Participant Media.
Description
Inspired by the powerful true story of a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex depicts a then-struggling attorney and new mother facing adversity in her fight for equal rights. When Ruth takes on a ground-breaking case, she knows the outcome could alter the courts' view of gender discrimination. Stronger together, Ruth teams up with her husband, Martin Ginsburg, to fight the case that catapults her into one of the most important public figures...
3) Lincoln
Description
A revealing drama that focuses on the 16th president's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country, and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.
Description
Chicago of the future looks vastly different than the iconic American city it is today. It has been occupied by aliens, and now the city is Ground Zero in a battle for control. Some residents are more than willing to work with the extra-terrestrial forces, but others are determined to resist. People on both sides believe that they are doing what is best for the city. Is Chicago better off with these alien occupiers, or should it return to its previous...
6) Roma
Appears on list
Description
With his eighth and most personal film, Alfonso Cuaron recreated the early 1970s Mexico City of his childhood, narrating a tumultuous period in the life of a middle-class family through the experiences of Cleo, the indigenous domestic worker who keeps the household running. Charged with the care of four small children abandoned by their father, Cleo tends to the family even as her own life is shaken by personal and political upheavals.
Description
Hassan is a culinary ingenue with the gastronomic equivalent of perfect pitch. Displaced from their native India, his family settles in a quaint village in the south of France. They plan to open an Indian restaurant, that is, until Madame Mallory, the owner of a classical French restaurant, gets wind of it. Her icy protests against the new Indian restaurant so near her own escalate to all out war; until Hassan's cooking talent and love for Mme. Mallory's...
10) Promised land
Description
Corporate salesman Steve Butler has been dispatched to the rural town of McKinley with his sales partner to offer much-needed relief to the economically hard-hit residents in exchange for drilling rights to their properties. As they grapple with a surprising array of both open hearts and closed doors, the outsiders soon discover the strength of an American small town at a crossroads.
11) Just mercy
Description
A powerful and thought-provoking true story follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first and most incendiary cases is that of Walter McMillian.
12) Spotlight
Appears on list
Description
The riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world's oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper's tenacious 'Spotlight' team of reporters delve into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston's religious, legal, and government establishment.
13) Circumstance
Description
A coming-of-age story set in the world of Iranian youth culture, filled with sex, drugs and defiance. A wealthy family struggles to contain their teenage daughter's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession.
Description
"The nightmare of war is seen through the eyes of one of its most tragic casualties--a child soldier--in this harrowing vision of innocence lost from Cary Joji Fukunaga. Based on the acclaimed novel by Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation unfolds in an unnamed, civil-war-torn West African country, where the young Agu (Abraham Attah), in a haunting debut performance) witnesses carnage in his village before falling captive to a band of rebel soldiers...
16) The help
Description
In 1960s Mississippi, Skeeter, a southern society girl, returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends' lives, and a small Mississippi town, upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families. Aibileen, Skeeter's best friend's housekeeper, is the first to open up, to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community.
17) Dark waters
Description
Inspired by a shocking true story, a tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths due to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything, his future, his family, and his own life to expose the truth.