extremely relatable and Insecure‘s success made Rae a household name.
1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Although Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse only came out in June, it’s already being praised as one of the best movies of 2023. The anticipated sequel to the beloved Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse follows Miles Morales as he learns how to be his own unique Spider-Man in a world (a multi-verse, if you want to be precise) full of different variations of the superhero. The film is as much loved for its great storytelling as it is for its unparalleled animation, with each corner of the multiverse drawn in different, but no less detailed styles. Rae plays Jess Drew/Spider-Woman, a variant of the superhero who works in an executive role within Miguel O’Hara’s Spider Society.