List of films featuring slavery

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Film has been the most influential medium in the presentation of the history of slavery to the general public.[1] The American film industry has had a complex relationship with slavery, and until recent decades often avoided the topic. Films such as Birth of a Nation (1915)[2] and Gone with the Wind (1939) became controversial because they gave a favorable depiction. The last favorable treatment was Song of the South from Disney in 1946. In 1940 The Santa Fe Trail gave a liberal but ambiguous interpretation of abolitionist John Brown's attacks on slavery.[3] The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s made defiant slaves into heroes.[4]

Most Hollywood films used American settings, although Spartacus (1960), dealt with an actual slave revolt in the Roman Empire known as the Third Servile War. It failed, and all the rebels were executed, but their spirit lived on according to the film.[5] The Last Supper (La última cena in Spanish) was a 1976 film directed by Cuban Tomás Gutiérrez Alea about the teaching of Christianity to slaves in Cuba, and emphasizes the role of ritual and revolt. Burn! takes place on the imaginary Portuguese island of Queimada (where the locals speak Spanish) and merges historical events that took place in Brazil, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Jamaica, and elsewhere.

List of films

The following films and documentaries featuring slavery are listed alphabetically. For movies portraying penal labour see the list here.

Film Year Description
12 Years a Slave 2013 The film is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery.[6]
500 Years Later 2005 Documentary covering the onset of slavery, its subsequent colonialism, and how Africans are still struggling for basic freedom.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1939 Mark Twain's title character befriends and takes a raft down the Mississippi River with Jim, an escaped slave hoping to win his freedom. Later films of the book were also made in 1960, 1973 (Soviet Union film Hopelessly Lost), 1974, 1975, 1976 (Japanese anime series), and 1993.
Aferim! 2015 Tragic adventure comedy telling the story of a bounty hunter in pursuit of a Romani (Gypsy) slave in 1835 Wallachia.
Alex Haley's Queen 1993 Based on the life of Queen Jackson Haley, Alex Haley's paternal grandmother.
Amazing Grace 2006 Amazing Grace is a biographical movie about the Abolitionist William Wilberforce's campaign against the slave trade in the British Empire,[7] and features the role of John Newton, the writer of the hymn Amazing Grace, in Wilberforce's campaign.
Amistad 1997 In 1839 a slave revolt takes place on the Spanish ship La Amistad which is heading to Cuba. Two white survivors are ordered to navigate the ship back to Africa, but navigate the ship to the United States instead. The slaves then have to fight for their freedom in court, where they are eventually defended by ex-U.S. president John Quincy Adams.[8]
Band of Angels 1957 Love story set around the US Civil War in which a plantation owner with a past raises a black slave as his son and buys a posh mixed race slave girl.[9]
Battlefield Earth 2000 In this film, humanity has been enslaved by an race known as the Psychlos.[10]
Belle 2013 In the 1700s, a mixed-race girl falls in love with a man fighting for slave emancipation.[6]
Beloved 1998 A former slave experiences flashbacks to her past as a slave.[8]
Ben-Hur 1925 & 1959 A first century Jewish prince is forced to become a galley slave.
Birth of a Nation, TheThe Birth of a Nation 1915 The film portrays blacks in a racist manner. The Root magazine wrote, "The film dramatizes the rise of the Ku Klux Klan as "saviors" of a civil society, and the main black characters are played by whites in blackface."[8]
The Book of Negroes 2015 A Canadian television series based on the book of the same name.
Boy Slaves 1939 An exposé of child labor. Children entrapped in peonage strike for better food, try to alert the government, but fail in these attempts.
Brother Future 1991 Brother Future is a science fiction movie. A street kid from Detroit, Michigan, is hit by a car, and when he awakes he finds himself a slave in South Carolina in 1822. The boy then has to help his fellow slaves so that he can return to his own time.
Burn! 1969 An agent provocateur is sent to the fictional island of Queimada, a Portuguese colony in the Caribbean to replace the Portuguese administration by a formally sovereign state controlled by white latifundists friendly to Great Britain. To realize this project, the agent persuades the black slaves to fight for their liberation from slavery.
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America 2004 A faux British documentary of today reviewing American history, operating under the counter-historical premise that the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War, annexed all of the United States in the process, and thereby preserved and expanded slavery throughout the nation.
Django Unchained 2012 In the American South in 1858 a slave is purchased by a German dentist turned bounty hunter, and then agrees to help him track down a small group of dangerous outlaws in exchange for his freedom and the rescuing of his wife from a cruel plantation owner.
Drum 1976 The film, a sequel to Mandingo, features a black slave who falls in love with a plantation owner's daughter. When the owner threatens castration, the slave plans a revolt.[8]
El Cimarron 2007 Based on the life of Marcos Xiorro who conspired and planned a slave revolt in Puerto Rico in 1821.
Enslavement: The True Story of Fanny Kemble 2000 The film depicts the story of British actress and abolitionist Fanny Kemble, who becomes horrified by the treatment of her husband's enslaved people. Fanny later publishes her journals and their first-hand accounts of slavery, helping influence the British government's decision to withhold support of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.[11][12]
Fiddlers Three 1944
The Foxes of Harrow 1947 Covering approximately the years 1827–1837, an illegitimate son of an Irish aristocratic family comes to America. He is a gambler and scoundrel who acquires a large plantation with many slaves, and builds an empire in antebellum New Orleans. The movie was the first based upon a book written by an African-American writer.[8]
Frederick Douglass and the White Negro 2008 A documentary telling the story of ex-slave, abolitionist, writer and politician Frederick Douglass and his escape to Ireland from America in the 1840s.
Ganga Zumba 1963 Not released until 1972 because of a military coup in Brazil, the film highlights Ganga Zumba, a 17th-century slave revolutionary.
