Recommended Film List

Racism/Xenophobia

Eyes on the Prize

Sins of the Fathers

American History X

A Question of Color

Skin Deep

Unforgivable Blackness: The Life of Boxer Jack Johnson (PBS)

(see also The Birth of a Nation for historical contrast and context)

In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports (1997, New Day Films)

Fire in the Mirrors

Lynchings and American History

Strange Fruit (2003 version, Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol story)

Untold Story of Emmet Till (PBS)

American Experience—The Murder of Emmett Till

Heavens Fall (“Scotsboro Boys” story)

Race Relations

Remember the Titans

The Color of Fear

Two Towns of Jasper

The Ruby Bridges Story

Boyz in the Hood

Crash

Twilight: Los Angeles (www.pbs.org/wnet/stageonscreen/twilight/twilight.html)

Echoes of Brown (TC Press) (1954 Brown v. Board of Education 50 years later)

Teacher/Student Relationship

A Lesson Before Dying (HBO) (This film also addresses racism and capital punishment)

Dead Poets Society

Mr. Holland’s Opus

Dangerous Minds (This film also addresses gang violence)

In and Out

Stand and Deliver

Good Will Hunting

To Be and To Have (www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/movies/reviews/n_9205/)

History Boys (Broadway play and film)

Half Nelson

Media/Communication/Technology

The Ad and the Ego

Affluenza

The Matrix

Advertising and the End of the World

Identity Issues

Europa, Europa

Lone Star

Secrets and Lies

Bad Education

History Boys

Aesthetics/Artists and Culture

The Couple in the Cage (Chicago Art Institute, Coco Fusco)

Pollock (Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner)

Frida (Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera)

Basquiat (Jean Michel Basquiat)

De Lovely (Cole Porter)

Bigger Than the Sky

Between Dreams and History (Shimon Attie)

Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (Maya Lin and Vietnam Memorial/Civil Rights Memorial)

Before Night Falls

Andy Goldsworthy: Rivers and Tides

Nijinsky’s Last Dance

Beethoven’s Hair

Mona Lisa Smile

The Cradle Will Rock

Drugs, Alcohol, Culture, and Youth

Traffic (A Steven Soderbergh film)

Kids

Trainspotting

Cowboys and Angels

Rent

Spin the Bottle

Suicide/Teen Suicide

Jumping off of Bridges

Jim in Bold

Dead Poets Society

Prophetic Voices

Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Gandhi

Romero (Bishop Oscar Romero)

Stand and Deliver

Motorcycle Diaries (Story of Ernesto Che Guevara)

Nobelity (www.nobelity.org and www.nobelitythemovie.com) (Nobel Prize winners discuss issues)

Religion and Hermeneutics

Dead Sea Scrolls

The Two Mary’s (CNN Special)

Licensed to Kill

A Wideness in God’s Mercy (Soulforce)

Covered Girls (2002 Showtime)

After Jesus (2006 CNN Documentary)

War, Armaments, Resistance, and Violence

Vukovar

Arms for the Poor (Maryknoll)

Fog of War

Weather Underground

Bent

Farenheit 911

Uncovered: The War on Iraq

Schindler’s List

Hotel Rwanda

Arlington West

Occupation Dreamland (Falujah, Iraq interviews)

The Cost of War (Patrick Phillips)

Taliban Country

Get Up Stand Up (1960s protest film/music)

Munich

Why We Fight

Labor, Workers, Globalization, WTO

Salt of the Earth

The Yes Men (Satire on WTO)

Sebastiao Salgado (Artwork)

The Corporation (See www.thecorporation.com)

On the Waterfront

Ecological Issues

Green (Twobirdfilms.com)

The Unforseen (Laura Dunn and Robert Redford film; Two birdfilms.com)

Trade Secrets (PBS)

Old Man River (Aquarium of the Americas)

Toxic Racism

Erin Brockovich

Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons, and Our Environment

A Civil Action

Soylent Green

An Inconvenient Truth (Global climate change narrated by Al Gore)

When Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (A Spike Lee film about Katrina)

School Finances and Structures/Economic Issues

Children in America’s Schools (PBS)

Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Video Recording: The Problems and Promise of America’s Schools

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Capital Punishment/Death Penalty

Dead Man Walking

Paradise Lost I

Paradise Lost II

A Lesson Before Dying (HBO)

The Life of David Gayle

Redemption (With Jamie Foxx)

A Question of Justice

Culture, Religion, and Social Justice

Understanding our Biases and Assumptions

Romero

Angels in America (HBO) (6 hour film in two parts)

The Mission

At Play in the Fields of the Lord (4 hour film in two parts)

Twist of Faith

What Would Jesus Buy? (Rev. Billy story)

School Violence/Gangs/Harassment

Elephant

Bowling for Columbine

187

Bully

Colors

Dangerous Minds

Let’s Get Real (Teasing and harassment on campus)

Wrestling with Manhood: Boys, Bullying, and Battering

La Haine

American History X

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Issues

Jim in Bold

Laramie Project (HBO)

