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Films with theme "Films about slavery", sorted by revenue
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Spartacus (1960)
, 3h4Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Mann
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War, Action, Adventure, Historical, Peplum
Themes Films about slavery, Films about sexuality, Sports films, Bisexuality-related films, LGBT-related films, Political films, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related film
Actors Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin
In the 1st century BC, the Roman Republic has slid into corruption, its menial work done by armies of slaves. One of these, a proud and gifted man named Spartacus, is so uncooperative in his servitude that he is sentenced to fight as a gladiator. He is trained at a school run by the unctuous Roman businessman Lentulus Batiatus, who instructs Spartacus's trainer Marcellus to bully the slave mercilessly and break his spirit. Amid the abuse, Spartacus forms a quiet relationship with a serving woman named Varinia, whom he refuses to rape when she is sent to "entertain" him in his cell.
Amistad (1997)
, 2h28Directed by Steven Spielberg
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Historical
Themes Films set in Africa, Films about slavery, Seafaring films, Films about racism, Transport films, Political films
Actors Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Nigel Hawthorne, Stellan Skarsgård
Amistad is the name of a slave ship traveling from Cuba to the U.S. in 1839. It is carrying a cargo of Africans captured in Sierra Leone who have been sold into slavery in Cuba, taken on board, and chained in the cargo hold of the ship. As the ship is crossing from Cuba to the U.S., Cinqué, a leader of the Africans, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. The mutineers spare the lives of two Spanish navigators to help them sail the ship back to Africa. Instead, the navigators deceive the Africans and sail north to the east coast of the United States, where the ship is stopped by the American navy and the 44 living Africans imprisoned as runaway slaves. In an unfamiliar country and not speaking a word of English, it seems like they are doomed to die for killing their captors. A lawyer named Baldwin, hired by the abolitionist Tappan and his black associate Joadson (a fictional character) decides to take their case, arguing that the Africans had been captured in Africa to be sold in the Americas illegally, and therefore were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. With help from James Covey, who speaks both Mende and English, Baldwin is able to start communicating with Cinque. The judge rules in favor of the Africans, but the case is eventually appealed to the Supreme Court. At this point, former U.S. President John Quincy Adams makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for their release, and is successful.
Amazing Grace (2006)
, 1h58Directed by Michael Apted
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Biography, Documentary
Themes Films about slavery, Medical-themed films, Films about religion, Films about psychiatry, Films about disabilities, Political films, Films about autism
Actors Ioan Gruffudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Romola Garai, Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, Rufus Sewell
In 1796 William Wilberforce is severely ill and taking a recuperative holiday in Bath, Somerset, with his cousin, Henry Thornton. It is here that William is introduced to his future wife, Barbara Spooner. Although he initially resists any romantic overtures, she convinces him to relate the story of his career.
Case départ (2011)
, 1h34Directed by Fabrice Éboué, Lionel Steketee, Thomas N'Gijol
Origin France
Genres Comedy
Themes Films about slavery, Time travel films
Actors Fabrice Éboué, Eriq Ebouaney, Thomas N'Gijol, Stéfi Celma, Étienne Chicot, Michel Crémadès
Régis et Joël sont deux demi-frères que tout oppose : le premier est métis, marié et père d'une fille, conseiller municipal dans une mairie et intégré au milieu de la classe moyenne ; tandis que le second est sans-emploi et vit chez sa mère avec sa fille, depuis sa sortie de prison pour agression sur une personne âgée. Les deux hommes sont un jour réclamés aux Antilles au chevet de leur père mourant, absent car ayant énormément voyagé et connu de nombreuses femmes. Là, ils reçoivent pour seul héritage l'acte d'affranchissement ayant libéré leurs ancêtres esclaves. Nullement préoccupés par la valeur symbolique de ce document, ils le déchirent, ce qui provoque la colère de leur tante.
