Films confronting racism and discrimination — stories that challenge, educate, and move.
Racism Movies — 37 entries in the movies category, sortable by Title, Year, Director. Every row is ranked by community votes, giving you a crowd-sourced perspective you won't find on Wikipedia or IMDb.
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Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throug...
Django Unchained
2012
Quentin Tarantino
8.2
Drama, Western
United States of America
165
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
Green Book
2018
Peter Farrelly
8.2
Drama, Comedy, History
United States of America
130
Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.
The Help
2011
Tate Taylor
8.2
Drama
United States of America
146
Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eug...
La Haine
1995
Mathieu Kassovitz
8.1
Drama
France
98
After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.
The Hate U Give
2018
George Tillman Jr.
8.1
Crime, Drama
United States of America
133
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.
Bound by Honor
1993
Taylor Hackford
8.1
Crime, Action, Drama, Thriller
United States of America
180
Based on the true life experiences of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, the film focuses on half-brothers Paco and Cruz, and their bi-racial cousin Miklo. It opens in 1972, as the three are members of an East L.A. gang known as the "Vatos Locos", and the story focuses on how a violent crime and the influ...
Hidden Figures
2016
Theodore Melfi
8
Drama, History
United States of America
127
The untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson – brilliant African-American women working at NASA and serving as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history – the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race ...
To Kill a Mockingbird
1962
Robert Mulligan
8
Drama
United States of America
129
Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson agains...
Just Mercy
2019
Destin Daniel Cretton
7.9
Drama, Crime, History
United States of America
137
The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despite evidence proving his innocence. Bryan fights tirelessly for Walter with the system stacked aga...
Freedom Writers
2007
Richard LaGravenese
7.9
Crime, Drama
Germany
123
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.
Straight Outta Compton
2015
F. Gary Gray
7.8
Drama, Music, History
United Kingdom
147
In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Taking us back to where it all began, Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of ho...
Do the Right Thing
1989
Spike Lee
7.8
Drama
United States of America
120
Sal is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall become...
Mississippi Burning
1988
Alan Parker
7.7
Drama, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
United States of America
128
Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.
In the Heat of the Night
1967
Norman Jewison
7.7
Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
United States of America
109
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real kille...
Remember the Titans
2000
Boaz Yakin
7.6
Drama
United States of America
113
After leading his football team to 15 winning seasons, coach Bill Yoast is demoted and replaced by Herman Boone – tough, opinionated and as different from the beloved Yoast as he could be. The two men learn to overcome their differences and turn a group of hostile young men into champions.
The Banker
2020
George Nolfi
7.6
Drama
United States of America
120
In the 1960s, two entrepreneurs hatch an ingenious business plan to fight for housing integration—and equal access to the American Dream.
BlacKkKlansman
2018
Spike Lee
7.5
Crime, Comedy, Drama, History
United States of America
136
Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
Glory
1989
Edward Zwick
7.5
Drama, History, War
United States of America
122
Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023
Martin Scorsese
7.4
Crime, History, Drama
United States of America
206
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
A Time to Kill
1996
Joel Schumacher
7.4
Crime, Drama, Thriller
United States of America
149
A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.
Fruitvale Station
2013
Ryan Coogler
7.4
Drama
United States of America
82
Oakland, California. Young Afro-American Oscar Grant crosses paths with family members, friends, enemies and strangers before facing his fate on the platform at Fruitvale Station, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009.
Mudbound
2017
Dee Rees
7.4
Drama
United States of America
135
In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.
The Butler
2013
Lee Daniels
7.3
Drama
United States of America
132
Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself...
Detroit
2017
Kathryn Bigelow
7.3
Drama, Thriller, History
United States of America
143
A police raid in Detroit in 1967 results in one of the largest citizens' uprisings in the history of the United States.
Race
2016
Stephen Hopkins
7.3
Drama, History
Canada
134
Based on the story of Jesse Owens, the athlete whose quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.
American Fiction
2023
Cord Jefferson
7.3
Comedy, Drama
United States of America
117
A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.
Invictus
2009
Clint Eastwood
7.2
Drama, History
United States of America
134
Newly elected President Nelson 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 union team as they make their historic run to the 19...
Crash
2005
Paul Haggis
7.2
Drama
United States of America
112
In post-Sept. 11 Los Angeles, tensions erupt when the lives of a Brentwood housewife, her district attorney husband, a Persian shopkeeper, two cops, a pair of carjackers and a Korean couple converge during a 36-hour period.
West Side Story
1961
Jerome Robbins
7.2
Crime, Drama, Romance
United States of America
153
In Manhattan’s Upper West Side, rival gangs of Polish-Americans and newly arrived Puerto Ricans clash for control of the neighborhood, even as two young members from opposite sides fall dangerously in love.
42
2013
Brian Helgeland
7.2
Drama
United States of America
128
In 1947, Jackie Robinson becomes the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball facing unabashed racism from the public, the press and other players.
Driving Miss Daisy
1989
Bruce Beresford
7.2
Drama
United States of America
99
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
Escape from Pretoria
2020
Francis Annan
7.2
Drama, History, Thriller
Australia
102
South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.
Fences
2016
Denzel Washington
6.9
Drama
Canada
139
In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
West Side Story
2021
Steven Spielberg
6.9
Drama, Romance, Crime
United States of America
156
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Monster's Ball
2001
Marc Forster
6.8
Drama, Romance
United States of America
113
A prison guard begins a tentative romance with the unsuspecting widow of a man whose execution he presided over.
Imperium
2016
Daniel Ragussis
6.5
Crime, Drama
United States of America
109
Nate Foster, a young, idealistic FBI agent, goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group. The bright up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while maintaining his real principles as he navigates the dangerous underworld of white su...
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