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As many of us enjoy the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the U.S., the occasion couldn’t be better for cuing up a documentary film—specifically, one that provides the appropriate context for the day in question, whether it’s Sidney Lumet’s Academy Award–nominated offering, released two years after King’s death, or Peter Kunhardt’s more recent entry into the genre, zeroing in on the last three years of the civil rights icon’s life. Watch one—or all seven—get inspired, and go out and change the world. As Dr. King famously said, “The time is always right to do what is right.” Below, seven films we recommend:
MLK/FBI (2020)
An unsettling piece of filmmaking from director Sam Pollard (Citizen Ashe), MLK/FBI mines recently discovered and declassified files, along with a treasure trove of restored footage, to expose the ways that King was targeted, surveilled, and harassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation—then headed by J. Edgar Hoover—in order to discredit his powerful messaging.
How to watch: Stream on Hulu, Apple TV, or YouTube.
King in the Wilderness (2018)
“Any project about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eventually finds tension in the space between the urgent specificity of his vision (arguably more urgent now than ever) and in the martyr-like symbolism he’s acquired since his death; tension, essentially, between King the human, and King the divine,” Vogue’s Julia Felsenthal wrote in her review of this film in 2018. The focus of director Peter Kunhardt’s HBO documentary—which includes archival footage of King and present-day interviews with more than a dozen of his intimates—is the last three years of King’s life, as he navigated hecklers, cynics, and detractors; fought for the gospel of nonviolence amid bloody uprisings in cities across America; and resisted the rising tide of the Black Power movement.
How to Watch: Stream on HBO Max, Amazon, Apple TV, or YouTube.
13th (2016)
There is arguably no modern documentary that continues the legacy of Dr. King’s work more effectively than Ava DuVernay’s 13th, which takes an unflinching look at the ways in which mass incarceration has disproportionately targeted Black individuals.
How to Watch: Stream on Netflix or YouTube.
MLK: The Assassination Tapes (2012)
Gathering broadcast news and radio reports from the weeks leading up to and directly following King’s fatal shooting in Memphis on April 4, 1968, MLK: The Assassination Tapes offers a fascinating look at an extraordinary moment in American history: from the riots that erupted across the country after King’s death, to the frantic search for his killer—and the suspicion among members of the Black community that James Earl Ray, who was finally arrested in London two months later, couldn’t have acted alone.
How to Watch: Stream on YouTube, Paramount+, or Amazon.
Eyes on the Prize (1987)
Created by Henry Hampton and narrated by political activist Julian Bond, this documentary series about the “glory years” of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1965 covers everything from the murder of Emmett Till to the Little Rock school riots to the Montgomery, Alabama, transit boycott. Perspectives from Coretta Scott King, Kwame Ture, Alabama governor George Wallace, and other figures who have passed since filming make this view of that era all the more valuable.
How to Watch: Stream on HBO Max.
In Remembrance of Martin (1986)
PBS’s in-depth look at the civil rights icon includes King’s friends and family as commentators, among them Coretta Scott King, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, and Rev. Jesse Jackson.
How to Watch: Stream on Amazon, Apple TV, or YouTube.
*King: A Filmed Record . . . From Montgomery to Memphis (*1970)
Nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 1970, Sidney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s documentary chronicles several critical moments in King’s life, beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. Actor and fellow activist Harry Belafonte, as well as the likes of Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Joanne Woodward, and James Earl Jones, all appear.
How to Watch: Stream on Apple TV or Vudu.