Directed by Oscar-nominated and NAACP Image Award winner David Massey, this dynamic documentary explores why so many unarmed black people have been targeted and killed by police officers. The filmmakers talk to legal experts, activists and law enforcement officials who discuss the inequality within our criminal justice system and who confront the crucial question of how to prevent more violence in this country, including Black on Black deaths. As the Black Lives Matter movement - and citizens nationwide - question the accountability of our justice system in cases of police violence, When Justice Isn't Just is an essential addition to the ongoing discussion about reform and renewal.
8.4A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.
7.7Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.
6.9Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
7.3This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
7.7In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.
5.8An unconventional undercover Chicago cop and his partner are recruited to commit the murder of a New Orleans criminal kingpin.
6.8Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
7.3Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
7.2A documentary of the decline of America, composed of archival material and exclusive footage, carnage, madness, and mayhem with an unapologetic sincerity on the factual depiction of violence in the industrialized nation of the United States. Featuring a juxtaposition of detailed accounts of terrible acts, brutal behavior, and interviews from experts and convicted killers alike.
6.8This searing investigative work shadows a group of activists risking unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ program raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic. Unfettered access and a remarkable approach to protecting anonymity exposes this under-reported atrocity–and an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
7.5A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
6.9In 1992, Mercer is desperately trying to rebuild his life and his relationship with his son amidst the turbulent Los Angeles uprising following the Rodney King verdict. Across town, another father and son put their own strained relationship to the test as they plot a dangerous heist to steal catalytic converters, which contain valuable platinum from the factory where Mercer works. As tensions rise and chaos erupts, both families reach their boiling points when their worlds collide.
7.4The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
6.1When his daughter is murdered, William Duncan takes the law into his own hands, setting out on a quest for retribution. After killing the street thug responsible for her death, he finds himself in the middle of a war with the thug's brother, father, and their gang, who are equally hell-bent on getting even. What ensues is a tense back-and-forth game of vengeance. By the end, William comes to find that the quest for revenge never has a winner.
7.4From a prolific career in film and television, Anton Yelchin left an indelible legacy as an actor. Through his journals and other writings, his photography, the original music he wrote, and interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues, this film looks not just at Anton's impressive career, but at a broader portrait of the man.
6.6Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.
5.9A deep-sea salvage expert enacts an elaborate plan to infiltrate and take revenge on a criminal organization that dealt him a foul misdeed.
6.9Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.
7.4An intimate portrait of Alabama public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who for more than three decades has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned, seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.
5.5An analysis of the rise of the European far-right, increasingly present in both politics and everyday life: an inquisitive journey through France, Germany and Belgium.
6.5After Dontre Hamilton, a black, unarmed man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot 14 times and killed by police in Milwaukee, his family embarks on a quest for answers, justice and reform as the investigation unfolds.
6.5The Indian Act, passed in Canada in 1876, made members of Aboriginal peoples second-class citizens, separated from the white population: nomadic for centuries, they were moved to reservations to control their behavior and resources; and thousands of their youngest members were separated from their families to be Christianized: a cultural genocide that still resonates in Canadian society today.
8.0Jeffery Robinson's talk on the history of U.S. anti-Black racism, with archival footage and interviews.
6.3Exploring how punk influenced politics in late-1970s Britain, when a group of artists united to take on the National Front, armed only with a fanzine and a love of music.
7.6An in-depth look at the culture of Los Angeles in the ten years leading up to the 1992 uprising that erupted after the verdict of police officers cleared of beating Rodney King.
7.5Documentary film exploring the lives of the people at the flashpoint of the LA riots, 25 years after the uprising made national headlines and highlighted the racial divide in America.
0.0In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans, inundating hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted the majority black population against an aristocratic plantation family, the Percys, and the Percys against themselves. A dramatic story of greed, power and race during one of America's greatest natural disasters.
7.0An American story. Traces the career of Joe Louis (1914-1981) within the context of American racial consciousness: his difficulty getting big fights early in his career, the pride of African-Americans in his prowess, the shift of White sentiment toward Louis as Hitler came to power, Louis's patriotism during World War II, and the hounding of Louis by the IRS for the following 15 years. In his last years, he's a casino greeter, a drug user, and the occasional object of scorn for young Turks like Muhammad Ali. Appreciative comment comes from boxing scholars, Louis's son Joe Jr., friends, and icons like Maya Angelou, Dick Gregory, and Bill Cosby.
6.6A view of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhist through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.
9.0Documents the race riot of 1921 and the destruction of the African-American community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With testimony by eyewitnesses and background accounts by historians.
7.0Upon Canada's entry into World War II, the RCMP rounded up thousands of people it considered fascist sympathizers. Among them, 700 Italian-Canadians were held for up to three years in internment camps. None were ever charged with a criminal offence.
0.0The little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898 — the only coup d’état in the history of the US. Stoking fears of 'Negro Rule', self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically-elected, multi-racial government. Black residents were murdered and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate. Today, many of those descendants — Black and white — seek the truth about this intentionally buried history.
7.6It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.
6.4The 30-year legacy of the murder of black teenager Yusuf Hawkins by a group of young white men in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, as his family and friends reflect on the tragedy and the subsequent fight for justice that inspired and divided New York City.
1.0At its peak, The Black and White Minstrel Show was watched by a Saturday night audience of more than 20 million people. David Harewood goes on a mission to understand the roots of this strange, intensely problematic cultural form: where did the show come from, and what made it popular for so long? With the help of historians, actors and musicians, David uncovers how, at its core, blackface minstrelsy was simply an attempt to make racism into an art form - and can be traced back to a name and a date.
6.0For over thirty years, three women have languished in Missouri State prison under unjust sentences for killing their abusive husbands. Denied the opportunity to enter the abuse into evidence, each of the women represents a system broken by outdated and media-sensationalized stereotypes. When a greater understanding of the "battered" syndrome change legal practices in 2000, Missouri's Governor crafts a new law demanding the parole board reevaluate each woman's case.