It’s Elementary

Gay Youth

In the Life (Gay teen suicide)

Paragraph 175

The Boy from Oz (Broadway musical)

Bent (Nazi concentration camps)

Eating Out

Latter Days

And the Band Played On

Angels in America

Watermellon Woman

Brokeback Mountain

Out of the Past (GLBT history in US)

History Boys

Intersexual/Transgender Issues

XXXY

Middlesexes: Redefining He and She (www.hbo.com/docs)

No Dumb Questions

Paris Is Burning

Normal

Sex Games: Questions of Gender at the Olympics

Boys Don’t Cry

Transamerica

The Face in the Mirror (2006 MSNBC documentary about gender and Dr. John Money)

Gender Issues

Vagina Monologues (HBO)

Necessary Targets

Vera Drake

Covered Girls

Killing Us Softly

Avengers (1960s British TV series)

Heel Talk (Ohio Arts Council)

Billy Elliot

Masculinity Issues

Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis of Masculinity (Media Education ISBN 1-893521-28-1)

Wrestling with Manhood (With Sut Jahlly, 2002)

Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies, and Alcohol (With Jean Kilbourne, 2004)

Good Will Hunting

Women’s Issues (Body Image/Anorexia/Rape)

Killing Us Softly

Recovering Bodies

Slim Hopes

Vagina Monologues

Talk to Her

Volver

Children’s Issues (Film/Media)

Mickey Mouse Monopoly

Good v. Evil/Human Nature/Adolescent Development

Machuca

Lord of the Flies

Nip the Bud, Shoot the Kids

Batman Returns

Special Needs Populations

Little Secret (Tell the Truth Films) (HIV positive teens)

Helen Keller (PBS famous Americans series)

Children of a Lesser God

How’s Your News?

Monster Ball

Walking is Overrated

I Have Turrets, But Turrets Does Not Have Me (HBO special, 2005)

Youth Culture and Education

Rent (Play and film)

The Breakfast Club

Pump Up the Volume

Boston Public (US TV series)

Degrassi/Degrassi Junior High/Degrassi High (Canadian TV series)

Harold and Maude

North American Historical Analysis

How the West Was Won

How the West Was Lost (6 Parts, PBS)

Earth and the American Dream (www.teachingforchange.org)

Smoke Signals

Curriculum and Classrooms

Off Track (Teachers College press video)

Another Set of Eyes (ASCD video)

Integrating the Curriculum (ASCD video)

Echoes of Brown (TC press on Brown v. Board of Education)

Food/Diet & Health

Super Size Me

The Future of Food: The Truth Behind Genetically Engineered Foods

Fast Food Nation (A Richard Linklater film)

Proleptic Notions of Time

Three Tall Women (Play by Edward Albee)

Dream Analysis and Jungian/Freudian Psychology

Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha: A Jungian Fantasy in Three Movements (A play by Eric Hill)

Banned Books, Civil Liberties, and Censorship

The Outsiders (based on the novel by S. E. Hinton)

All the Pretty Horses

Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties

This Film is Not Yet Rated

Shut Up and Sing! (Dixie Chicks documentary)

Children with Incarcerated Parents

Troop 1500

Pshchosexual Investigations of Relationships/Families/Teachers

American Beauty

Closer

Election

Notes on a Scandal

Child Abuse

Nobody Knows (Feature by Japanese Director Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Bad Education (Spanish director Pedro Almodovar)

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (J. T. Leroy film)

Art Installations by Edward and Nancy Kienholz

Doubt (Broadway play)

Stolen Childhoods (A Robin Romano film, Stolenchildhoods.org)

Born Into Brothels (A story of hope for children of prostitutes in India)

Twist of Faith

Bondage (www.bondagethemovie.com) (Youth in Juvenile detention see also www.booksnotbars.com)

Ethnographies in Educational/Sports Contexts

Friday Night Lights

Hoop Dreams

Remember the Titans

Rabbit Proof Fence

Coach Carter

Ethics and Research

Capote

Classic Education Films/Hollywood Education Genre

Blackboard Jungle

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Stand and Deliver

To Sir, With Love

Conrack

Mona Lisa Smile

High School High

Election

Race, Literature, and Sexuality

Brother To Brother (Harlem renaissance)

Philosophy, Quantum Physics, Complexity, Vision Quest

Waking Life

Babel

What the Bleep Do We Know?

The Matrix

Cosmos (A Carl Sagan film)

For All Mankind (An Al Rineart film)

Derrida

American Pragmatists: C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey

Great Ideas in Philosophy: Continental Philosophy

The Life of Maxine Greene

Great Ideas of Philosophy: Ethics

Great Ideas of Philosophy: Aesthetics

World Philosophy with Kathleen Higgins (B72 .W67 2001)

Natural Law and Human Nature

Other Inspirational/Activist Themes

My Life as a Dog

Son of Shark

Pixote

The Blue Kite

Baraka

Rabbit Proof Fence

Good Night, and Good Luck

Shipping News

Half Nelson