Higher Learning

Friday, September 6 - Sunday, September 8, 2019

Staff Pick! Chosen by Kashif who says, “John Singleton, Ice Cube, Larry Fishburne. No brainer!” and Marilyn who says, “A film that is not only relevant today as it was almost 25 years ago, but rings true. I admired Singleton’s transparency and appreciated the rawness of the characters.”


“The college campus in John Singleton’s new film is a racial and ideological war zone, where students rarely talk to other students who are not more or less just like themselves. Early in the film, a black freshman is given a tour of the turfs staked out by various racial groups: “There’s Chinatown…the Black Hole… Disneyland…South of the Border…” The enforced segregation of the past has been replaced by a new, voluntary xenophobia, and the result is a dreary place in which people define themselves by negatives.


“HIGHER LEARNING is Singleton’s third film, after the great Boyz N the Hood (1991) and the more meandering, romantic Poetic Justice (1993). He may be following, in some way, the threads of his own autobiography, in these three films about teenagers in South Central Los Angeles, young people working for the post office, and now freshmen in college. He sees with a clear eye and a strong will, and is not persuaded by fashionable ideologies. His movies are thought-provoking because he uses familiar kinds of characters and then asks hard questions about them.” – Roger Ebert (1995)


Screening as part of our Summer 2019 series, “Weekend Classics: Staff Picks.”


  • Country USA
  • Year 1995
  • Running Time 127 minutes
  • Distributor Sony
  • Director John Singleton
  • Writer John Singleton
  • Editor Bruce Cannon
  • Cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister
  • Cast Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Michael Rapaport, Jennifer Connelly, Ice Cube, Jason Wiles, Tyra Banks, Laurence Fishburne, Cole Hauser
  • Accessibility Assistive Listening, T-Coil

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.