This Controversial Film Is Morgan Freeman's #1

So when he names his all-time favorite movie, you'd expect something weighty, self-important, maybe something starring himself. Instead? He hit a reporter with "Orfeu Negro."

Orfeu Negro (also known as Black Orpheus) is a 1959 French-Brazilian film that retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice — but set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. It was directed by Marcel Camus, had an all-Black cast, and was based on a Brazilian stage play by Vinicius de Moraes. The film drips with colorful costumes, wall-to-wall samba and bossa nova, and sweeping tragedy. International audiences went wild. Brazil... not so much.

Here's what the film racked up:

• Won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1959
• Won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1960
• Introduced the world to bossa nova via a soundtrack by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá
• Starred Marpessa Dawn, an American actress from Pittsburgh, as Eurydice

It was a global critical darling — the kind of film that makes cinephiles swoon and Oscar voters feel worldly. But in Brazil, the reaction was ice cold. Locals accused the film of exoticizing the country's poverty, Black culture, and Carnaval celebrations for foreign audiences. And casting an American actress as a Brazilian woman? That didn't help.

Over the years, critics outside Brazil also started seeing the cracks. For all its visual flair and legendary music, Black Orpheus became a textbook case of "pretty but problematic." The kind of film that shows off culture without really understanding it.

And yet, Morgan Freeman still calls it his favorite — no irony. Maybe it's the fact that Black Orpheus was one of the few films at the time that gave any serious cinematic attention to Black characters, even if filtered through a European lens. Or maybe Freeman just likes beautiful things that make people uncomfortable.