Since the creation of film and the rise of popularity of movies, the genre has become a unique way to spotlight the world. Granted, there are inherent dangers when it comes to media literacy and the moniker “based on a true story,” as seen with the controversy over films like The Sound of Freedom, due to how it fictionalizes and depicts reality. Despite this, movies have been a way to raise awareness about issues, while also presenting different perspectives and realities, creating a basis for understanding modes of thinking. One movie might be able to present the perspective of an American in World War II, while another might be of a Jewish individual in Europe, who had a completely different experience.
With globalization, we’re now able to access many different kinds of stories in different ways than before. A movie on the Cambodian genocide will get subtitles and appear on a Western streaming platform, informing audiences that this genocide happened — something they might’ve not known beforehand. Making movies about social issues, especially human and civil rights, opens up a completely new avenue to teach audiences about empathy and present a foundation for knowledge about certain issues. It also keeps these stories alive, creating a fictionalized archive that proves that these events happened. That said, these are some of the best movies tackling human and civil rights.
12 Shooting Dogs
Shooting Dogs came out in 2005, and is based on true events. In the 90s, the Rwandan genocide began, sparking horrific conflict that, to this day, many may not even be aware of. BBC Producer David Belton was in Rwanda during this time, and the film is based on his experiences.
The movie’s protagonist is Father Christopher, who runs a school in Rwanda. Ethnic division is beginning to ramp up in 1994, and, in April, the genocide begins. One of his teachers, Joe, works with Father Christopher to try and figure out how to help those fleeing from the violence, and they want to try and get awareness on it through journalism.
11 First They Killed My Father
Based on the memoir written by Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father dramatizes her experiences as a young girl in Cambodia at the start of the Khmer Rouge’s regime. The Cambodian Civil War splits the country in two, and Loung’s family is sent away to the labor camps. Not only are they forced to do labor for the Khmer Rouge, but they are violently beat by the guards, forcing them to do the wishes of their oppressors. But when her brothers and sister are sent to other camps and her father is taken away by soldiers, a new tragic turn occurs in Loung’s life.
10 A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun is based on the play by award-winning playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who was the first Black woman to have a play staged on Broadway. It is based on her own experiences, as her father had a Supreme Court case on housing discrimination.
Members of a Black family, the Youngers, are awaiting a life insurance check that could change their lives. The matriarch spends part of it on a new house in a white neighborhood, which is only the start of their troubles. As they navigate what to do next with their own lives, the white residents of their new neighborhood try to force them to not move into the home.
9 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
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There are many themes prominent in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but one of the more striking ones is that it advocates for the broader definition of civil and human rights: everyone has the right to be their own person, not what society expects them to be and conform to.
A criminal pretends to be insane in order to get sent to a mental institution, and he realizes the one he’s sent to is run by a nurse with an ego due to her power. When she sees him as a threat against her iron first, she puts in harsher rules, but that will backfire for her in the long run.
8 Malcolm X
Malcolm X is one of the better-known figures of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and Spike Lee made the 1992 movie Malcolm X to tell his story. Denzel Washington stars as the famed activist, and the film begins with his childhood in Michigan.
When their house is burned down due to his father’s activism, then his father is killed, it spells the beginning of the end for his family. He grows up and lives in Boston as a teenager, but when he makes friends with gangsters in New York City, it marks a new chapter in his life. He is sentenced to prison after running a robbery ring, but, when in prison, he meets a man who will change his life and his later activist practices.
7 Beasts of No Nation
Beasts of No Nation is based on a novel, and it tells the story of a young boy living in a country in West Africa. When a civil war begins, his village is initially in a buffer zone. But when the government falls and the rebels approach the village, people begin fleeing, and the boy, Agu, has to watch his mother and two siblings leave. Agu escapes as executions begin, and he eventually is found and brought into the folds of another rebel faction. He becomes a child soldier, which unleashes completely new horrors in his life.
6 Persepolis
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The Iranian Revolution began in the late-70s, and was the end of the Persian Shah’s rule over the country and the rise of the Islamic Regime. Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, is the story of her upbringing in Iran in the years that followed the revolution, as women were no longer allowed to go around without a hijab or chador, and her family briefly sends her abroad to reconcile with her identity independent of the regime. However, this is the catalyst that will eventually force her to make the decision to leave or stay her home country.
5 Selma
One of the better-known movies about the American Civil Rights Movement, Selma is about the marches from Selma to Montgomery that happened in 1965. The film tracks Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts with other prominent civil rights activists in Washington D.C. to convince lawmakers to find ways to safeguard Black Americans’ rights to vote, and when lawmakers turn them down in favor of other policies and projects, they decide to take matters into their own hands. The film has been debated over its usage of creative license, but its original heart lies in true events that inspired its fictionalized take.
4 Hotel Rwanda
Hotel Rwanda is another film about the Rwandan genocide, but it focuses on the human rights activist Paul Rusesbagina, who, along with his wife, managed a hotel that housed many refugees fleeing from the violence happening throughout the country. The movie begins with the kernels that led to the Rwandan genocide, and shows how Paul and his wife are from the two opposing tribes.
When the President is assassinated, the genocide begins, and a civil war breaks out in the country. When the UN is forbidden from helping anyone in the conflict, Paul takes matters into his own hands and allow refugees in, while also keeping the illusion that this is an operating hotel.
3 The Killing Fields
1984’s The Killing Fields was a massive success when it first came out, despite its tragic true subject. It takes on the experiences of an American and a Cambodian during the beginnings of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which initiated a genocide against its own people. Dith Pran is a Cambodian journalist affiliated with The New York Times, but he fails to show up for the arrival of a fellow reporter. When the American reporter comes into town, he discovers the extent of what’s really going on, he will try to protect Pran, but fails as Pran is sent to the camps.
2 Schindler's List
Steven Spielberg’s 1993 movie Schindler's List is known for a wide variety of reasons, but it is based on the true story of the actions of Oskar Schindler. As the Germans begin forcing local Jews into ghettos, Schindler, who has arrived in the city of Kraków in search of starting a business, opens a factory.
When he hires a Jewish official to help him out, he hires as many Jewish workers as possible to try and stop them from being sent to the camps or killed. When Schindler witnesses the liquidation of the ghetto and deportation of all of its Jewish residents, he actively becomes involved with rescuing as many people as possible.
1 The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on a French book, which, in turn, documents the story of journalist Freidoune Sahebjam and how he learned of a young woman who was stoned to death. The film dramatizes how he learned of this; the woman’s husband was abusive to her, and wanted to divorce her in order to marry a 14-year-old. When he realizes that if his wife, Soraya, were dead, it would help his cause and he would be able to freely marry the girl, he spreads rumors about her participating in adultery, which is punishable by death.
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