Top Five Greatest Ghanaian Movies Of All Time

The Ghanaian movie scene has developed over the last decade. We have seen a proliferation of high standard pictures, high sound quality and better story lines. Personally I am quite grateful for the change but I tend to have a love-hate relationship with the movie industry as it is now, I am very grateful for the likes of Leila Djansi, Shirley Frimpong-Manso but I can’t seem to understand why with the strides taken by the aforementioned, some of the local producers still seem to produce such “unqualifiable” content and try to force us to accept them as Ghanaian movies.

PERFECT PICTURE, 2010 – Sparrow Productions, Shirley Frimpong Manso

This movie is exquisite; this is one of the best story lines I've seen in a long time, the movie tells the story of three beautiful women in their 30s - Aseye (Jackie), Akasi (Naa Ashorkor) and Dede (Lydia Forson) - who made bold attempts to change their destinies. The downside of this movie was success of the movie created the leeway for Ghanaian producers to jump onto the production of nude scenes in their movies, hoping to attain the buzz of it.

RUN BABY RUN, 2007 – Revele Pictures, Emmanuel Apea. Jr

This movie follows the success of other Apea produced flicks like “Home Sweet Home” and “Taxi driver”. The most surprising thing however, happens to be the quality of production at the time. Enoch Sarpong Jr., a Ghanaian student living in the UK, is visited by his little sister from Ghana, who had mistakenly picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport. The suitcase contains a huge amount of cocaine. The film received 8 nominations and won 4 awards at the African Movie Academy Awards in 2008, including the awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

I Sing Of A Well, 2009 – Turning Point Productions, Leila Djansi

I really enjoyed watching a historical drama written by Africans for Africans. It offers insights into the dynamics of the slave trade and resistance to the slave trade in West Africa before the arrival of the Europeans. We often do not discuss this aspect of our history and so I commend Djansi for taking the risk of exploring this subject matter. The acting was excellent, although I felt that well-known Ghanaian actress Akofa Asiedu, who also co-produced the film, was miscast as the character of Soraya really should have been younger to make it believable that the Crown Prince would desire her from among all the possible women who he could marry.

No Time To Die, 2007 – King Boama Darko Ampaw

No Time To Die portrays love and comedy. The film tells the story of David Dontoh, a hearse driver who will do anything to win the love of a lady who he has fallen in love with, Esi, a beautiful dancer who is planning an elaborate home going celebration for her mother. King Apaw explained that his film was meant to break the jinx of the trend of other African movies. "Most of the African movies we see are either on poverty or HIV/AIDS and so forth." African film makers could also make people laugh, he said. And he sure did break the jinx and set a standard

I Told You So, 1970 – Egbert Adjesu

When the film is such that one can see it over and over again and the film seek to spell out the spirit and aura of an era that film has achieve the noir status. A film industry capable of making film noirs is highly respect and rated by authorities of film studies. And surprisingly characters featured in a film noir end up having their status elevated to star noir.

“I Told You So” has succeed in claiming that spot. Today when Bob Cole in mentioned, we are reminded of the film, when Araba Stamp is mentioned, I Told You So comes to mind, Osuabrobuo, Kapoipoi has been elevate to noir, through that film.

Today’s film makers came emulate the success of I Told You So, it just a matter of going back to the basics. In a recent advice from George Lucas, creator and director of Star wars franchise, to young filmmakers, Lucas stressed that the basics of filmmaking has not changed, it only the technology that has change.

As usual this is an opinionated list about the way I expect quality from movies produced in Ghana, you are allowed to disagree, I agree to disagree… but I still maintain that these aforementioned movies have set the standard for movie production in Ghana.