What Is Democracy? (2018), United Red Army (2007), Disney's Newsies: The Broadway Musical (2017), End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock (2021), The Weather Underground (2003), The Organizer (1963), 12th & Delaware (2010), Billy Elliot (2000) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Protest movies.
Storyline: Thousands of citizens of Myanmar take to the streets in several cities to protest the Asian nation's repressive regime. The protests take on a new degree of seriousness when dozens of monks launch their own marches down city streets. This documentary from Anders Ostergaard focuses on the work of videographers and citizen journalists who defy the government's crackdown on the media -- a brave bunch who manage to transmit footage of the uprising to the outside world.
Plot Keywords: political activist, young man, monk, cameraman, police officer, fascinating, inspiring ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Painter Rick Todd (Dean Martin) is having difficulty with his career, so he starts taking inspiration from the dreams of his friend and roommate, Eugene (Jerry Lewis), a comic book fan who narrates an adventure story while he sleeps. Unbeknown to Eugene, Abigail Parker (Dorothy Malone), the artist for his favorite comic book, lives in the same building with her roommate, Bessie (Shirley MacLaine), the model for Abigail's drawings. Eventually, the two pairs meet, and Bessie takes to Eugene.
Plot Keywords: painter, friend, illustrator, model, publisher, spy, cheeky ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans were taken hostage. However, six managed to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA was ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devised a daring plan: create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez created the ruse and proceeded to Iran as its associate producer. However, time was running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House had grave doubts about the operation themselves.
Plot Keywords: cia agent, specialist, hostage, revolutionary, ambassador, wife, brutal ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Hunger follows life in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland with an interpretation of the highly emotive events surrounding the 1981 IRA Hunger Strike, led by Bobby Sands. With an epic eye for detail, the film provides a timely exploration of what happens when body and mind are pushed to the uttermost limit.
Plot Keywords: inmate, officer, terrorist, mother, priest, orderly, bleak ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 2003, the female country band, The Dixie Chicks, are at the top of their game being one of the most successful bands of all time. However with the US invasion of Iraq about to begin over frustrated worldwide objections about this needless war, one of the Chick vents off the cuff in concert about being ashamed of US President George W. Bush. This statement sparks a firestorm of organized and personal right wing attacks against the Chicks for daring to think they have the right to express a negative personal opinion about the President. This film covers the band's effort to ride out the turmoil that would leave their careers under a cloud, but would eventually give them a opportunity to grow as great artists who bow to no one.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Plot Keywords: singer, musician, reporter, politician, disheartening, intense, texas ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. As chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these reluctant heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds.—Collective Eye Films
Plot Keywords: farmer, activist, executive, anthropologist, politician, narrator, emotional ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone, and their protest captures the world's imagination. Using never before seen archive that brings their extraordinary world to life, How To Change The World is the story of the pioneers who founded Greenpeace and defined the modern green movement.
Plot Keywords: filmmaker, hunter, nature, gory, alaska, protest, change ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music - the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. Features new performances of the freedom songs by top artists; archival footage; and interviews with civil rights foot soldiers and leaders. Freedom songs evolved from slave chants, from the labor movement, and especially from the black church. Music enabled blacks to sing words they could not say, and it was crucial in helping the protesters as they faced down brutal aggression with dignity and non-violence. The infectious energy of the songs swept people up and empowered them to fight for their rights. This film celebrates the vitality of this music.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: martin luther king jr., engaging, emotional, inspiring, rousing, montgomery, ala., washington, d.c. ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: allen ginsberg, activist, professor, gay man, lesbian, spirited, powerful ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.—Eric Sorensen <Eric_Sorensen@fc.mcps.k12.md.us>
Plot Keywords: fbi agent, native american, shocking, disheartening, south dakota, reservation life, protest ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In Canton, Mississippi, 10-year-old Tonya Hailey is viciously brutalized by two white racist rednecks -- James Louis "Pete" Willard and Billy Ray Cobb. Almost immediately after Tonya is found and rushed to a hospital, Pete and Billy Ray are found at a roadside bar, where they had been bragging about what they did to Tonya. Tonya's understandably distraught and enraged father, Carl Lee Hailey, remembers a case from a year ago, when four white men raped an African-American girl in a nearby town, and got acquitted. Carl is determined to not let that happen in this case. While deputy Dwayne Powell Looney is escorting Pete and Billy Ray up a flight of stairs to a court room, Carl emerges from the building's basement with an assault rifle, and he kills Pete and Billy Ray for what they did to Tonya. Carl is later arrested at his house by African-American sheriff Ozzie Walls, and Carl is scheduled to be placed on trial. Despite the efforts of the NAACP and local African-American leaders to ...
Plot Keywords: klansman, lawyer, bailiff, judge, protégé, alcoholic, disheartening ...
Movie Details Click Here!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 ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Everyday Rebellion is an impressionistic documentary essay as well as a web platform about non-violent forms of protest and civil disobedience in the 21st century. A project about methods of resistance supported by technology, seen not only through the current movements of the Arabian and Iranian uprisings, but also through former successful and less successful revolts. The film describes the everyday conscious and subconscious of resistance of societies fighting suppression and repression.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: arab, inspiring, iran, protest, rebellion, resistance, civil disobedience ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jimmie Fails IV, a black man, is a third generation San Franciscan. Having been pushed out by circumstances like many others, Jimmie, who works a low paying job as a nurse in a seniors' care facility, returned to San Francisco three years ago and has been living in his best friend Montgomery Allen's house that he shares with his blind grandfather, Jimmie who sleeps on the floor in Mont's already cramped bedroom. Despite the house, Mont's situation is not much better than Jimmie's, Mont who works at a supermarket fish counter while he sketches and writes a play on the side. Other black people around him who are showing their anger in also being disenfranchised from San Francisco life are the soapbox preacher who Jimmie and Mont often watch as they wait for the bus, and a group of young black men who hang outside of Mont's house. All of Jimmie's family, who he rarely sees, are also disenfranchised from that San Francisco life in one way or another: his estranged father lives in an SRO; his mother and her new husband long moved to Los Angeles; and his paternal Auntie Wanda has been pushed out to the suburbs. Jimmie has long wanted to reclaim what he sees as his place in San Francisco, which to him means the house he grew up in and which his same named paternal grandfather built in the post-war era in a style indicative to the area a century earlier. The problems are that his father lost the house long ago, the neighborhood has since been gentrified from the immigrant neighborhood it once was, increasing the value of the house to the several millions, and a white couple currently lives there, there being no indication that they are either planning on leaving or selling even if Jimmie could afford it. Regardless, Jimmie, with Mont by his side, has and continues to take steps to reclaim the house as his to his standards.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: african-american, young man, charming, hedonistic, lighthearted, san francisco, abandoned house ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Dramatizes the events in 1955-1956 in Montgomery, Alabama, when blacks boycotted public transport because they were forced to sit at the back. Odessa works as a maid for the Thompsons, and as well as she is treated, she feels it is her duty to walk to work, even if it means she is exhausted, and gets to work late.—Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>
Plot Keywords: nanny, wealthy woman, african-american, boss, husband, daughter, inspiring ...
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