a starter pack of 24 films about the Civil Rights Movement and Black liberation • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

Though the historical events depicted in some of the films cross over into the Black Power movement, this is not an attempt to argue that the Civil Rights and Black Power movements are the same. They are not. While many figures from the Civil Rights Movement crossed into the Black Power movement and into the Black Panthers, the two pursuits are different in their approaches, structures, presentations and desires. Nevertheless, both experienced similar duress from the United States government via COINTELPRO and aimed to win for Black folks, whether through nonviolence or self-defense, what should be their inherent rights.     

With that in mind, this list is made with an idea toward curation. Its chronological order isn’t tethered to the moment of each film’s respective release. Rather the films are listed in order of the historical events they’re depicting. This is to more accurately reflect the growth, or fracturing for that matter, of the Civil Rights Movement into several other forms of activism.    

There are some omissions. But they’re missing for specific reasons. To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance, isn’t here. While I dutifully acknowledge the cinematic importance and quality of the film, it is also, unquestionably, specifically designed not to tell the story of the Civil Rights Movement but to alert white people to the pervasiveness of racism in America. There’s importance in that aim, particularly with regard to the era, though this list intends to show the fight for civil rights through films that grant agency to its Black voices—which isn’t to erase the many white participants of the movement. This list, in fact, features a few films that do focus on those heroes. There are just so many other films that actually center Black figures and are geared toward Black audiences that to eliminate one to make room for a film that doesn’t do either, makes little sense.

Instead, in observation of MLK Day, what follows below are 24 essential films about the struggle for civil rights, in its many twists and turns, heroes and villains, complications and complexities.