Best movies like Cry Freedom

Similar in 82%

Boycott (2001)

Plot Summary:

This made-for-TV movie dramatizes the historic boycott of public buses in the 1950s, led by civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Similar in 80%

The Hurricane (1999)

Plot Summary:

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

Similar in 87%

The Rosa Parks Story (2002)

Plot Summary:

The story of the civil rights heroine whose refusal to obey racial bus segregation was just one of her acts in her fight for justice.

Similar in 88%

Winnie Mandela (2011)

Plot Summary:

A drama that chronicles the life of Winnie Mandela from her childhood through her marriage and her husband's incarceration.

Similar in 85%

The Bang Bang Club (2010)

Plot Summary:

In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.

Similar in 80%

Glory (1989)

Plot Summary:

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.

Similar in 90%

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

Similar in 77%

The Killing Fields (1984)

Plot Summary:

The Killing Fields tells the real-life story of a friendship between two journalists, an American and a Cambodian, during the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, which led to the death of 2-3 million Cambodians during the next four years, until Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the intervening Vietnamese in 1979.

Similar in 82%

Amistad (1997)

Plot Summary:

In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property lawyer Roger Baldwin to help his case. Eventually, John Quincy Adams also becomes an ally.

Similar in 85%

Remember the Titans (2000)

Plot Summary:

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.

Similar in 89%

Invictus (2009)

Plot Summary:

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 team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Similar in 88%

Catch a Fire (2006)

Plot Summary:

The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.

Similar in 86%

Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)

Plot Summary:

Ghosts of Mississippi is a drama covering the final trial of the assassin, Bryon De La Beckwith, of the 60s civil rights leader Medgar Evers. It begins with the murder and the events surrounding the two initial trials which both ended in a hung jury. The movie then covers District Attorney, Bobby DeLaughters transformation and alliance with Myrlie Evers, wife of Medgar Evers, of the, as he becomes more involved with bringing Beckwith to trial for the third time 30 years later. Some of the characters are played by the actual participants in this story.

Similar in 89%

The Great Debaters (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of a brilliant but politically radical debate team coach who uses the power of words to transform a group of underdog African American college students into an historical powerhouse that took on the Harvard elite.

Similar in 78%

Selma (2014)

Plot Summary:

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

Similar in 85%

The Butler (2013)

Plot Summary:

A look at the life of Cecil Gaines who served eight presidents as the White House's head butler from 1952 to 1986, and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made.

Similar in 76%

The Best of Enemies (2019)

Plot Summary:

The story of the real-life unlikely relationship between an outspoken civil rights activist and a local Ku Klux Klan leader in 1971 North Carolina.

Similar in 78%

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Plot Summary:

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist will forever alter his life.

Similar in 88%

Quiz Show (1994)

Plot Summary:

Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film which tells the true story of the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s.

Similar in 89%

Goodbye Bafana (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.

Similar in 85%

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

Plot Summary:

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

Similar in 89%

Malcolm X (1992)

Plot Summary:

A tribute to the controversial black activist and leader of the struggle for black liberation. He hit bottom during his imprisonment in the '50s, he became a Black Muslim and then a leader in the Nation of Islam. His assassination in 1965 left a legacy of self-determination and racial pride.

Similar in 75%

Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)

Plot Summary:

The story of journalist, Edward R Murrow's stand against Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

Similar in 81%

Hidden Figures (2016)

Plot Summary:

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 lines to inspire generations to dream big.

Similar in 89%

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Plot Summary:

For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost's team harboured doubts about their boss's ability to hold his own. But as the cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted.