Sort by Popularity - Most Popular Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword "abolitionist"
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1. Cloud Atlas (2012)
R | 172 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
Directors: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski | Stars: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving
Votes: 374,350 | Gross: $27.11M
2. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
R | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free Black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.
Director: Steve McQueen | Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Kenneth Williams, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt
Votes: 741,142 | Gross: $56.67M
3. Amistad (1997)
R | 155 min | Biography, Drama, History
In 1839, the revolt of Mende captives aboard a Spanish owned ship causes a major controversy in the United States when the ship is captured off the coast of Long Island. The courts must decide whether the Mende are slaves or legally free.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman
Votes: 82,757 | Gross: $44.18M
4. Mansfield Park (1999)
PG-13 | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Fanny, born into a poor family, is sent away to live with wealthy uncle Sir Thomas, his wife and their four children, where she'll be brought up for a proper introduction to society.
Director: Patricia Rozema | Stars: Frances O'Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, Alessandro Nivola, Hannah Taylor Gordon
Votes: 25,839 | Gross: $4.76M
5. North and South, Book I (1985)
TV-PG | 94 min | Drama, History, Romance
Two friends, one northern and one southern, struggle to maintain their friendship as events build towards the American Civil War.
Stars: Kirstie Alley, Georg Stanford Brown, David Carradine, Philip Casnoff
Votes: 11,896
6. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
TV-PG | 195 min | Drama, History, War
The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper
Votes: 26,336 | Gross: $10.00M
7. Live by Night (2016)
R | 129 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan.
Director: Ben Affleck | Stars: Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina
Votes: 59,812 | Gross: $10.38M
8. Belle (2013)
PG | 100 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The biracial daughter, Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), of Royal Navy Captain Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) is raised by aristocratic Great-uncle Lord William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) in 18th century England.
Director: Amma Asante | Stars: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson
Votes: 33,131 | Gross: $10.73M
9. The Good Lord Bird (2020)
TV-MA | 48 min | Drama, War, Western
Ethan Hawke stars as abolitionist John Brown in this series based on the novel. "Onion" is a fictional enslaved boy who becomes a member of Brown's family of abolitionist soldiers and finds himself in the 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry.
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Beau Knapp, Nick Eversman
Votes: 7,395
10. Amazing Grace (2006)
PG | 118 min | Biography, Drama, History
The idealist William Wilberforce maneuvers his way through Parliament, endeavoring to end the British transatlantic slave trade.
Director: Michael Apted | Stars: Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, Romola Garai
Votes: 25,692 | Gross: $21.21M
11. Ride with the Devil (I) (1999)
R | 138 min | Drama, Romance, War
During the American Civil War, two friends join the Bushwhackers, a militant group loyal to the Confederacy.
Director: Ang Lee | Stars: Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jewel, Jeremy W. Auman
Votes: 14,556 | Gross: $0.63M
12. North and South, Book II (1986)
95 min | Drama, History, Romance
The story of two friends and their families on opposite sides of the American Civil War.
Stars: Kirstie Alley, David Carradine, Philip Casnoff, Mary Crosby
Votes: 6,207
13. 1776 (1972)
G | 141 min | Drama, Family, History
A musical retelling of the American Revolution's political struggle in the Continental Congress to declare independence.
Director: Peter H. Hunt | Stars: William Daniels, Howard Da Silva, Ken Howard, Donald Madden
Votes: 10,305 | Gross: $6.10M
14. Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)
Approved | 110 min | Biography, Drama, History
Humble Abraham Lincoln gains the respect of his Illinois neighbors, growing in stature and respect until he is elected President in 1860 and departs for Washington.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon, Mary Howard
Votes: 2,060
15. Raintree County (1957)
Approved | 182 min | Drama, Romance, War
A student falls in love with a Southern belle, but their relationship is complicated by her troubled past and the onset of the Civil War.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Nigel Patrick
Votes: 4,272
16. A Quiet Passion (2016)
PG-13 | 125 min | Biography, Drama
The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.
Director: Terence Davies | Stars: Emma Bell, Sara Vertongen, Rose Williams, Benjamin Wainwright
Votes: 6,305 | Gross: $1.86M
17. RBG (2018)
PG | 98 min | Documentary, Biography
The exceptional life and career of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon.
Directors: Julie Cohen, Betsy West | Stars: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ann Kittner, Harryette Helsel, Nina Totenberg
Votes: 15,057 | Gross: $14.02M
18. Emperor (2020)
PG-13 | 99 min | Biography, Drama, History
An escaped slave travels north and has chance encounters with Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Based on the life story of Shields Green.
