Highest-Rated Movies about 'Apartheid', Sort by Popularity

Long Night's Journey Into Day (2000), Drum (2004), Noem My Skollie (2015), Skin (2008), A Dry White Season (1989), Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (2002), Cry Freedom (1987), Invictus (2009) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Apartheid movies.

#1. Long Night's Journey Into Day (2000)

Storyline: Following the end of apartheid in South Africa during the 1990s, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to pursue social justice, and this acclaimed documentary focuses on some of the stories that emerged from the organization's cases. Although renowned leader Bishop Desmond Tutu appears, the film focuses primarily on everyday people, both white and black, who committed appalling crimes during apartheid and came to the commission seeking forgiveness.

Plot Keywords: leader, racist, criminal, murderer, emotional, intense, sad ...

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#5. A Dry White Season (1989)

Storyline: Teacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) mostly ignores the problems of apartheid in South Africa until he discovers that the son of a gardener (Winston Ntshona) at his school has been killed by corrupt policeman Stolz (Jürgen Prochnow). Du Toit persuades human rights attorney Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to try the long-shot case against Stolz. During the trial, Du Toit's transformation into an advocate for justice is so absolute that it distances him from his family.

Plot Keywords: teacher, police officer, lawyer, gardener, gripping, rousing, powerful ...

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#6. Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (2002)

Storyline: Through a chronological history of the South African liberation struggle, this documentary cites examples of the way that music was used in the fight for freedom. Songs united those who were being oppressed and gave those fighting a way to express their plight. The music consoled those incarcerated, and created an effective underground form of communication inside the prisons.—Sujit R. Varma

Plot Keywords: singer, nelson mandela, protester, musician, journalist, uplifting, engaging ...

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#7. Cry Freedom (1987)

Storyline: Donald Woods is chief editor of the liberal newspaper Daily Dispatch in South Africa. He has written several editorials critical of the views of Steve Biko. But after having met him for the first time, he changes his opinion. They meet several times, and this means that Woods and his family get attention from the security police. When Steve Biko dies in police custody, he writes a book about Biko. The only way to get it published is for Woods himself to illegally escape the country.

Plot Keywords: journalist, activist, police officer, wife, child, gritty, dark ...

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#8. Invictus (2009)

Storyline: This movie tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the Captain of South Africa's rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of Apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Plot Keywords: nelson mandela, athlete, politician, rival, intense, inspiring, south africa ...

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#9. Face of Unity (2014)

Storyline: Face Of Unity is the definitive Nelson Mandela documentary feature and first retrospective to be released since the president's death in late 2013. It includes a never before seen speech where Mandela outlines the groundwork for peace and reconciliation to future generations. The piece also includes tributes to Nelson Mandela from President Barack Obama, Sam Jackson, Jack Nicklaus, George Lucas, Ray Charles, Morgan Freeman, and two former Australian Prime Ministers, among others.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: narrator, touching, uplifting, engaging, emotional, profound, south africa ...

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#10. Goodbye Bafana (2007)

Storyline: James Gregory once lived in a farm and had befriended a native youth, Bafana, and had even had a photograph taken with him. Years later, now married to Gloria and father of three children (Chris, Brett, and Natasha), James has nothing but shame and regret, as many South African Caucasians in the oppressive Apartheid-era ridiculed him, leading him to hate Africans. He seeks to redeem himself by spying on imprisoned African National Congress Leader, Nelson Mandela. In the restrictive high security prison his job is to censor all written and verbal communications between prisoners, their visitors, and correspondence. James is uncomfortable when he witnesses Caucasian police and security officers' brutality against civilians, including infants, and tries to understand why Nelson became a rebel. This leads him to examine the 'Freedom Charter', a banned document, reportedly known to incite violence against 'whites'. And when he does read this document, he changes his mind about Nelson's ...

Plot Keywords: political prisoner, prison guard, warden, militant, racist, powerful, profound ...

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#11. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)

Storyline: Nelson Mandela is a South African lawyer who joins the African National Congress in the 1940s when the law under the Apartheid system's brutal tyranny proves useless for his people. Forced to abandon peaceful protest for armed resistance after the Sharpeville Massacre, Mandela pays the price when he and his comrades are sentenced to life imprisonment for treason while his wife, Winnie, is abused by the authorities herself. Over the decades in chains, Mandela's spirit is unbowed as his struggle goes on in and beyond his captivity to become an international cause. However, as Winnie's determination hardens over the years into a violent ruthlessness, Nelson's own stature rises until he becomes the renowned leader of his movement. That status would be put to the test as his release nears and a way must be found to win a peaceful victory that will leave his country, and all its peoples, unstained.

Plot Keywords: nelson mandela, south african man, revolutionary, president, prison guard, prison official, emotional ...

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#12. A World Apart (1988)

Storyline: 1963. Thirteen year old Molly Roth, the eldest of three offspring of Gus and Diana Roth, lives a carefree life as part of the affluent white minority in South Africa. Race is a non-issue for her as although, under apartheid, the Roths largely exist among other white people like them, she feels equally comfortable around the black people in her life, such as their servants and her parents' black friends. Beyond knowing that they are busy in their work, Molly is unaware of the full extent of what her parents do, Gus a leading member of the South African Communist Party and Ruth an anti-apartheid journalist who also secretly works for the underground in support of the outlawed African National Congress. Shortly after Gus quietly escapes the country to evade probable arrest by the government - Molly believing it just a short work related trip - Molly's carefree life starts to unravel when Diana is detained for ninety days under a new law that allows such detention without ever even being charged with a criminal offense. The goal of Diana's interrogators, led by Inspector Muller, is to get her to divulge details especially of the underground, most specifically proverbial "names". Beyond missing her mother, Molly begins to resent the anti-apartheid work which has directly and indirectly impacted her life in a negative way, she wanting a mother, not an activist-mother. As the situation with Diana evolves, which includes someone needing to act as caregivers to Molly and her younger sisters while Diana is in detention, Molly gets a broader perspective of her situation under apartheid as she is able to see more of life just outside her protected white enclave, and as she is made aware of what Diana is trying to achieve for society in her work.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: daughter, mother, father, activist, emotional, spirited, south africa ...

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#14. Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)

Storyline: South African church minister Steven Kumalo is summoned from his village to Johannesburg. There he finds that his son Absolom has been jailed in connection with a robbery in which a white man was killed. The father of the white man, James Jarvis, is a supporter of apartheid, the separation of the races which is the law of South Africa. When they encounter each other, both Kumalo and Jarvis come to unexpected realizations not only about their sons, but about the nature of their own humanity.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

Plot Keywords: priest, bigot, son, preacher, father, bleak, emotional ...

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#15. Zulu (2013)

Storyline: As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkatha, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain. Today, Ali is chief of the homicide branch of the South African police in Cape Town. One of his staff is Brian Epkeen, a free-wheeling white officer whose family was originally involved in the establishment of apartheid but who works well with Neuman. Together they have to deal with crime that inevitably exists in sprawling areas of un- and under- employed people, crime exacerbated by gangs, both local and from other parts of Africa. Their job gets even more difficult when the corpses of two young women are found. A new evil has been introduced in the city and a new drug has been introduced to its residents, including both murder victims. At the chaotic crossroads where brutality and modernization collide, the echoes of...

Plot Keywords: murderer, murder victim, detective, drug dealer, south african man, bleak, brutal ...

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