Glory (1990)
, 2h2Directed by Edward Zwick
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War, Historical, Western
Themes Films about slavery, Films about racism, Political films, United States Armed Forces in films
Actors Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, Andre Braugher, Cliff De Young
During the American Civil War, Captain Robert Shaw is injured in the Battle of Antietam and sent home to Boston on medical leave. He visits his family there, where he meets the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a former slave. Shaw is offered a promotion to the rank of Colonel to command the first all-black regiment in the Union Army, the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He accepts and asks his childhood friend, 2nd Lieutenant Cabot Forbes, to serve as his second in command, with the rank of major. Their first volunteer is another friend, Thomas Searles, a bookish free African American. Other recruits soon follow, including gravedigger John Rawlins, timid freeman Jupiter Sharts and Silas Trip, an escaped slave who does not trust Shaw. Trip instantly clashes with Searles and Rawlins must keep the peace.
Free State of Jones (2016)
Directed by Gary Ross
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War, Thriller, Biography, Action, Historical
Themes Films about slavery, Films about racism, Political films
Actors Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keri Russell, Mahershala Ali, Brendan Gleeson, Sean Bridgers
After surviving the 1863 Battle of Corinth during the Civil War, Newton Knight, a poor farmer from Mississippi, leads a group of anti-slavery Confederate deserters in Jones County and turns them against the Confederacy. Knight subsequently marries former slave, Rachel, effectively establishing the region's first mixed-race community, even though Native Americans and Europeans (such as the Mississippi Choctaws) have been doing it long before in their ancient homeland.
Beloved (1998)
, 2h52Directed by Jonathan Demme
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Horror, Historical
Themes Films about slavery, Films about racism, Films about religion, Films about sexuality, Rape in fiction
Actors Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Beah Richards, Lisa Gay Hamilton
Sethe is a former slave living on the outskirts of Cincinnati shortly after the Civil War. An angry poltergeist terrorizes Sethe and her three children, causing her two sons to run away forever. Eight years later, Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) lives alone with her daughter, Denver (Kimberly Elise). Paul D. (Danny Glover), an old friend from Sweet Home, the plantation Sethe had escaped from years earlier, finds Sethe's home, where he drives off the angry spirit. Afterwards, Paul D. proposes that he should stay and Sethe responds favorably. Shortly after Paul D. moves in, a clean, mentally handicapped young woman (Thandie Newton) named Beloved stumbles into Sethe's yard and also stays with them.
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
, 1h54Directed by Peter Mullan
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Thriller, Horror, Historical
Themes Films about slavery, Films about religion
Actors Anne-Marie Duff, Nora-Jane Noone, Geraldine McEwan, Eileen Walsh, Peter Mullan, Frances Healy
Set in Ireland, beginning in 1964, so-called 'fallen' women were considered sinners who needed to be redeemed. The film follows the stories of four young women - Margaret (raped by her cousin), Bernadette (too beautiful and coquettish), Rose (an unmarried mother) and Crispina (an intellectually disabled unmarried mother) - who are all forced by their families or caretakers into the Magdalene Asylum.
Solomon Kane (2009)
, 1h44Directed by M. J. Bassett
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Science fiction, Fantastic, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Themes Films set in Africa, Films about slavery, Films about magic and magicians, Films about religion, Demons in film, Witches in film
Actors James Purefoy, Max von Sydow, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Pete Postlethwaite, Jason Flemyng, Alice Krige
The film opens in North Africa, 1600, with the English mercenary Solomon Kane as he leads his ship's crew into battle against the Ottoman occupiers of a fortress town. After defeating the defenders, Kane and his men raid the fortress, where most of the crew are killed by demons. Kane fights his way to the throne room, but, before he can loot the riches, he is confronted by a demon that tells him his soul is forfeit to Satan. Solomon rejects his fate and jumps out a window. Following this encounter, Solomon returns to England and finds sanctuary in a monastery. After a prophetic dream, the abbot apologetically expels Kane, and Kane travels by foot to his ancestral estate, from which he had been expelled in his youth after defying his father. Along the way, he is ambushed by robbers who mock his vow of pacifism and leave him for dead. He is found and treated by the Crowthorns, a family of Puritans traveling west to the New World. When the Crowthorns are slaughtered by corrupted followers of the evil sorcerer Malachi, Kane renounces his vows and swears to avenge their deaths and rescue Meredith Crowthorn, who has been marked by a witch and kidnapped by the Masked Rider, Malachi's lieutenant.
