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Moonlight (2016 film)

CTL-E-5473 · Work · film · 2016

PROVISIONAL evidence grade of this record

Moonlight, written and directed by Barry Jenkins from Tarell Alvin McCraney's unpublished play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, premiered at Telluride on September 2, 2016, and was released by A24 that October 21. In three chapters, three actors play one Miami life — Chiron, called Little, then Chiron, then Black — at nine, at sixteen, and as a man. From eight Academy Award nominations it won Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali, and Best Adapted Screenplay; it was the first film with an all-Black cast and the first LGBTQ-themed film to win Best Picture, and at release the second-lowest-grossing domestic Best Picture winner — a small film the institution carried to its summit. Its company holds further firsts: Joi McMillon became the first Black woman nominated for the film-editing Oscar, and Ali the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar. The graph files Moonlight as the 2010s' art-film anchor: proof that the decade's most honored American movie could be a quiet, three-part portrait of a Black boy learning which parts of himself the world would let him keep.

The record

Notes

Statistics: A24, 2016; Academy Awards for Best Picture, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. Director Barry Jenkins holds no graph Person record — flagged as a future candidate. · Curator's Judgment: DRAFT — for founder review: Moonlight's Best Picture envelope is awards folklore; the film underneath it is a whisper that outlasted the ceremony. The record files the whisper: three faces, one life, and a blue light that a generation of viewers recognized as their own. · Photo slot: HELD — poster/key art and production stills for this title are copyrighted studio material and were NOT pulled (per CTL-PHOTO-001 and the wave brief: never force non-free key art); no cleared Commons image was verified for this title in this run. Slot honestly HELD pending a cleared visual.

Sources

Record CTL-E-5473 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · evidence grade: PROVISIONAL · 2 sources · CTL research: MEDIA-001.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

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Cite as: CultureTechLens, “Moonlight (2016 film) (CTL-E-5473),” CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph, October 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5473/

Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Moonlight (2016 film) (CTL-E-5473).” CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5473/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Moonlight (2016 film) (CTL-E-5473) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5473/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Moonlight (2016 film) (CTL-E-5473).” CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5473/

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The Apollo Theater marquee, Harlem, 2010 — CultureTechLensPhoto: Hans Joachim Dudeck, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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