Gladiator 2000 A Roman general in the 2nd century A.D. is turned into a slave who must fight for his life, and his country, as a gladiator.
Glory 1989 During the American Civil War an escaped slave joins an all-black fighting unit of the Union Army.[8]
Goodbye Uncle Tom 1971 Addio Zio Tom is a pseudo-documentary in which the filmmakers go back in time and visit antebellum America, using period documents to examine, in graphic detail, the racist ideology and degrading conditions faced by Africans under slavery.[8]
Gone with the Wind 1939 The film features a slave nursemaid as a prominent supporting character; the actress Hattie McDaniel made history by winning an Academy Award for her performance.[8]
I Am Slave 2010 A U.K. television story of one woman's fight for freedom from modern-day slavery, based on the experience of Mende Nazer, a British author, human rights activist, and a former slave in Sudan.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 1984 In the film, enslaved children are forced to mine for Sankara stones.
Jefferson in Paris 1995 The film shows the relationship between Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a slave owner, and Sally Hemings, a black slave.[8]
Joseph 1995 The biblical story of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph is an Egyptian slave who earns a reputation as an interpreter of dreams.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 1999 Joseph's biblical story, portrayed in a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, starred Donny Osmond as Joseph.
Journey of August King, TheThe Journey of August King 1995 A widowed farmer reluctantly provides safe passage to a run-away slave as he returns home from an annual trip to purchase provisions and supplies, starring Jason Patric as August King and Thandie Newton as Annalees.
Keeping Room, TheThe Keeping Room 2014 The film takes place during the American Civil War. Three women in the South have to protect their home against soldiers of the Union Army.[6]
The Last Supper 1976 A plantation owner during Spanish colonial times recreates the last supper using slaves, in order to teach them about Christianity.
Legend of Nigger Charley, TheThe Legend of Nigger Charley 1972 The blaxploitation film takes place in America in the Antebellum South. It follows three slaves seeking their freedom.[13]
Lincoln 2012 Near the end of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln pushes to abolish slavery in the U.S. by urging Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[8]
Manderlay 2005 Set in the early 1930s, the film tells the story of Grace, an idealist who attempts to oust the owners of a plantation in Alabama and free the slaves living there.
Mandingo 1975 On a plantation in 19th-century United States, the owner sleeps with a young slave. Another slave sleeps with the owner's wife in payback, and things escalate.[8]
Motherland 2010 Documentary sequel to 500 Years Later, the film gives an overview of the history of the African continent and its people from Ancient Egypt to the present.
North and South 1985–1994 A three-part TV miniseries outlining the period leading to and during the American civil war, and the post-war Reconstruction.
North Star, TheThe North Star 2013 The film is based on "the true story of Big Ben Jones, a slave who escaped from a Southern plantation in 1848 and is helped by local Quakers".[6]
Passage du milieu 1999 Docudrama about a trans-Atlantic slave ship voyage of black slaves from the West Coast of Africa to the Caribbean, a part of the triangular slave trade route called the Middle Passage.
Prince Among Slaves 2006 a PBS historical documentary about the life of Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori, a prince from West Africa who was made a slave in the United States and freed 40 years later on orders of the American president, John Quincy Adams.
The Prince of Egypt 1998 Prince Moses frees the Hebrew slaves from the Pharaoh of Egypt.
Quilombo 1984 account of Quilombo dos Palmares, a 17th-century Brazilian community of escaped slaves. Features its one-time leader, Zumbi.
Return of the Jedi 1983 Princess Leia is briefly enslaved by Jabba the Hutt.[14]
Roots 1977 An acclaimed eight-episode TV mini-series based on Alex Haley's biography about his family moving from slavery to liberation.[8]
Roots: The Gift 1988 A film portraying events occurring between the second and third episodes of the first miniseries.
Sankofa 1993 In the supernatural film, a black American model travels to Ghana and is transported back in time by a local mystic. The model finds herself a slave in the past.[8]
Santa Fe Trail 1940 Western centered around abolitionist John Brown, his attacks on slavery as a prelude to the Civil War, and the attempt to find his hideout and stop his violent campaign.
Savannah 2013 Loosely based on the book Ducks, Dogs and Friends, the film is about a white hunter who befriends a freed slave.[6]
The Slave Hunters 2010 Slave hunter goes after an escaped General-turned-slave in this South Korean 24-episode television series.
Slaves 1969 Follows the life of two slaves in the American South of the 1850s.
Solomon Northup's Odyssey 1984 The film is based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington, DC in 1841 and sold into slavery.[15]
Something Whispered 2013 In the United States in the 1850s, a black man attempts to free his family from a tobacco plantation.[6]
Spartacus 1960 & 2004 In Spartacus, a film that stays close to the historical record,[16] a Thracian enslaved as a gladiator by the Roman Republic leads a slave revolt that engulfs much of the Italian peninsula.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 1999 Anakin Skywalker is enslaved by Watto until Qui-Gon Jinn wins his freedom in a wager.
Tamango 1958 A slave ship crosses the Atlantic, and the slaves rebel. A film by Hollywood blacklisted director John Berry starring Dorothy Dandridge and Curd Jürgens.
The Ten Commandments 1956 Biblical story of the life of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of his real brethren, the enslaved Hebrews.
Tula 2013 In 1795 on Curaçao, then a Dutch colony, a slave uprising takes place.[6]
Unchained Memories 2003 An HBO documentary featuring the stories of former slaves interviewed during the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project. It compiles slave narratives which are narrated by actors emulating the original conversation with the interviewer.
Uncle Tom's Cabin 1903Many film adaptations of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel have been made, nine from the silent era (including those of 1918 and 1927) and a German version in 1965.