Belle (2013)
, 1h44Directed by Amma Asante
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Historical, Romance
Themes Films about slavery, Films about racism, Children's films
Actors Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Sarah Gadon, Emily Watson, Susan Brown, Miranda Richardson
Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay was born in 1761, the natural daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies, and Captain Sir John Lindsay, a British Royal Navy officer. After the death of Dido's mother, Captain Lindsay takes Dido from the slums of the West Indies in 1765 and entrusts her to his uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, and his wife, Elizabeth, who live at Kenwood House, an estate in Hampstead outside London. Lord and Lady Mansfield raise Dido as a free gentlewoman, together with their niece Lady Elizabeth Murray, who came to live with them after her mother died and her father remarried. When the two cousins reach adulthood, the Mansfields commission an oil portrait of their two great-nieces, but Dido is unhappy about sitting for it as she is worried that it will portray her as a subordinate, like other portraits she has seen depicting aristocrats with black servants. Dido's father dies and leaves her the generous sum of £2,000 a year, enough to make her an heiress. Lady Elizabeth, by contrast, will have no income from her father, whose son from his new wife has been named his sole heir. Arrangements are made for Elizabeth to have her coming out to society, but Lord and Lady Mansfield believe no gentleman will agree to marry Dido because of her mixed-race status, so while she will travel to London with her cousin, she will not be "out" to society.
The Birth of a Nation (2016)
Directed by Nate Parker
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Historical
Themes Films about slavery, Films about racism
Actors Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Aunjanue Ellis, Gabrielle Union, Nate Parker, Colman Domingo
Le 21 août 1831, dans le comté de Southampton, en Virginie, l'Afro-américain Nat Turner mène une révolte de Noirs, aussi bien libres qu'esclaves. Soixante Blancs et encore plus de Noirs meurent lors de la révolte.
Zarafa (2012)
, 1h18Directed by Jean-Christophe Lie, Rémi Bezançon
Origin France
Genres Animation
Themes Films about animals, Films about slavery, La provence, Films about racism, Film d'animation mettant en scène un animal, Films about cows, Mise en scène d'une girafe, Mise en scène d'un mammifère
Actors Simon Abkarian, Ronit Elkabetz, Max Renaudin-Pratt, Vernon Dobtcheff, Roger Dumas, Clara Quilichini
The film consists of a village elder (Vernon Dobtcheff) telling a story to a group of eager children.
The Ten Commandments (1923)
, 2h16Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Fantasy, Historical, Peplum
Themes Films set in Africa, Films about slavery, Films about religion, Films based on the Bible, Films about Jews and Judaism
Actors Theodore Roberts, Charles de Rochefort, Estelle Taylor, Richard Dix, Julia Faye, Rod La Rocque
Despite its epic scale, the Moses story only takes up about the first third of the film. After that, the story changes to a modern setting involving living by the lessons of the commandments. Two brothers make opposite decisions, one, John, to follow his mother's teaching of the Ten Commandments and become a poor carpenter, and the other, Danny, to break every one of them and rise to the top. The film shows his unchecked immorality to be momentarily gainful, but ultimately disastrous.
The Assailant (2009)
, 1h35Origin Bresil
Genres Drama, Martial arts, Biography, Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Martial arts
Themes Films about slavery, Films about racism, Sports films, Martial arts films
Actors Irandhir Santos
Un tout jeune orphelin, Manuel Henrique Pereira, est initié par Maître Alipio à la capoeira. Il deviendra « Besouro », le scarabée, le Maître des Maîtres. Alipio devient également son tuteur et son ami, lui enseignant, au-delà de la discipline de cet art, la justice de cet art, la justice et le combat contre les préjugés raciaux. Bientôt le colonel Venancio commandite l’assassinat d’Alipio…
Squanto: A Warrior's Tale (1994)
, 1h42Directed by Xavier Koller
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Adventure, Historical
Themes Films about slavery, Children's films
Actors Adam Beach, Irene Bedard, Eric Schweig, Michael Gambon, Nathaniel Parker, Alex Norton
Set in the early 17th century, a Patuxet tribesman named Squnato (Adam Beach) is captured by English settlers. He is then taken to England but escapes with a group of men, along with Epenow (Eric Schweig), a Nauset from Martha's Vineyard who was also captured by the English.