Critic’s Notebook: The Under-Seen Films That Speak to This Moment in American Politics

Halfway through Alex Garland’s Civil War, a troupe of war correspondents come across a grisly scene. Three of their colleagues kneel before a mass grave, guarded by a band of insurgents somewhere in the American South. As the journalists approach, the rebel group leader (a chilling Jesse Plemons), submits them to a hostile interrogation, demanding to know where they’re from and what they want.

“I’m just saying, we’re American,” pleads Joel, a photojournalist played by Wagner Moura. In response, Plemons’ character scratches his beard in mock confusion before asking, “What kind of American are you?” 

What kind of American are you? That question, and all its attendant anxieties, are the prevailing mood of this moment. And depending on how you identify, “this moment” might stretch back decades (perhaps even centuries) or to just last week, when a majority of Americans voted to reinstate Donald J. Trump as president.

The results came as a shock to large swaths of the nation who had hoped that the election of Vice President Kamala Harris would protect the United States from the kind of fascism sweeping across the world. But for some — communities of color and queer and trans people, for example— Trump’s re-election only reaffirmed nightmares about a country whose major civil rights gains are young when compared to its oppressive history. Days after the polls have been closed, the results tallied and the exit surveys collated into tidy graphs, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness has settled into the atmosphere. 

It’s no surprise, then, that we might turn to culture to help us make sense of the moment. The task should have been straightforward, especially since so many of this year’s movies seem to be vying for the title of “most politically salient.” Yet few of the most obvious mainstream contenders resonated with me. While Civil War considers the violent consequences of extreme factionalism in the U.S., it fails to speak persuasively on how the country might reach or avoid such a point to begin with. The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as a young Trump and Jeremy Strong as his mentor Roy Cohn, is an absorbing character study of the ghoulish figure we’ll have to call president again. But although parts of Ali Abaasi’s film illustrate how the news media fed into Trump’s early mythologizing — lessons still worth heeding — they feel thin in comparison to its bawdy depiction of Trump as a grifter motivated by daddy issues.

Conclave, which stars Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal caught within the maelstrom of gossip, betrayal and ego, renders the papal appointment as a nail-biting election. The comparison to the Harris versus Trump showdown is obvious — the papacy must choose between the lesser of two evils — but the fun of Edward Berger’s picture doubles as its weakness. Watching the Vatican as a cesspool of cattiness and political scheming is so entertaining that it’s easy to forget about the institutional malfeasance at the heart of it all.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II makes an admirable attempt to acknowledge corrupt systems instead of individual actors, by gesturing at imperial rot and the insatiable appetites of those in command. But the nagging ambiguity of its politics allows anyone — even those with Goliath-like political influence — to see themselves as a David. A subversion of these tropes that have more to say than simply “empire is bad” would have been welcomed.

So where do we turn? Movies are not a salve for electoral discontent, and nor are they a replacement for political education. But they can help us see the world more clearly. The films that have grounded me these past couple weeks are minor key narratives and international offerings, some by directors working within or exiled from politically repressive regimes. They are ones in which despair can be acknowledged without becoming modus operandi. How they exercise hope — whether by wielding historical context or showing what’s possible in bleak realities — is worth our attention. 

An obvious place to start is with a handful of documentaries that are both informative and instructive as to how we got here. Bad Faith, directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones, and God & Country, directed by Dan Partland, investigate the history of Christian Nationalism and the predictability of movement leaders’ alliance with Trump, with the former delving deeper into the history of religious movements in the United States and the latter drawing fascinating conclusions about how current conservative podcasters are used to foment right-wing fears.

Both films argue that the Christian Right did not emerge as a response to Roe v. Wade, as many might believe, but were mobilized by desegregation and incentivized by money. A 1971 lower court ruling that decided segregated institutions would lose their tax-exempt status incensed folks like televangelist and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, who did not want to integrate their churches. Anti-government views took root, and the conservative faction worked to accumulate power. Their 1981 presidential campaign to elect Ronald Reagan — who, as a twice-married celebrity California governor, contradicted many of the values espoused by the Christian Right — was the first of the movement’s many incongruous alliances.

Abortion was, however, a key issue during this election cycle, and it’s another area around which the Christian Right has strategically organized for decades. In Preconceived, directors Sabrine Keane and Kate Dumke give some background about the movement’s anti-abortion efforts since Roe v. Wade. Their clarifying doc concerns crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) — offices around the U.S. that advertise themselves as abortion clinics when they, instead, try to prevent pregnant people from getting them — to lay bare the contradictions within the conservative mission and reveal its real goals.

