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6.0

♡ 7

23%

John Boorman Director

Juliette Binoche as Anna Malan

Langley Kirkwood as Boetie Malan

Brendan Gleeson as Col. de Jager

Samuel L. Jackson as Langston Whitfield

An American reporter and an Afrikaans poet meet and fall in love while covering South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.

The Bang Bang Club

2010

6.9

♡ 17

49%

Steven Silver Director

Nick Boraine as Colin

Nelson Mandela as Himself

Taylor Kitsch as Kevin Carter

Malin Akerman as Robin Comley

In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.

A Million Colours

2011

6.8

100%

Peter Bishai Director

Matt Stern as Joubert

Stelio Savante as Major Shawn Dixon

Jordan Shade as Martin de Villiers

Wandile Molebatsi as Muntu Ndebele

A story of love and friendship set against the violence of Apartheid in South Africa. It is a story of the ups and downs of the lives of the three main characters, and how their lives intersect over the years.

Moffie

2019

Afrikaans

6.8

♡ 19

91%

72%

Oliver Hermanus Director

Christiaan Schoombie as Dorman

Jan Combrink as Jan Gould

Mark Elderkin as Medic

Dijan Botha as Soldier 3

A young man in 1981 South Africa must complete his brutal and racist two years of compulsory military service while desperately maintaining the secrecy of his homosexuality.

Red Dust

2004

6.7

♡ 5

73%

Tom Hooper Director

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Alex Mpondo

Marius Weyers as Ben Hoffman

Hilary Swank as Sarah Barcant

Sylvaine Strike as Woman at House

Sarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.

Cry, the Beloved Country

1995

6.8

♡ 5

85%

Darrell Roodt Director

Ron Smerczak as Captain van Jaarsveld

Jerry Mofokeng as Hlabeni

Richard Harris as James Jarvis

Lillian Dube as Mrs. Lithebe

A South-African preacher goes to search for his wayward son who has committed a crime in the big city.

Sarafina!

1992

6.3

♡ 15

60%

based on play or musical

Darrell Roodt Director

Whoopi Goldberg as Mary Masembuko

Greg Latter as Policeman

Leleti Khumalo as Sarafina

John Kani as School Principal

The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.

Kanarie

2018

Afrikaans

7.5

♡ 3

Christiaan Olwagen Director

Geon Nel as Corporal de Wet

Laudo Liebenberg as Lourens Human

Francois Jacobs as Tiaan Taljaard

De Klerk Oelofse as Walter

Kanarie (Afrikaans for 'Canary') is a coming-of-age musical war drama. Drafted into the South African army during apartheid, a young soldier joins the military's traveling choir, and romance on the battlefield causes him to deal with his long-repressed sexual identity through hardship, camaraderie, first love, and the liberating freedom of music, the true self can be discovered.

Shepherds and Butchers

2016

6.8

♡ 7

60%

53%

Oliver Schmitz Director

De Klerk Oelofse as Eben Christiaan Coetzee

Steve Coogan as Johan Webber

Andrea Riseborough as Kathleen Marais

Eduan van Jaarsveldt as Pedrie Wierda

A lawyer takes on a case of a prison guard in South Africa who is traumatized by the executions he's witnessed.

Catch a Fire

2006

6.7

♡ 4

75%

71%

anc (african national congress)

Phillip Noyce Director

Brandon Auret as Army Commandant

Tim Robbins as Col. Nic Vos

Marius Weyers as Police Brigadier

Nelson Mandela as Self

The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.

Escape from Pretoria

2020

♡ 177

71%

86%

1970s

anc (african national congress)

based on a true story

Francis Annan Director

Ian Hart as Denis Goldberg

Mark Leonard Winter as Leonard Fontaine

Daniel Webber as Stephen Lee

Daniel Radcliffe as Tim Jenkin

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

2013

7.1

♡ 45

61%

Justin Chadwick Director

Nelson Mandela as Himself

Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela

Elizabeth Taylor as Self

Naomie Harris as Winnie Madikizela

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

A World Apart

1988

johannesburg south africa

7.0

♡ 3

91%

johannesburg, south africa

south africa

Chris Menges Director

Tim Roth as Harold

Adrian Dunbar as Le Roux

Jodhi May as Molly Roth

Rosalie Crutchley as Mrs. Harris

A White enclave in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the 1960s. Molly Roth, 13 years old, is the daughter of leftist parents, and she must piece together what's happening around her when her father disappears one night, barely evading arrest, and, not long after, her mother is detained by the authorities. Some of Molly's White friends turn against her, and her family's friendships with Blacks take on new meaning. Relationships are fragile in the world of apartheid. How will she manage?

Goodbye Bafana

2007

7.1

♡ 2

41%

Bille August Director

Diane Kruger as Gloria Gregory

Joseph Fiennes as James Gregory

Dennis Haysbert as Nelson Mandela

Eduan van Jaarsveldt as Sgt Chris Brits

The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld

2019

7.5

♡ 1

83%

Mads Brügger Director

John F. Kennedy as Self

Mads Brügger as Self

Desmond Tutu as Self

Dag Hammarskjöld as Self

Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (currently Zambia), September 18, 1961. Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the UN, dies mysteriously in a plane crash. Decades later, Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger and Swedish researcher Göran Björkdahl investigate the case in search of definitive closure.

Endgame

2009

winnie madikizela-mandela

6.2

♡ 2

71%

political negotiations

south africa

Pete Travis Director

Matthew Marsh as F.W. de Klerk

Timothy West as P.W. Botha

David Tennant as Self - Host

Langley Kirkwood as Warrant Officer Jack Swart

The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.

Mrs Mandela

6.4

Michael Samuels Director

Tongayi Chirisa as Arguing husband

David Morrissey as Maj. Theunis Swanepoel

Jakkie Groenewald as Prison Officer Gregory

Sophie Okonedo as Winnie Mandela

How Winnie Mandela went from innocent country girl to a fighter against apartheid.

Cry, the Beloved Country

1951

7.0

♡ 7

92%

65%

johannesburg south africa

Drama

minister

pre-unix

south africa

Zoltan Korda Director

Geoffrey Keen as Father Vincent

Joyce Carey as Margaret Jarvis

Michael Goodliffe as Martens

Sidney Poitier as Reverend Msimangu

In the back country of South Africa, black minister Stephen Kumalo journeys to the city to search for his missing son, only to find his people living in squalor and his son a criminal. Reverend Misimangu is a young South African clergyman who helps find his missing son-turned-thief and sister-turned-prostitute in the slums of Johannesburg.

The Power of One

1992

7.1

♡ 23

35%