The Cool World is a 1963 American drama film directed by Shirley Clarke about African-American life in the Royal Pythons, a youth gang in Harlem.

The Cool World stars real Harlem youth and some real gang members: This semi-documentary style movie was produced by soon-to-be documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, directed by Shirley Clarke, and adapted by Clarke and Carl Lee from the 1959 novel The Cool World by Warren Miller, with original music was by Mal Waldron and cinematography by Baird Bryant A play, written by Miller and Robert Rossen based on the novel, was first shown in Philadelphia and then twice at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre on February 22 and 23, 1960, featuring Raymond St. Jacques, James Earl Jones, Calvin Lockhart, Hilda Simms, and others.

It received a standing ovation and was nominated for the festival's Golden Lion award, as noted in the Sep 4, 1963 New York Times.

Richard Brody of the New Yorker praised the film: "Clarke's images endow the characters' energies with a sculptural grandeur and embrace street life with a keenly attentive, unsentimental avidity."

Jonathan Rosenbaum also reviewed it positively: "It certainly had a visceral impact when it first appeared, helped enormously by Baird Bryant's cinematography and Dizzy Gillespie's score."