Best "civil rights" Movies of All Time

134 movies found (page 1/5):

Roman J. Israel, Esq.(2017)

3.1/5 (with 566 votes)

Hard-nosed liberal lawyer Roman J. Israel has been fighting the good fight forever while others take the credit. When his partner – the firm's frontman – has a heart attack, Israel suddenly takes on that role. He soon discovers some unsettling truths about the firm – truths that conflict with his values of helping the poor and dispossessed – and finds himself in an existential crisis that leads to extreme actions.

Directed by Dan Gilroy - With Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Nazneen Contractor, Shelley Hennig, Tony Plana, Pej Vahdat, ...

Buy Apple / iTunes Store

Malcolm X(1992)

3h 22min | Drama, History

3.8/5 (with 698 votes)

A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.

Directed by Spike Lee - With Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman Jr., Delroy Lindo, Spike Lee, ...

The Butler(2013)

| 2h 12min | Drama

3.7/5 (with 1,331 votes)

A look at the life of Cecil Gaines who served eight presidents as the White House's head butler from 1952 to 1986, and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made.

Directed by Lee Daniels - With Forest Whitaker, Alex Pettyfer, John Cusack, Robin Williams, Terrence Howard, James Marsden, ...

Loving(2016)

2h 3min | Drama, Romance / Love

3.4/5 (with 419 votes)

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, whose challenge of their anti-miscegenation arrest for their marriage in Virginia led to a legal battle that would end at the US Supreme Court.

Directed by Jeff Nichols - With Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Nick Kroll, Marton Csokas, Michael Shannon, Bill Camp, ...

Subscription Netflix | Rent Apple / iTunes Store | Buy Apple / iTunes Store

Rendition(2007)

| 2h | Drama, Thriller

3.2/5 (with 288 votes)

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.

Directed by Gavin Hood - With Omar Metwally, Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Peter Sarsgaardd, Alan Arkin, Meryl Streep, ...

Selma(2014)

2h 7min | History, Drama

3.7/5 (with 1,016 votes)

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

Directed by Ava DuVernay - With David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Roth, Common, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Carmen Ejogo, ...

Salvador(1986)

2h 3min | Drama, History, Thriller

3.6/5 (with 139 votes)

A second-rate journalist from the US tries his luck in El Salvador during the military dictatorship in the 1980s.

Directed by Oliver Stone - With James Woods, Jim Belushi, Michael Murphy, John Savage, Elpidia Carrillo, Cynthia Gibb, ...

Bloody Sunday(2002)

1h 47min | Drama, History

3.7/5 (with 131 votes)

The dramatised story of the Irish civil rights protest march on January 30 1972 which ended in a massacre by British troops.

Directed by Paul Greengrass - With James Nesbitt, Simon Mann, David Clayton Rogers, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nicholas Farrell, Christopher Villiers, ...

Seberg(2019)

1h 43min | Thriller, Drama

3.0/5 (with 110 votes)

An ambitious young FBI agent is assigned to investigate iconic actress Jean Seberg when she becomes embroiled in the tumultuous civil rights movement in late 1960s Los Angeles.

Directed by Benedict Andrews - With Kristen Stewart

Son of the South(2021)

1h 44min | History, Drama

3.4/5 (with 56 votes)

Based on a true story, Bob Zellner, grandson of a Klansman, comes of age in the Deep South and eventually joins the Civil Rights Movement.

Directed by Barry Alexander Brown - With Lucas Till, Lucy Hale, Lex Scott Davis, Julia Ormond, Cedric the Entertainer, Sienna Guillory, ...

Ghosts of Mississippi(1996)

2h 10min | Drama

3.3/5 (with 58 votes)

A Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to bring a white supremacist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.

Directed by Rob Reiner - With Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, James Woods, Virginia Madsen, Alexa PenaVega, Bill Cobbs, ...

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution(2020)

1h 47min | Documentary

3.6/5 (with 61 votes)

Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement.

Directed by James LeBrecht, Nicole Newnham

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LBJ(2017)

1h 38min | Drama, History

3.2/5 (with 65 votes)

The story of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson from his young days in West Texas to the White House.

Directed by Rob Reiner - With Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Bill Pullman, Kim Allen, Michael Stahl-David, Jennifer Jason Leigh, ...

Framing Britney Spears(2021)

1h 14min | Documentary

3.6/5 (with 43 votes)

Her rise was a global phenomenon. Her downfall was a cruel national sport. People close to Britney Spears and lawyers tied to her conservatorship now reassess her career as she battles her father in court over who should control her life.

The Long Walk Home(1990)

1h 37min | Drama, History

3.7/5 (with 47 votes)

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.

Directed by Richard Pearce - With Whoopi Goldberg, Sissy Spacek, Dwight Schultz, Ving Rhames, Dylan Baker, Erika Alexander, ...