Director: Mark Amin | Stars: Mykelti Williamson, James Cromwell, Bruce Dern, Kat Graham
Votes: 1,533
19. The White Slave (2016– )
TV-MA | 60 min | History
In Colombia in 1821, a Spanish plantation gets burned down, and only the planters' baby is spared. She gets sent to Spain, but concocts a plan to return home and become an abolitionist.
Stars: Cristina García, Paola Moreno, Nerea Camacho, Federico Nieto-El' Gazi
Votes: 648
20. C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004)
PG-13 | 89 min | Comedy, Drama, War
Through the eyes of a British "documentary", this film takes a satirically humorous, and sometimes frightening, look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War.
Director: Kevin Willmott | Stars: Greg Kirsch, Renee Patrick, Molly Graham, William Willmott
Votes: 5,163 | Gross: $0.67M
21. Santa Fe Trail (1940)
Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, War, Western
In 1854, Jeb Stuart, George Custer and other graduates from West Point are posted to Kansas to help pacify the territory before railroad construction to Santa Fe can resume.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan
Votes: 4,155
22. Skin Game (1971)
PG | 102 min | Comedy, Western
In 1857, con man Quincy Drew and his black friend Jason O'Rourke swindle slave owners into buying Jason, who's a free man, and later share the profits when Jason escapes captivity.
Directors: Paul Bogart, Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Garner, Louis Gossett Jr., Susan Clark, Brenda Sykes
Votes: 1,920 | Gross: $0.74M
23. The House of the Seven Gables (1940)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Thriller
Based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this classic film follows a family feud between two brothers and an ancient curse that haunts them.
Director: Joe May | Stars: George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price, Dick Foran
Votes: 1,516
24. Band of Angels (1957)
Passed | 125 min | Drama
Amantha Starr grows up as a privileged Southern belle in the ante-bellum South, but after her father dies broke, her world is destroyed when she discovers that her mother was Black.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
Votes: 2,626
25. Abraham Lincoln (1930)
Passed | 96 min | Biography, Drama, War
An episodic biography of the 16th President of the United States.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Walter Huston, Una Merkel, William L. Thorne, Lucille La Verne
Votes: 1,709
26. Time (I) (2020)
PG-13 | 81 min | Documentary, Biography
Fox Rich fights for the release of her husband, Rob, who is serving a 60-year sentence in prison.
Director: Garrett Bradley | Stars: Sibil Fox Richardson, Robert G. Richardson, Mahlik Richardson, Remington B. Richardson
Votes: 6,293
27. A Woman Called Moses (1978)
240 min | Biography, Drama
A film about the life and career of the African American abolitionist and slave escape leader, Harriet Tubman.
Stars: Cicely Tyson, Jason Bernard, Clifford David, Judyann Elder
Votes: 414
28. Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad (1994 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama, History
A number of slaves risk their lives to escape their masters with their only help coming from the famous secret slave escape network.
Director: Don McBrearty | Stars: Falconer Abraham, Dwight Bacquie, Janet Bailey, Nigel Bennett
Votes: 189
29. Enslavement: The True Story of Fanny Kemble (2000 TV Movie)
120 min | Biography, Drama
True story from the 19th century about an English actress who marries a US plantation owner. Appalled by slavery, she dedicates her life to oppose it and her husband and help her husband's slaves in any way possible, including escaping.
Director: James Keach | Stars: Jane Seymour, Keith Carradine, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Janet-Laine Green
Votes: 297
30. The French Revolution (2005 TV Movie)
100 min | Documentary, History
Documentary about the bloody beginning, bloodier middle and unceremonious end of the French Revolution, an event that ended in blood the reign of kings in France and laid the foundation for a new - republican - system of government.
Director: Doug Shultz | Stars: Edward Herrmann, George Ivascu, Rodica Lazar, Tomi Cristin
Votes: 336
31. Seven Angry Men (1955)
Passed | 90 min | Biography, History, Western
Rise, fall and execution of John Brown, fanatic abolitionist.
Director: Charles Marquis Warren | Stars: Raymond Massey, Debra Paget, Jeffrey Hunter, Larry Pennell
Votes: 396
32. Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil and the Presidency (2008 TV Movie)
114 min | Documentary, Biography
The complicated personality of America's seventh president is explored in detail in this two hour PBS documentary, leaving the viewer to decide whether the man should be celebrated for his ... See full summary »
Directors: Carl Byker, Mitch Wilson | Stars: Richard Blackett, Jamie Blaine, Kathryn Braund, Lawrence Bull Jr.
Votes: 37
33. Friendly Persuasion (1975 TV Movie)
100 min | Drama
During the Civil War, a Quaker couple risks their lives by helping runaway slaves.
