Top 10 Favorite Documentaries on Nonviolent Social Change
Documentaries on the power of nonviolence, nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience, courage, conscience, and love in the face of war, violence, bigotry, and repression.
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- DirectorMarlon RiggsStarsMarlon RiggsMichael BellKerrigan BlackA documentary about the experiences of black homosexual men living in the United States of America.The most cinematographically beautiful and innovative documentary I've ever seen. A beautiful depiction of the power of love between black gay men. Marlon Riggs' other documentary films, Black Is, Black Ain't, and Color Adjustment, were almost as stellar.
- DirectorTodd HaynesStarsMerrill GruverMichael EdwardsMelissa BrownKaren Carpenter's battle with anorexia nervosa and the cultural influence of the Carpenters in the 70s.An innovative documentary about Karen Carpenter -- as a barbie doll suffering from anorexia -- as the conservative forces surrounding her refuse to acknowledge her suffering, and her art is exploited by Nixonian conservative warmongering. A movie that was pulled because of attacks by members of the surviving Carpenter family, who apparently didn't want to face the depiction of themselves and opposed its pro-feminist politics.
- DirectorRob EpsteinStarsHarvey FiersteinHarvey MilkAnne KronenbergA documentary of the successful career and assassination of San Francisco's first elected gay city supervisor.An incredibly moving biopic, with moments that are quite funny (Milk could be quite goofy), clips of Milk's inspiring speeches, elements that could not be made up (the infamous Twinkie defense), and the best-filmed most moving march I've ever seen on film. The film succeeds in portraying both the man and the blossoming forth of the lesbian and gay rights movement in San Francisco in the 1970s.
- DirectorDavid ZeigerStarsMichael AlaimoEdward AsnerJoe BangertNO! SIR! tells an almost entirely forgotten story of the military men and women who forced the U.S. government to end the Vietnam WarAn electrifying documentary about the movement within the US military to oppose the US war against Vietnam. How can you top the power of the message of veterans of a war trying to atone for the crimes they were ordered to committ trying to raise the conscience of a nation. Not to be missed.
- DirectorErrol MorrisStarsRandall AdamsDavid HarrisGus RoseA film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.A brilliant documentary on the unreliability of eyewitnesses and the crimes committed by a repressive state wielding the power of the death penalty - and the power of long-term false imprisonment. It shows every version of the events in question except the one that Errol Morris uncovers is the most likely. The investigative reporting in this documentary famously and justly freed its subject from his prison cell.
- DirectorJohanna DemetrakasHaskell WexlerStarsDella BonnerEric MannKikanza RamseyOne can learn more about how to organize from this documentary than almost any other one I can think of. The Los Angeles bus rider's union organizers build a multi-racial coalition, use creative tactics, challenge entrenched power, win over and over again in the courts -- but then have victory snatched away from them repeatedly -- but use those defeats to mobilize even more people for the next round of the struggle. Wow.
- DirectorSteve YorkStarsShahla ArastehZoran DjindjicRobert HelveyA student group called Otpor! ("Resistance!" in Serbian) forms part of the nonviolent opposition movement that toppled the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.Watching a nonviolent revolution in the making is breathtaking, in this case the revolt of Otpor, the students who succeeded in galvanizing a nation to overthrow Serbian dictator and perpetrator of genocide in Bosnia and Kosova/o, Milosevic. The same folks made the series A Force More Powerful, on 6 episodes of 20th century nonviolent struggle.
- CreatorHenry HamptonStarsJulian BondCoretta Scott KingJohn LewisA documentary about the American Civil Rights Movement from 1952 to 1965.Still the best documentary on the sweep of the nonviolent revolution against racism during the "long 1960s." It might be somewhat traditional in form, but the tradition works here and the content -- depicting the astonishingly brave and loving activists face down the overt hatred, bigotry and violence of racist power -- astounds in each and every episode.
- DirectorRichard GordonCarma HintonStarsDeborah AmosCarma HintonEdward StanleyA Frontline documentary about the events that took place in Tianamen square in 1989.It's tendentious in its depictions of certain leaders of the Tiananmen Square attempted nonviolent revolution in China, but watch this for its depictions of the blossoming of the movement, and the scenes of the nonviolent blockades which succeeded at stopping the first attempt to dislodge the protesters by the military.
- DirectorVincent ParonnaudMarjane SatrapiStarsChiara MastroianniCatherine DeneuveGena RowlandsA precocious and outspoken Iranian girl grows up during the Islamic Revolution.An animated autobiography, drawn in a unique style, of growing up in a progressive family and resisting the increasingly repressive forces of anti-feminist reactionary Iran under the thumb of the reactionary Ayatollahs.