The Learning Tree

Undoubtedly the biggest surprise among the first 25 films selected in 1989 for inclusion in the National Film Registry, this visually beautiful and moving, if somewhat melodramatic, story of a black teenager growing up in Kansas in the 1920s was the first feature film by a black director to be financed by a major Hollywood studio. Gordon Parks directed, produced, wrote, and composed the score of this adaptation of his 1963 semi-autobiographical novel after a highly successful career as an acclaimed photojournalist.

Essentially a coming-of-age tale, the film focuses on smalltown Kansas denizen Newt Winger (Johnson). Newt is shown learning about sex (from a prosti...