WATCH
Below are some examples of good documentaries and films to learn from and educate yourself about a number of issues around race.
DOCUMENTARIES
In this thought-provoking documentary, scholars, activists and politicians analyse the crimilization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.
Documentary
A shocking drama inspired by the Windrush scandal. After 50 years in the UK, Anthony Bryan is wrongfully detained by the Home office and threatened with deportation.
Drama, based on the true story
Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they’re falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.
Social issue TV dramas, based on the true story
Stephen: The Murder That Changed a Nation
On 22 1993 Stephen Lawrence was brutally murdered at a bus stop by a group of white youths in an unprovoked attack. Due to failures in the police investigation, the killers walked free. 25 years later, acclaimed filmmakers Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees tell the story behind a case that became one of the highest profile racial killings in UK history, charting Stephen's parents' struggle for justice.
Documentary, true story
Between 1969 and 1999 over 1000 people died in police custody in Britain. Not one police officer was convicted. In this lacerating documentary, filmed over five years, the families of Joy Gardner, Shiji Lapite, Brian Douglas and Ibrahim Sey fight to find out how their own loved ones died - but each family is met with a wall of official silence.
Documentary, true stories
Paulette Wilson moved from Jamaica to the UK in 1968, aged 10, to live with her grandparents. After decades raising a family, working and building a life in the UK, she received a letter from the British government classifying her as an illegal immigrant facing deportation. Just one of the many victims of the Windrush scandal, which broke in 2018 after years of 'hostile environment' policies, Wilson's story resonated with Executive Producer Shanida Scotland, whose grandfather was part of the Windrush generation.
Documentary, true story
Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap (S1: E20)
This 16-minute explainer dives into how slavery, housing discrimination, and inequality have come together to create the racial wealth gap.
Investigative
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
As she fights the tide of violence against trans women, activist Victoria Cruz probes the suspicious 1992 death of her friend Marsha P. Johnson.
Biographical documentary
Join former first lady Michelle Obama in an intimate documentary looking at her life, hopes and connection with others as she tours with "Becoming."
Biographical documentary
Time: The Kalief Browder Story
This series traces the tragic case of Kalief Browder, a Black Bronx teen who spent three horrific years in jail, despite not being convicted of a crime.
Biographical documentary
FILMS
Ava DuVernay’s powerful drama Selma tells the incredible story of how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the epic march from Selma to Montgomery to secure equal voting rights in an event that forever altered history.
History, drama, true story
In this powerful drama based on the best-selling novel, when a teenager witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend, she must find her voice and stand up for what’s right.
Crime, drama
Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.
Social issues drama
The illegitimate, mixed-race daughter (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) of a British admiral plays an important role in the campaign to abolish slavery in England.
Biography, history, drama, based on a true story
A freeborn black man is abducted from New York and sold into slavery in this historical drama based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup.
History, drama, true story
A neo-Nazi gets sent to prison for murder and comes out a changed man. But can he prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps?
Drama
While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith, in her first starring feature-film role), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defence.
Drama, defence
Set in America 1962, Green Books tells the heart-warming true story of Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a working-class Italian-American bouncer who takes on a job as a chauffeur for Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a highly-educated African-American classical pianist
Drama
SERIES
Students of colour navigate the daily slights and slippery politics of life at an Ivy League college that's not nearly as "post-racial" as it thinks.
Drama, comedy
A four-night, eight-hour event series, "Roots" is a historical portrait of one family's journey through American slavery and their will to survive and preserve their legacy in the face of unimaginable hardship.
Biography, drama, history
Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
An African American washerwoman rises from poverty to build a beauty empire and become the first female self-made millionaire. Based on a true story.
US TV programme