25 Critically-Acclaimed Films and Documentaries Currently on Netflix
1. 13th (2016)
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.
2. Beasts of No Nation (2015)
As civil war rages in Africa, a fierce warlord (Idris Elba) trains a young orphan (Abraham Attah) to join his group of guerrilla soldiers.
3. Biggie & Tupac (2002)
Filmmaker Nick Broomfield examines the unsolved murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.
4. Bright (2017)
In an alternate present day, humans, orcs, elves and fairies have been coexisting since the beginning of time. Two police officers, one a human, the other an orc, embark on a routine night patrol that will alter the future of their world as they know it. Battling both their own personal differences as well as an onslaught of enemies, they must work together to protect a young female elf and a thought-to-be-forgotten relic, which, in the wrong hands, could destroy everything.
5. City of God (2003)
Fernando Meirelles' City of God is a sweeping tale of how affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bené (Phelipe Haagensen), become lords over the course of a decade.
6. Colors of Heaven (2014)
Apartheid tests the friendship between actors Norman Knox (Jason Hartman) and Muntu Ndebele.
7. Deidra & Laney Rob a Train (2017)
Two sisters (Ashleigh Murray, Rachel Crow) turn to train robbery to make ends meet after their mother is arrested and thrown in jail.
8. Difret (2014)
This drama follows the traumatic experience of 14-year-old Hirut, a bright Ethiopian girl (Tizita Hagere) who became all too familiar with the extreme practice of being abducted into marriage. When Hirut kills her attacker while trying to escape and charged with murder, a tenacious lawyer (Meron Getnet) travels from the city to represent her.
9. Fruitvale Station (2013)
Though he once spent time in San Quentin, 22-year-old black man Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) is now trying hard to live a clean life and support his girlfriend (Melonie Diaz) and young daughter (Ariana Neal). Flashbacks reveal the last day in Oscar's life, in which he accompanied his family and friends to San Francisco to watch fireworks on New Year's Eve, and, on the way back home, became swept up in an altercation with police that ended in tragedy. Based on a true story.
10. The Hard Stop (2015)
The police killing of Mark Duggan in London in 2011 ignites the worst civil unrest in recent British history.
11. The House on Coco Road (2016)
An activist and teacher moves her children from Oakland, Calif., to join the Grenada Revolution.
12. Hunter Gatherer (2015)
Ashley Douglas (Andre Royo) thinks everything should fall into place when he's released after three years in prison. He thinks his friends should come to his welcome home party, and his girlfriend, Linda (Ashley Wilkerson), should greet him with open arms. When things don't go as planned, Ashley, a 40-something African-American, restarts his life with next to nothing.
13. I Called Him Morgan (2016)
Helen Morgan had nursed her common-law husband, jazz great Lee Morgan, through heroin addiction. On a February night in 1972, she walked into Slug's Saloon in the East Village with a gun in her purse, and after they fought and he physically threw her out of the bar, she returned and shot him. Then, Helen relinquished the gun and waited for the police to come for her. Many years later, she was interviewed about her life with the brilliant and unpredictable musician.
14. Imperial Dreams (2014)
A reformed gangster's devotion to his family is tested when he is released from prison and returns to his old neighborhood.
15. Jackie Brown (2012)
When flight attendant Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) is busted smuggling money for her arms dealer boss, Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), agent Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) and detective Mark Dargus (Michael Bowen) want her help to bring down Robbie. Facing jail time for her silence or death for her cooperation, Brown decides instead to double-cross both parties and make off with the smuggled money. Meanwhile, she enlists the help of bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster), a man who loves her.
16. Like Cotton Twines (2016)
An American volunteer teaching at a remote school in Africa tries to save one of his young students from a religious custom in which she will be offered as a slave to the gods.
17. Middle of Nowhere (2012)
A promising medical student must come to terms with her husband receiving an eight year prison sentence. The film was the winner of the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
18. Mudbound (2017)
Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm, a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not - charming and handsome, but he is haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, now battles the prejudice in the Jim Crow South.
19. Out of My Hand (2017)
A struggling Liberian rubber-plantation worker risks everything to discover a new life as a cab driver in New York City.
20. Pariah (2011)
Teenage Alike (Adepero Oduye) lives in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood with her parents (Charles Parnell, Kim Wayans) and younger sister (Sahra Mellesse). A lesbian, Alike quietly embraces her identity and is looking for her first lover, but she wonders how much she can truly confide in her family, especially with her parents' marriage already strained. When Alike's mother presses her to befriend a colleague's daughter (Aasha Davis), Alike finds the gal to be a pleasant companion.
21. Queen of Katwe (2016)
Living in the slum of Katwe in Kampala, Uganda, is a constant struggle for 10-year-old Phiona (Madina Nalwanga) and her family. Her world changes one day when she meets Robert Katende (David Oyelowo), a missionary who teaches children how to play chess. Phiona becomes fascinated with the game and soon becomes a top player under Katende's guidance. Her success in local competitions and tournaments opens the door to a bright future and a golden chance to escape from a life of poverty.
22. Strong Island (2017)
When filmmaker Yance Ford investigates the 1992 murder of a young black man, it becomes an achingly personal journey since the victim, 24-year-old William Ford Jr., was the filmmaker's brother.
23. Training Day (2001)
Police drama about a veteran officer who escorts a rookie on his first day with the LAPD's tough inner-city narcotics unit. "Training Day" is a blistering action drama that asks the audience to decide what is necessary, what is heroic and what crosses the line in the harrowing gray zone of fighting urban crime.
24. The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013)
Muhammad Ali fights a five year prison sentence for refusing military service in Vietnam.
25. Undefeated (2013)
Since its founding in 1899, Manassas High School in North Memphis has never had a football team win a playoff game. In 2004, former high-school coach Bill Courtney offers to help turn the Manassas Tigers around. Nurturing his players' physical and emotional strengths, Courtney's efforts pay off in 2009, when the Tigers, led by their star player O.C., seem to have a chance to break their school's 110-year losing streak and finally win a playoff game.
