The Brute is a 1920 silent race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux.

[2] The original version of the film included a scene where the boxer defeats a white rival, but Micheaux was forced to remove the scene by censors.

[3] Herbert Lanyon is thought to be dead after a shipwreck, and his fiancée Mildred Carrison is forced by her money-minded Aunt Clara into marriage with "Bull" Magee, a gambler and underworld boss who mistreats Mildred.

Herbert and a repentant Aunt Clara, however, free Mildred from Magee, and the lovers are able to marry.

A subplot involves boxer "Tug" Wilson, who is ordered by his manager Magee to lay down in the seventeenth round of a prizefight at the film's climax.