MY 20 FAVORITE SOCIO-POLITICAL MOVIES

MY FAVORITE 20 SOCIO-POLITICAL MOVIES

Movies in this genre explore topics and storylines that focus on topics or issues arising from social or political challenges such as hate, racism and bigotry, effects of lack of corporate responsibility or government-sanctioned misbehavior, violations of personal rights, etc.  

As with any favorites list, this one is subject to change, but this is where things rate with me right now.

1. JOJO RABBIT (2019) - A10-yr old German boy whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler is finally old enough to join the Hitler Youth, but during his initiation weekend he's wounded by a hand grenade, and he then finds a Jewish girl hiding in his house and doesn't know what to do.   
2. IDIOCRACY (2006) - A completely average US Army soldier participates in a top-secret experiment and is put to sleep for a year, but he wakes up 500 years later, only to discover that he's now the smartest man in the world.
3. 42: THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY (2013) - Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey decides to break the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947 by signing Jackie Robinson.
4. HIDDEN FIGURES (2016) - Three African American women work for the fledgling NASA agency as America struggles to put their first man in space.
5. REMEMBER THE TITANS (2000) - The football team of Virginia HS TC Williams is a microcosm of the challenges and opportunities of desegregation during the Civil Rights era.
6. GLORY ROAD (2006) - A young coach recruits black players to play for the Texas Western NCAA Div I basketball team, and they make it all the way to the 1966 Final Four.
7. THE BOOK THIEF (2013) - An orphaned girl is taken in by an elderly couple who also hide a Jewish man, thus putting all of their lives in jeopardy in WWII Germany.
8. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) - Oskar Schindler, a German war profiteer, uses Jewish slave labor in his factories, but he eventually comes to respect and protect his workers.
9. THE KILLING FIELDS (1984) - A newspaper reporter covers events in neighboring Cambodia during the Vietnam War. 
10. THE MAJESTIC (2001) - A screenwriter is blacklisted during the anti-communist witch hunt of the early 1950s, and when he has an accident and suffers amnesia he is mistaken for someone else in a small coastal California town.  
11. THE HELP (2011) - A white woman convinces black domestic workers in Mississippi in the 1960s  to tell their stories, which she weaves into a story that rocks the local community.
12. HOTEL RWANDA (2004) - The Hutus carry out a 100-day genocide targeting other ethnic groups, primarily the Tutsis, in Rwanda 
13. AMAZING GRACE (2006) - William Wilberforce is the spokesperson and leads the fight to outlaw the slave trade in the British Empire.
14. GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005) - Edward Murrow takes on Senator Joseph McCarthy during the anti-communist witch hunt of the1950s.
15. SELMA (2014) - Martin Luther King, Jr., along with other Civil Rights leaders go to Selma, Alabama to lead a march to the capital in Montgomery.
16. ON THE BASIS OF SEX (2018) - Ruth Bader Ginsberg takes a case to the Supreme Court regarding differences in the way the law treats people of different genders.
17. 12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013) - An educated free black man living in New York is kidnapped in the early 1800s and sold into slavery in the south where he experiences racial bigotry as well as compassion while he dreams of escaping to freedom.
18. DARK WATER (2002) - A corporate attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths to the corporation he represents. 
19. HAIRSPRAY (2007) - A HS student dreams of being on a local rock and roll dance show, and fights for racial equity.
20. A CIVIL ACTION (1998) - Jan Schlichtmann is personal injury attorney who only takes big-money cases he can safely settle out of court. Though his latest case at first appears straightforward, he becomes entangled in a legal battle involving environmental pollution.