Highest-Rated Movies about 'Racial Segregation'

The Help (2011), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Mississippi Burning (1988), 4 Little Girls (1997), Malcolm X (1992), Selma (2014), 42 (2013), Coming Out Under Fire (1994) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Racial Segregation movies.

#16. A Soldier's Story (1984)

Storyline: A black soldier is killed while returning to his base in the deep south. The white people of the area are suspected at first. A tough black army attorney is brought in to find out the truth. We find out a bit more about the dead soldier in flashbacks - and that he was unpopular. Will the attorney find the killer ?—Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>

Plot Keywords: based on play, assignment, barracks, army sergeant, platoon, jeep, reference to franklin d. roosevelt ...

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#17. The Great Santini (1979)

Storyline: In 1962, the Marine Corps family, the Meechums - parents Lieutenant Colonel Wilbur "Bull" Meechum and Lillian Meechum, and their four children Ben Meechum, Mary Anne Meechum, Karen Meechum and Matthew Meechum - are moving like they do most years, this time to Beaufort, South Carolina. Bull - nicknamed "the Great Santini" - is known as a great pilot, but has gotten into much trouble in the past for his sophomoric behavior. He runs his family much as a military commander, where they are all to obey his orders without question. Everything he does within the family context he reasons is to build character, but in reality everything ends up being about him. The oldest Ben, approaching manhood, is the one of his offspring who has the greatest issue with his father. Ben wants his respect, but isn't sure if he really loves him. As Ben goes through his senior year in high school, his attempts to play varsity basketball and an incident between black Toomer Smalls - his friend and their cook Arrabella Smalls' son - and racist Red Petus may forever change the dynamic between father and son.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: male underwear, abusive husband, abusive father, father daughter relationship, fighter jet, honey, horse drawn wagon ...

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#18. Once Upon A Time... When We Were Colored (1995)

Storyline: This film relates the story of a tightly connected Afro-American community informally called Colored Town where the inhabitants live and depend on each other in a world where racist oppression is everywhere, as told by a boy called Cliff who spent his childhood there. Despite this, we see the life of the community in all its joys and sorrows, of those that live there while others decide to leave for a better life north. For those remaining, things come to a serious situation when one prominent businessman is being muscled out by a white competitor using racist intimidation. In response, the community must make the decision of whether to submit meekly like they always have, or finally fight for their rights.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>

Plot Keywords: segregation, based on book, coming of age, racism, mississippi, prejudice, race relations ...

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#19. Race (2016)

Storyline: In the 1930s, Jesse Owens is a young man who is the first in his family to go to college. Going to Ohio State to train under its track and field coach, Larry Snyder, the young African American athlete quickly impresses with his tremendous potential that suggests Olympic material. However, as Owens struggles both with the obligations of his life and the virulent racism against him, the question of whether America would compete at all at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany is being debated vigorously. When the American envoy finds a compromise persuasive with the Third Reich to avert a boycott, Owens has his own moral struggle about going. Upon resolving that issue, Owens and his coach travel to Berlin to participate in a competition that would mark Owens as the greatest of America's Olympians even as the German film director, Leni Riefenstahl, locks horns with her country's Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels, to film the politically embarrassing fact for posterity.

Plot Keywords: track and field, 1930s, running, berlin germany, racial prejudice, african american, racism ...

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#20. The Little Colonel (1935)

Storyline: After Southern belle Elizabeth Lloyd runs off to marry Yankee Jack Sherman, her father, a former Confederate colonel during the Civil War, vows to never speak to her again. Several years pass and Elizabeth returns to her home town with her young daughter. The little girl charms her crusty grandfather and tries to patch things up between him and her mother.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>

Plot Keywords: gunshot, gold, elopement, deception, cook, civil war veteran, children ...

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#21. Cadillac Records (2008)

Storyline: In this tale of sex, violence, race, and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, "Cadillac Records" follows the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.

Plot Keywords: burning building, homage, immigrant, interracial relationship, jew, microphone, montage ...

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#22. Days of Glory (2006)

Storyline: Algeria, 1943, through Italy and France, to Alsace in early 1945, with a coda years later. Arabs volunteer to fight Nazis to liberate France, their motherland. We follow Saïd, dirt poor, an orderly for a grizzled sergeant, Martinez, a pied noir with some willingness to speak up for his Arab troops; Messaoud, a crack shot, who in Province falls in love with a French woman who loves him back; and Abdelkader, a corporal, a budding intellectual with a keen sense of injustice. The men fight with courage against a backdrop of small and large indignities: French soldiers get better food, time for leave, and promotions. Is the promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity hollow?

Plot Keywords: year 1944, battle, firearm, cigarette smoking, reference to allah, 1940s, world war two ...

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#23. Loving (2016)

Storyline: Richard Loving, a white construction worker in Caroline County, Virginia, falls in love with a local black woman and family friend, Mildred Jeter. Upon Mildred discovering that she is pregnant, they decide to marry, but knowing that interracial marriage violates Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws, they drive to Washington, D.C. to get married in 1958. Richard makes plans to build a house for Mildred less than a mile from her family home..

Plot Keywords: racial segregation, interracial couple, based on true story, interracial love, racism, city country contrast, pregnant wife ...

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#24. The Sapphires (2012)

Storyline: 1968 was the year that changed the world. And for four young Aboriginal sisters from a remote mission this is the year that would change their lives forever. Around the globe, there was protest and revolution in the streets. Indigenous Australians finally secured the right to vote. There were drugs and the shock of a brutal assassination. And there was Vietnam. The sisters, Cynthia, Gail, Julie and Kay are discovered by Dave, a talent scout with a kind heart, very little rhythm but a great knowledge of soul music. Billed as Australia's answer to 'The Supremes', Dave secures the sisters their first true gig, and flies them to Vietnam to sing for the American troops. Based on a true story, THE SAPPHIRES is a triumphant celebration of youthful emotion, family and music.

Plot Keywords: soul music, based on true story, singer, female singer, singing, vietnam war, audition ...

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#25. Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

Storyline: Set against the backdrop of 1950s New York, "Motherless Brooklyn" follows Lionel Essrog (Norton), a lonely private detective afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome, as he ventures to solve his friend's murder. Armed only with a few clues and the powerful engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely-guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance.—Warner Bros.

Plot Keywords: neo noir, 1950s, jazz music, based on novel, friendship, urban decay, corrupt official ...

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#27. The Good Shepherd (2006)

Storyline: Laconic and self-contained, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) heads C.I.A. covert operations during the Bay of Pigs. The agency suspects that Fidel Castro was tipped, so Wilson looks for the leak. As he investigates, he recalls, in a series of flashbacks, his father's death, student days at Yale (poetry; Skull and Bones), recruitment into the fledgling O.S.S., truncated affairs, a shotgun marriage, cutting his teeth on spy craft in London, distance from his son, the emergence of the Cold War, and relationships with agency, British, and Soviet counterparts. We watch his idealism give way to something else: disclosing the nature of that something else is at the heart of this movie's narration as he closes in on the leak.

Plot Keywords: cia, year 1961, year 1939, year 1940, year 1944, year 1945, year 1947 ...

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#28. Animal Factory (2000)

Storyline: Ron, who's young, slight, and privileged, is sentenced to prison on marijuana charges. For whatever reason, he brings out paternal feelings in an 18-year prison veteran, Earl Copan, who takes Ron under his wing. The film explores the nature of that relationship, Ron's part in Earl's gang, and the way Ron deals with aggressive cons intent on assault and rape. There's casual racism, too, in the prisoners and the guards, a strike called by Black prisoners, and the nearly omnipresence of hard drugs. Ron's lawyer is working on getting Ron out quickly, Earl has a shot at parole, and death seems to be waiting in the next cell. Will prison turn Ron into an animal?

Plot Keywords: prison, prison cell, cigarette smoking, homosexual, tattoo, violence, drug use ...

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#29. Hairspray (2007)

Storyline: Tracy Turnblad, a teenager with all the right moves, is obsessed with the Corny Collins Show. Every day after school, she and her best friend Penny run home to watch the show and drool over the hot Link Larkin, much to Tracy's mother Edna's dismay. After one of the stars of the show leaves, Corny Collins holds auditions to see who will be the next teen regular. With the help of her friend Seaweed, Tracy is chosen, angering evil dance queen Amber Von Tussle and her mother Velma. Tracy then decides that it's not fair that black kids can only dance on the show once a month (on "Negro Day"), and with the help of Seaweed, Link, Penny, Motormouth Maybelle, her father, and Edna, she's going to integrate the show.....without denting her 'do.

Plot Keywords: 1960s, baltimore maryland, interracial romance, remake, racial segregation, racial tension, boys' bathroom ...

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