List

Social Justice-Themed Movies

By Sharon Weinberg

Here are some feature movie recommendations that focus on social justice in some way. As a white person, I want to learn more about systematic racism and inequalities to be a better ally against racism. Movies not only entertain, they can also broaden perspectives, start conversations, and increase awareness. All these titles are available from our physical collection. However, if you like to stream movies, check the website justwatch.com for digital options outside the library’s collection.

  • Blackkklansman

    2018

    Filmmaker Spike Lee won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, based on the 2014 memoir Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth. Set in the 1970s, Stallworth was the first Black detective in the Colorado Police Department. He infiltrated the Klu Klux Klan by answering an ad in a local newspaper offering info on the KKK and represented himself as white and hater of Blacks and Jews. When someone called back to suggest an in-person meeting, Stallworth collaborated with a white cop (who happened to be Jewish) for face-to-face meetings. Lee’s coda, using documentary footage from the White National Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, connects the viewer to the present, leaving a sobering message.

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  • Blindspotting

    2018

    Actors Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) and Rafael Casal (a white poet and performer) are close friends in real life and in this dramedy, which they cowrote and produced, they play two best friends who grew up together in Oakland, California. Colin (Diggs), recently released from two months in jail, with only a few days left on his probation, witnesses an unarmed Black man gunned down by a white police officer. With diverging views concerning the situation and neighborhood, friction between Colin and Miles hits a breaking point. The movie considers issues of race, identity, class, and gentrification. Diggs and Casal started the script several years ago, wanting to tell a realistic story about the Bay area. Then the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART Station influenced the story line.

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  • Dear White People

    2014

    In this sharply observed satirical comedy, filmmaker Justin Simien follows the lives of a group of Black students attending a fictional, predominantly white Ivy League university. He looks at escalating racial tensions on campus, as well as identity, gender, and sexuality. The movie is the basis of a Netflix TV series, in which Simien is involved. It is a welcome voice.

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  • Do the Right Thing

    2009

    One of the most influential and important movies of the 1980s, it is as visceral and immediate today as it was in 1989. Spike Lee wrote, directed, and costarred in this controversial fictional film about growing racial unrest in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year.

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  • Fruitvale Station

    Ryan Coogler’s (Black Panther) feature film debut tackles a hard and tragic subject. Michael B. Jordan (Creed) portrays Oscar Grant on his last day of life. Twenty-two-year-old Oscar was killed early in the morning on January 1, 2009, by a police officer at the Fruitvale district station of the BART system in Oakland, CA, on his way home, after ringing in the New Year with friends. The movie opens with chilling footage of the incident, as several witnesses were filming with their cell phones. At the movie’s end, Coogler shows a video of a 2013 New Year’s Day memorial service at Fruitvale Station that includes Oscar’s real-life young daughter. The impact is felt.

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  • The Hate U Give

    2019

    Adapted from the awesome young adult novel by Angie Thomas, 16-year-old Starr Carter witnesses her childhood friend gunned down by a white police officer. Torn between two worlds, Starr eventually finds her voice and becomes an activist. This realistic story, along with the knock-out cast, make this a memorable, thought-provoking viewing experience.

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  • If Beale Street Could Talk

    2019

    Directed by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), he also adapted the script from the 1974 novel by James Baldwin. The story focuses on a young couple torn apart by unfair circumstances and systemic racism. A young woman, with the help from her close-knit family, desperately tries to free her fiance, falsely accused of a crime, before their baby is born. In addition, I strongly recommend the 2016 documentary about James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.

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  • In the Heat of the Night

    2008

    You may have heard the famous line, “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” It came from this movie. Set in a small racist town in Mississippi, Norman Jewison directed this social thriller, which won five Oscars in 1967. Sidney Poitier gives a powerful performance as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia homicide detective who finds himself investigating the murder of a wealthy industrialist, amid an all-white police force and hostile locals. This anti-racist film resonates today, making it a compelling watch. Also available to stream from IndieFlix via RBdigital.

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  • Just Mercy (DVD)

    2020

    Based on the critically acclaimed memoir by lawyer Bryan Stevenson, Michael B. Jordan stars as Stevenson. It follows the Harvard Law School graduate as he moves to Alabama and starts the Equal Justice Initiative. Jamie Foxx portrays Walter McMillan, a man wrongfully convicted of murder and on death row. Much of the movie focuses on his case, though other injustices concerning the prison system are part of the narrative. This should have gotten Oscar attention. Foxx gives a career-high performance.

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  • Selma

    2015

    It was the next great battle. Dr. King, his nonviolent protests, and the epic 54-mile march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 to secure voting rights are the focus of this outstanding movie from filmmaker Ava DuVernay. Also recommended from DeVernay: the 2016 Netflix documentary 13th, a deep dive into the prison system and its persistent racial inequalities, and her 2019 Netflix mini-series, When They See Us, about the five Harlem teens falsely accused of a brutal attack of a jogger in Central Park.

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  • Support the Girls

    2018

    This underrated workplace comedy focuses on Lisa (Regina Hall) who is the manager of a sports bar that requires the female servers to dress in skimpy uniforms. She is very protective of her staff and tries to be upbeat, even if it's a particularly weird day and she has to defy the boss. Barack Obama included this on his 2018 Best Movies list. I liked how the women had each other's backs to get through the frequent microaggressions, racist remarks, and overall misogyny. All in a day’s work and paycheck!

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