Director: Joseph Sargent | Stars: Richard Kiley, Shirley Knight, Clifton James, Michael O'Keefe
Votes: 35
34. Shiro to kuro (1963)
113 min | Crime, Drama
Director: Hiromichi Horikawa | Stars: Keiju Kobayashi, Tatsuya Nakadai, Hisashi Igawa, Koreya Senda
Votes: 21
35. Call + Response (2008)
PG-13 | 86 min | Documentary, History, Music
Fair Trade Pictures to support human rights activism against human trafficking and slavery on a community level.
Director: Justin Dillon | Stars: Madeleine Albright, Kevin Bales, David Batstone, Natasha Bedingfield
Votes: 75 | Gross: $0.22M
36. Underground (I) (2020)
Short, Drama
In the extravagant whaling city of 1850s New Bedford, MA, one family is conflicted and divided by the treatment of African Americans during the height of slavery in pre-civil war America. ... See full summary »
Director: Xavier Garcia | Stars: Arissa Page, Jose Guns Alves, Thomas Grower, David Pridemore
37. The Underground Railroad (1999 TV Movie)
95 min | Documentary, History, War
The history of the Underground Railroad.
Director: Jeff Lengyel | Star: Alfre Woodard
Votes: 39
38. Lions Among Men (2011)
22 min | Short, Action, Adventure
After masking her identity as a woman and joining the British Royal Navy in 1808, Victoria finds herself shipwrecked on an unknown island with the Lieutenant who betrayed her, the slave ... See full summary »
Director: Traci Hays | Stars: Johanna Watts, Dayo Okeniyi, Crispian Belfrage, Jonah Priour
Votes: 35
39. Dear America: A Picture of Freedom (1999 TV Movie)
TV-Y7 | 30 min | Drama, Family, History
Living on a Southern plantation before the Civil War, a young slave girl secretly learns how to read and write, and determines to teach others.
Director: Helaine Head | Stars: Shadia Simmons, Alison Sealy-Smith, Erica Luttrell, Jason Burke
Votes: 87
40. Frederick Douglass - My Path to Freedom (2024)
90 min | History
In 1845 Frederick Douglass, who seven years earlier had escaped slavery in Maryland, wrote his first autobiography "My Narrative" at his new home in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Director: Keith Hoult | Star: Devanie Lothian
41. Slave Stealers
Biography | Announced
Slave Stealers is a multi-season serialized anthology dramatizing the heroic untold stories of America's centuries long war with slavery through a sophisticated hybrid of espionage and historical drama.
42. Grace Bedell (2010)
17 min | Short, Drama, History
The true story of a little girl, who in 1860, wrote to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln suggesting he grow whiskers.
Director: Eric Burdett | Stars: Lana Esslinger, Mark Esslinger, Elizabeth Lackey, Pasha D. Lychnikoff
Votes: 7
43. Truth
Biography | Pre-production
After she "walked away by daylight" with her infant daughter in 1826, Sojourner Truth sues an Alabama plantation owner for her son's freedom.
44. Donaldina: Based on True Events in the Life of Donaldina Cameron
History | Announced
When the most powerful human trafficker in 1911 San Francisco kills a key witness against him, a courageous Scottish American woman and her cohorts join forces to take him down and deal at death blow to "modern-day slavery."
45. Frederick Douglass: An American Life (1985)
31 min | Documentary, Short, Biography
Director: William Greaves | Stars: Hugh Morgan, Jacqueline Scates, Danny Wooten, R.P. Montgomery
46. Goldenrod (2022)
18 min | Short, Adventure, Drama
When her abolitionist father joins the Union army, seven year old Clara learns how to hold not only her own family together, but other families as well. Based on the historical route of the Underground Railroad through Cattaraugus, NY.
Director: Marjorie DeHey | Stars: Ryker Overacker, Harper Holmes, Briana León, Stella Coviello
Votes: 30
47. Untitled John Brown Project
Biography | Announced
True story of the abolitionist John Brown's transformation from a lowly 50-year old farmer to a notorious anti-slavery freedom fighter in Kansas to lead of a famed1859 raid on Harper's Ferry
48. Victor Schoelcher, l'abolition (1998 TV Movie)
100 min | Drama, History
The struggle of Victor Schoelcher for the abolition of slavery in the French colonies.
Director: Paul Vecchiali | Stars: Jacques Perrin, François Marthouret, Pierre Santini, Robert Benoît
Votes: 19
49. Over the River... The Life of Lydia Maria Child Abolitionist for Freedom (2007)
140 min | Documentary
The documentary film "Over the River...Life of Lydia Maria Child, Abolitionist for Freedom" is the first of its kind to present abolitionists in the light they deserve. Lydia Maria Child (... See full summary »
Director: Constance Jackson | Stars: James Moses Black, Davida Bloom, Diahann Carroll, Elizabeth Castrogiovanni
50. We Are Free Because of Harriet Tubman (2019)
5 min | Short
Director: Nadine M. Patterson | Star: Sonia Sanchez