Resource Type: Films

Below is a collection of our recommended films for middle and high school. We offer additional lists and articles about films. See the links here:

Films with a Conscience is an annotated list of films that we recommend for middle and high school. It includes many of the titles listed further below.

Teaching People’s History with Film offers some strategies for viewing films with students in the classroom that invite insight and critical reflection.

Film Clips is our collection of short clips, many of which are from the Voices of a People’s History “People Speak” productions.

9to5: The Story of a Movement

Film. Directed and produced by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. Working Women Documentary Project LLC. 2021.
While Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" song is well known, this documentary captures the real-life 9-to-5 organizing to address issues of working women in the early 1970s that led to a union.
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Alcatraz Is Not an Island

Film. By James M. Fortier. 2001. 60 minutes.
Documentary on a small group of Native American students and “Urban Indians” who occupied Alcatraz Island in November 1969, and how it forever changed the way Native Americans viewed themselves, their culture and their sovereign rights.
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At the River I Stand

Film. Directed by David Appleby, Allison Graham, and Steven Ross. 1993. 58 minutes.
Documentary film on the African American sanitation workers' 1968 fight for human dignity and a living wage in Memphis.
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Banished

Film. Center for Investigative Reporting and Two Tone Productions. 2007. 84 minutes.
Filmmaker Marco Williams examined four examples of primarily white communities violently rising up to force their African-American neighbors to flee town.
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Battle of Algiers

Film. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. 1966. 123 minutes.
This film documents the armed insurgency against the French colonial powers in Algiers, showing the brutality and desperation of war.
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Boycott

Film. By Clark Johnson. 2001. 120 minutes.
Dramatic account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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The Boys Who Said No

Film. Directed by Judith Ehrlich. 2020. 95 minutes.
A documentary uses interviews and found footage to tell the inspiring story and impact of the anti-Vietnam War draft resistance movement.
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Chávez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story

Film. By Jordan Mechner. 2004. 26 minutes.
A documentary about the politics and economics of land in the United States, based on the story of a Mexican American village razed in the 1950s to build Dodger Stadium.
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Columbus in America

Film. By Paul Puglisi. 2017. 89 minutes.
Documentary on the symbol of Columbus in the United States and the campaign for Indigenous Peoples' Day.
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Counter Histories

Film. Produced by John T. Edge and the Southern Foodways Alliance; directed by Kate Medley.
Five short films that document the civil disobedience staged at segregated lunch counters in the 1950s and 60s.
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