Best movies like The Last King of Scotland

Similar in 83%

The Devil's Double (2011)

Plot Summary:

A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein's sadistic son.

Similar in 76%

Lumumba (2000)

Plot Summary:

The true story of the rise to power and brutal assassination of the formerly vilified and later redeemed leader of the independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Using newly discovered historical evidence, Haitian-born and later Congo-raised writer and director Raoul Peck renders an emotional and tautly woven account of the mail clerk and beer salesman with a flair for oratory and an uncompromising belief in the capacity of his homeland to build a prosperous nation independent of its former Belgium overlords. Lumumba emerges here as the heroic sacrificial lamb dubiously portrayed by the international media and led to slaughter by commercial and political interests in Belgium, the United States, the international community, and Lumumba's own administration; a true story of political intrigue and murder where political entities, captains of commerce, and the military dovetail in their quest for economic and political hegemony.

Similar in 75%

Salvador (1986)

Plot Summary:

A second rated journalist from the US tries his luck in El Salvador during the military dictatorship in the 1980s.

Similar in 81%

Amin: The Rise and Fall (1981)

Plot Summary:

The chronicle of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and his tyranic rule from 1971 to his overthrow in 1979.

Similar in 84%

The Experiment (2001)

Plot Summary:

Das Experiment is a shocking psycho thriller about the potential for brutality that humans hide. Even more shocking is the fact that it’s based on an actual occurrence—a 1971 psychological experiment at Stanford University that was aborted prematurely when the experimenters lost control.

Similar in 85%

Blood Diamond (2006)

Plot Summary:

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

Similar in 85%

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Plot Summary:

Bill O'Neal infiltrates the Black Panthers per FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. As Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton ascends, falling for a fellow revolutionary en route, a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul.

Similar in 76%

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 86%

Cry Freedom (1987)

Plot Summary:

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Similar in 80%

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 86%

Colonia (2015)

Plot Summary:

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend that draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

Similar in 76%

Elizabeth (1998)

Plot Summary:

The story of the ascension to the throne and the early reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, the endless attempts by her council to marry her off, the Catholic hatred of her and her romance with Lord Robert Dudley.

Similar in 80%

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 81%

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 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 77%

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 83%

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 89%

Argo (2012)

Plot Summary:

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

Similar in 88%

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 88%

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 82%

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%

Gandhi (1982)

Plot Summary:

In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.

Similar in 84%

Milk (2008)

Plot Summary:

The story of California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, who became an outspoken agent for change, seeking equal rights and opportunities for all. His great love for the city and its people brought him backing from young and old, straight and gay, alike – at a time when prejudice and violence against gays was openly accepted as the norm.

Similar in 90%

The King's Speech (2010)

Plot Summary:

The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.

Similar in 85%

The Good Shepherd (2006)

Plot Summary:

Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded OSS. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.