Highest-Rated Movies about 'Social Change', Sort by Popularity

Up the Yangtze (2007), The Lovely Month of May (1963), Marat/Sade (1967), The Clay Bird (2002), The Organizer (1963), The Best of Youth (2002), Metropolis (1927), A Beautiful Mind (2001) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Social Change movies.

#17. Glory (1989)

Storyline: Shaw was an officer in the Federal Army during the American Civil War who volunteered to lead the first company of black soldiers. Shaw was forced to deal with the prejudices of both the enemy (who had orders to kill commanding officers of blacks), and of his own fellow officers.

Plot Keywords: soldier, military officer, friend, slave, gravedigger, gutsy, inspiring ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#18. A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

Storyline: Alas, an aristocrat and a barrister on the same plateau. This is the story of a revolution, a revolution that occurred in France known as the Reign of Terror. The barrister, the town alcoholic and man of disrepute, is in love with a beautiful woman, who marries the aristocrat and bears a beautiful baby girl. The baby girl is infatuated with the barrister, and he her because of her mother. The ultimate sacrifice occurs and a man's soul goes forward.

Plot Keywords: lawyer, wealthy man, pretty woman, emotional, melodramatic, passionate, england ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#19. So Long, My Son (Di jiu tian chang) (2019)

Storyline: 'We're waiting to grow old'. This sentence briefly sums up Yaoyun and his wife Liyun's bitter realization about their lives. They were once a happy family - until their son drowned playing by a reservoir. And so Yaojun and Liyun leave their home and plunge into the big city, although nobody knows them there and they cannot even understand the local dialect. Their adopted son Liu Xing does not offer them the comfort they had hoped for either. Defiantly rejecting his 'foreign' parents, he one day disappears altogether. The married couple are repeatedly enmeshed in their memories. Finally, they decide to return to the site of their lost hopes. In this family saga spanning three decades of Chinese history, the private and the political merge and the individual gets caught up in the gears of a society in the throes of constant change. Part melodrama, part critique of the times, this film takes us from the country's upheaval in the 1980s following the Cultural Revolution to the prospering turbo-capitalism of the present day. Told in sweeping tableaux, it makes visible the deep scars that lie beneath the surface of an ostensibly unbroken success story.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: couple, family, adopted son, bleak, emotional, melodramatic, melancholy ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#20. The Filth and the Fury (2000)

Storyline: A documentary about the punk band The Sex Pistols. The film tries to lighten some of the backgrounds of their way through the punk era while telling the story of the band from zero back to zero. Features lots of interviews and comments of folks who were involved.—Oliver Heidelbach

Plot Keywords: musician, manager, friend, groupie, gritty, london, concert stage ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#21. O Lucky Man! (1973)

Storyline: Follows the literal and associated life journey of middle class Brit Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), representing the "everyman", as he tries to make his mark in his so far young life. He is able to make great strides in his traditional view of success by being what those in authority want him to be. As such, he achieves in a few weeks what it usually take years for others, namely having his own sales territory, the northeast and ultimately Scotland, for Imperial Coffee. He is also able to garner a plethora of fringe benefits from this job, including women throwing themselves at his feet. But he will ultimately face a struggle in class and authority warfare, which culminates with his encounter with the Burgess family, wealthy industrialist Sir James Burgess (Sir Ralph Richardson) and his daughter Patricia (Dame Helen Mirren), who Mick wants to marry, the former who is contemplating investing in the shady dealings in Zingara. Mick will also find that the class struggle not only applies in his case in an upward direction, but also in a downward direction with the working class and the truly down and out. Through it all, Alan Price and his small combo act as a Greek chorus of sorts providing commentary of Mick's travails through song.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: young man, beautiful woman, father, boss, public relations specialist, cheeky, witty ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#22. A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Storyline: The story takes place in sixteenth century England. But men like Sir Thomas More, who love life yet have the moral fiber to lay down their lives for their principles, are found in every century. Concentrating on the last seven years of the English Chancellor's life, the struggle between More and King Henry VIII hinges on Henry's determination to break with Rome so he can divorce his current wife and wed again, and good Catholic More's inability to go along with such heresy. More resigns as Chancellor, hoping to be able to live out his life as a private citizen. But Henry will settle for nothing less than that the much respected More give public approval to his headstrong course.

Plot Keywords: writer, king henry viii, wife, emotional, inspiring, intense, england ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#23. Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press (1996)

Storyline: The profile of controversial journalist George Seldes and a piercing examination of America's news media. Narrated by Susan Sarandon, with readings of writings by Ed Asner, this Academy Award-nominated film includes stunning archival materials.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: foreign correspondent, dictator, civil rights leader, engaging, inspiring, family home, soviet union ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#24. Soundtrack for a Revolution (2009)

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!

#25. Milk (2008)

Storyline: Using flashbacks from a statement recorded late in life and archival footage for atmosphere, this film traces Harvey Milk's career from his 40th birthday to his death. He leaves the closet and New York, opens a camera shop that becomes the salon for San Francisco's growing gay community, and organizes gays' purchasing power to build political alliances. He runs for office with lover Scott Smith as his campaign manager. Victory finally comes on the same day Dan White wins in the city's conservative district. The rest of the film sketches Milk's relationship with White and the 1978 fight against a statewide initiative to bar gays and their supporters from public school jobs.

Plot Keywords: police officer, politician, assassin, hippie, moving, emotional, engaging ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#26. No End (1985)

Storyline: It's 1982: Poland is under martial law, and Solidarity is banned. Ulla, a translator working on Orwell, suddenly loses her husband, Antek, an attorney. She is possessed by her grief, and Antek continues to appear to her. She seeks to free herself in her work, in her relationship with her son, in sex, and in hypnosis. In a subplot, Ulla refers the wife of one of her husband's clients - Darek, a jailed Solidarity strike organizer - to Labrador, a world-weary, aging attorney, who works to free Darek by various political manipulations and psychological ploys.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: husband, wife, son, political prisoner, lawyer, activist, brooding ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#27. Medium Cool (1969)

Storyline: John Cassellis is the toughest TV-news reporter around. His area of interest is reporting about violence in the ghetto and racial tensions. But he discovers that his network helps the FBI by letting it look at his tapes to find suspects. When he protests, he is fired and goes to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.—Mattias Thuresson

Plot Keywords: tv reporter, political activist, cameraman, widow, police officer, hippie, fiery ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#28. A Passage to India (1984)

Storyline: It's the early 1920s. Britons Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and her probable future mother-in-law Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) have just arrived in Chandrapore in British India to visit Adela's unofficial betrothed, Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), who works there as the city's magistrate. Adela and Mrs. Moore, who long for "an adventure" in experiencing all India has to offer, are dismayed to learn upon their arrival that the ruling British do not socialize, let alone associate, with the native population. Such people as the Turtons, Mr. Turton (Richard Wilson) being Ronny's superior, who openly thumb their noses at the idea in their belief that the Indians are an inferior people. They are further dismayed to see that Ronny adheres to that custom in not wanting to jeopardize his career. At the local white only club, Adela and Mrs. Moore find a like-minded Brit in the form of Richard Fielding (James Fox), the school master at government college, he who offers to organize a small, but truly ...

Plot Keywords: tourist, doctor, fiancé, friend, lawyer, emotional, solemn ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#29. Orphans of the Storm (1922)

Storyline: Henriette and Louise, a foundling, are raised together as sisters. When Louise goes blind, Henriette swears to take care of her forever. They go to Paris to see if Louise's blindness can be cured, but are separated when an aristocrat lusts after Henriette and abducts her. Only Chevalier de Vaudrey is kind to her, and they fall in love. The French Revolution replaces the corrupt Aristocracy with the equally corrupt Robespierre. De Vaudrey, who has always been good to peasants, is condemned to death for being an aristocrat, and Henriette for harboring him. Will revolutionary hero Danton, the only voice for mercy in the new regime, be able to save them from the guillotine?—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>

Plot Keywords: orphan, aristocrat, thief, nobleman, beggar, doctor, melodramatic ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#30. Free to Rock (2017)

Storyline: FREE TO ROCK is a 60 minute documentary film directed by 4 time Emmy winning filmmaker Jim Brown and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. Ten years in the making, the film explores the soft power of Rock & Roll to affect social change behind the Iron Curtain between the years 1955 and 1991, and how it contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and to ending the Cold War. Rock & Roll sounded the "chimes of freedom" in the hearts and minds of Iron Curtain youth. Inspiring its youth to demand freedom to listen, play and record rock music, to enjoy basic human rights and freedom from oppressive communist rule. The story follows the key political, musical and activist players in this real-life drama as the KGB cracked down hard with arrests, beatings, death threats and imprisonment. Thousands of underground rock bands with millions of passionate supporters inspire and fuel independence movements that eventually cause the Soviet communist system to implode without blood shed or civil war. Interviews and performance subjects include: Presidents Carter, Gorbachev and Vike-Freiberga, NATO Deputy Secretary General Vershbow, KGB General Kalugin, diplomats, historians and journalists, along with Elvis Presley, Beatles, Billy Joel, Metallica, Scorpions, Beach Boys, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the WALL in Berlin concert; plus the Iron Curtain rockers who braved the long struggle with the Kremlin and KGB. The film is produced in collaboration with the Grammy Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Stas Namin Center of Moscow, with support from the U.S. Government's National Endowment of the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, both US Government arts agencies.

Plot Keywords: rocker, activist, political activist, musician, engaging, fascinating, cold war ...

Movie Details Click Here!