Zurawski v Texas can be read as a companion piece to Preconceived. Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s disquieting doc surveys the cruelty of our post-Roe world and observes a team trying to change it. Straightforward in style and clear-eyed in its convictions, the film follows a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights as she and a group of plaintiffs sue the Texas government over their restrictive anti-abortion laws. Zurawski shows how everyday people work on the local level to fight disastrous policies — no matter who is in office.

Similarly, while Union and No Other Land might not look to have much in common at first glance, both offer models of organizing and resistance. They also tell the story of how power shapes our lives. (Both documentaries struggled to secure distribution this fall despite strong festival reception but have since gone on to have limited releases.)

Stephen Maing and Brett Story’s Union follows Chris Smalls and the Amazon Labor Union as they organize employees at a Staten Island warehouse. The directors’ fly-on-the-wall approach yields a dynamic process-doc, which details the level of collaboration required to organize any group of people. Smalls and his comrades engage in challenging conversations about their differences and work through disagreements in order to create a union that serves all its members. The process is messy but urgent. It also affirms that a true democratic process can’t glibly dismiss the concerns of the people — whether it’s the new Trump voters disgruntled by the economy or progressives who rightly felt dismissed by Harris’ campaign.

Organizing takes on a different form in No Other Land, a harrowing documentary about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, directed by a collective of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers. The film testifies to the resilience of residents in Masafer Yatta as they try to save their homes from Israeli military encroachment under apartheid rule. Scenes of Palestinians marching in protest and documenting abuse by Israeli soldiers recall images from 2020, when Americans demonstrated against police brutality in reaction to George Floyd’s murder. It serves as a reminder that across the world, the disenfranchised fight in big and small ways. 

Some of this year’s international narrative features show us exactly how, starting with The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof. The auteur has been a target of the Iranian government, who consider his movies “propaganda against the system,” for years, and he recently fled the country after receiving an eight-year prison sentence. His latest film, which was shot secretly and will be released on Nov. 27 by Neon, is a searing anti-patriarchal observation of Imam (Misagh Zare), an ambitious investigator who subjects his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani,) and two teenage daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), to a harrowing inquiry after his police-issued gun goes missing.

As Imam searches the apartment for his firearm, his daughters observe dissent through their phones. They are galvanized to stand up to their father’s misogynistic behavior by witnessing the students protesting the real-life death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian who was arrested after refusing to wear a hijab. Interspersed throughout Rasoulof’s nail biting thriller is documentary footage of these courageous demonstrations in Tehran. 

Tim Mielant’s Small Things Like These operates at a quieter register, but also offers an affecting example of individual resistance. Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a gentle and industrious man who’s troubled by memories of his own difficult childhood after he discovers one of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries in his town. Over the protests of everyone around him — including his wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh), who reminds him that he has his own daughters to care for — he refuses to be complicit in ignoring the abusive practices of the church. In a move that should inspire us all to take action where and when we can, Bill chooses to intervene. 

Looking outside the typical blockbuster fare, the list of movies applicable to this moment seems endless. I took solace in Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (now in select theaters), a poignant drama about three women who form a bond despite the isolation of living in Mumbai. The drama wears its politics lightly but navigates it with admirable intention: A thread about the relationship between a Hindu and Muslim character is particularly radical since India’s current government, led by Narendra Modi, has made headlines for its anti-Muslim discrimination. Through All We Imagine, Kapadia reminds us that seeking out community is the only antidote to the heightened individualism on display during uncertain times. 

Nanfu Wang’s Night Is Not Eternal, which premieres on HBO Nov. 19, makes another case for community, albeit on a broader scale. The doc chronicles the complicated friendship between Wang and Rosa María Payá, a Cuban pro-democracy activist, and braids it into a wider consideration of the fight against authoritarianism in China and Cuba. It also considers why people who flee punishing regimes for the United States might then vote for someone like Trump. That thread gains resonance as we try to make sense of exit polls, which show increased support for the incoming president.

And when in doubt, the past remains the most instructive tool. History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it does echo. A few months ago, THR’s chief film critic David Rooney compiled a list of Hollywood’s best political movies. As for me? I recently found myself watching Agnes Varda’s Black Panthers (1968), a short documentary about the political organization’s protests over the arrest of their co-founder Huey P. Newton. Its themes, especially around police violence, are sadly still relevant.

Yet the film is ultimately a hopeful one. It’s heartening to hear how Party members created social programs for their community, offered accessible political education — easy to read pamphlets with pictures; a focus on conversation — and committed themselves to helping people redirect their rage at institutions instead of individual citizens.

Through interviews with Black Panther Party members, demonstrators and the occasional curious passersby, the doc testifies to the people’s power to unify around real change. In the words of one party member: It’s only after people learn about the systems keeping them down, can they try to change it themselves.