Movies: Social activism

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisi...

An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent an...

Christina Noble overcomes the harsh difficulties of her childhood in Ireland to discover her destiny on the streets of Saigon. A true story....

As anger and resentment grow in the face of social inequalities, many citizens-led protests are being repressed with an ever-increasing violence. In this documentary, David Dufresne gathers a panel of citizens to question, exchange and confront their...

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....

Since the beginning of her career, Sinéad O’Connor has used her powerful voice to challenge the narratives she was surrounded by while growing up in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland. Despite her agency, depth and perspective, O’Connor’s unflinchi...

The untold disability civil-rights love story of two cabaret performers, Barbara and Alan, who met at a gig, fell in love, and became the driving force behind an unprecedented campaign of direct action that ultimately led to the passing of the 1995 D...

Los Angeles' Skid Row is home to one of the largest homeless populations in the United States. And we found, inside that community, the remarkable and enormously moving stories of Olympic athletes, Harvard attorneys, accomplished musicians, scholars....

Controversial film about an underground organization that kidnaps and 'deprograms' African Americans who sell out or deny their cultural heritage. Spike Lee is the Executive Producer....

A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders....

The decision by India's supreme court to establish caste-based reservations for jobs in education causes conflict between a teacher and his mentor....

A naive young woman moves from the South to stay with her aunt and uncle in Compton. As an outsider, she struggles at first to find her footing, but soon falls into the middle of a community of rebellious youth. She soon becomes more and more aware o...

A feature-length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world....

An amiable photographer in a small-town, who is nursing a breakup, unwittingly becomes embroiled in a street brawl that turns him into a man obsessed with revenge....

An unwanted pregnancy triggers the journey into adulthood for Makenya, a Dominican-Haitian teenager who lives in the Batey, a community surrounded by sugarcane fields....

Activist-pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano pull the rug out from under mega-corporations, government officials and a complacent media in a series of outrageous stunts designed to draw awareness to the issue of climate change....

Pussy Riot make a comeback after a long absence to stand with Ukraine. Their story and their struggle are told through archival footage and interviews with the group’s members....

Just after midnight on 10 March 1945, the US launched an air-based attack on eastern Tokyo; continuing until morning, the raid left more than 100,000 people dead and a quarter of the city eradicated. Unlike their loved ones, Hiroshi Hoshino, Michiko ...

Beyond Barricades is a documentary on political punk band Anti-Flag, featuring interviews with Tom Morello, Billy Bragg, Tim McIlrath, Brian Baker & More. The film explores the trials and tribulations of playing politically charged music and devoting...

Three college students start a social experiment to prove that reality changes according to the words we use to describe it. Through research, activist actions, and artistic interventions, they analyze the importance of language in the way we underst...