The Times of Harvey Milk(1984)

1h 30min | Documentary

3.8/5 (with 43 votes)

Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.

Directed by Rob Epstein - With Harvey Milk, Dan White, George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein, Anne Kronenberg, Tom Ammiano, ...

Lenny(1974)

1h 51min | Drama

3.7/5 (with 104 votes)

The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the establishment as too obscene for the public.

Directed by Bob Fosse - With Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, Rashel Novikoff, Jan Miner, Kathryn Witt, Bob Fosse, ...

Rent Apple / iTunes Store | Buy Apple / iTunes Store

The Green Book: Guide to Freedom(2019)

52min | Documentary, History, TV Movie

4.0/5 (with 27 votes)

In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.

Reggie(2023)

1h 44min | Documentary

2.8/5 (with 5 votes)

One of sport’s first and most influential megastars, beloved baseball icon and 5-time World Series champion Reggie Jackson contemplates his legacy as a trailblazing Black athlete fighting for dignity, respect, and a seat at the table in this intimate and revealing documentary exploring his life and barrier-busting career.

Directed by Alex Stapleton

What Happened, Miss Simone?(2015)

1h 41min | Music, Documentary

3.7/5 (with 164 votes)

The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.

Directed by Liz Garbus

Subscription Netflix

The 60s(1999)

2h 52min | Drama, TV Movie

3.0/5 (with 11 votes)

The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor, a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton.

Blaze(1989)

1h 57min | Drama, Romance / Love

3.2/5 (with 21 votes)

This movie tells the story of the latter years of Earl Long, a flamboyant governor of Louisiana. The aging Earl, an unapologetic habitue of strip joints, falls in love with young stripper Blaze Starr. When Earl and Blaze move in together, Earl's opponents use this to attack his controversial political program, which included civil rights for blacks in the 1950's.

Directed by Ron Shelton - With Paul Newman, Lolita Davidovich, Jerry Hardin, Jeffrey DeMunn, Gailard Sartain, James Harper, ...

Gospel Hill(2008)

1h 39min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

2.4/5 (with 10 votes)

Gospel Hill tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist. Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the former sheriff who never got to the bottom of the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic Gospel Hill.

Directed by Giancarlo Esposito - With Danny Glover, Angela Bassett, Julia Stiles, Adam Baldwin

And the Children Shall Lead(1985)

58min | Drama, Kids & Family

5.0/5 (with 1 vote)

Mississippi in the early '60s is the setting for this story of a 12-year-old African-American girl who, along with her white friends, tries to ease increasing racial tensions.

Coded Bias(2020)

1h 26min | Documentary

3.7/5 (with 18 votes)

Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.

Directed by Shalini Kantayya

Boycott(2001)

1h 58min | History, Drama, TV Movie

3.3/5 (with 6 votes)

This made-for-TV movie dramatizes the historic boycott of public buses in the 1950s, led by civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Directed by Clark Johnson - With Jeffrey Wright

Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria(2005)

57min | Documentary

0.5/5 (with 1 vote)

The first major uprising against police brutality, harassment, and societal oppression was not at Stonewall in 1969, but at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco three years earlier. Those who stood up were trans women and gay men. Now, nearly 40 years on, Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman tell the story of this oft-overlooked event in the history of American civil rights.

Directed by Susan Stryker

The Watsons Go to Birmingham(2013)

1h 24min | Kids & Family, TV Movie

3.5/5 (with 11 votes)

In the Summer of 1963, Flint, Michigan is home to the Watsons, a close knit family. When 15 year-old Byron’s antics go over the top, his parents realize enough is enough and they decide the family needs a dose of Grandma Sands' no nonsense approach in Birmingham, Alabama. So the Watsons load up their 1948 Plymouth Brown Bomber and head South. When they finally make it to Birmingham, they meet Grandma Sands and her friend, Mr. Robert and discover that life is very different there than in Flint. During that historic summer, the Watsons find themselves caught up in something far bigger than Byron’s antics; something that will change their lives and country forever.

Directed by Kenny Leon

Salute(2008)

2h | Documentary

3.3/5 (with 5 votes)

The black power salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico Olympics was an iconic moment in the US civil rights struggle. Far less known is the part in that episode in history played by Peter Norman, the white Australian on the podium who had run second — and the price paid afterward by all three athletes.

Directed by Matt Norman - With Peter Norman, Tommie Smith, John Carlos

King in the Wilderness(2018)

1h 51min | Documentary

3.4/5 (with 9 votes)

A chronicle of the final chapters of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, revealing a conflicted leader who faced an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.

Directed by Peter Kunhardt

Movies: Best "civil rights" Movies