We Need to Talk About Cosby(2022)

In the sixties, Cosby is collecting accolades for his comedy, breaking barriers for Black stunt performers and finding his own ways of participating in the nation's sexual liberation and civil rights movement. All the while, he allegedly begins exploiting his power.

It's the seventies and Bill Cosby's on a circuitous path to becoming an on-screen educator and moral authority —a man we thought we could trust. Whether he's telling kids to say no to drugs or allegedly offering pills to young women, Cosby proves himself relentless, and his ambition propels him to new levels of acclaim with 1983 stand-up special Himself.

After spending the early aughts perched on the high horse of respectability politics, Cosby falls down to Earth. Hannibal Buress tells a joke in Philadelphia, a chorus of survivors speak out, and a culture is ready to listen. There are two trials, a conviction, incarceration, appeal, and, in 2021, an overturned verdict. Now there is a debate to be had about what to do with the art that people loved and the larger systemic problems that the Cosby story lays bare.