References

  1. ↑ Michael T. Martin and David C. Wall, "The Politics of Cine-Memory: Signifying Slavery in the History Film," in Robert A. Rosenstone and Constantin Parvulesu, eds. A Companion to the Historical Film (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 445–467.
  2. ↑ Melvyn Stokes, D.W. Griffith's the Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time (2008)
  3. ↑ Robert E. Morsberger, "Slavery and 'The Santa Fe Trail,' or, John Brown on Hollywood's Sour Apple Tree," American Studies (1977) 18#2 pp. 87–98. online
  4. ↑ Hernán Vera; Andrew M. Gordon (2003). Screen saviors: Hollywood fictions of whiteness. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 54–56. ISBN 9780847699476.
  5. ↑ Natalie Zemon Davis, Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision (2002) ch 2
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Samuel, Allison (March 15, 2013). "How 2013 Became the Year of the Slavery Film". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
  7. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454776/?ref_=nv_sr_4
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Staff (2012). "12 Films That Dared to Tackle Slavery". The Root. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
  9. ↑ "Top Grosses of 1957". Variety. January 8, 1958.
  10. ↑ Serafino, Jason (June 4, 2013). "5 Movies Influenced By Scientology". Complex. Retrieved 2016-01-13.
  11. ↑ Berson, Misha (April 23, 2000). "'Enslavement' takes some liberties with abolitionist Fanny Kemble's tale". The Seattle Times (The Seattle Times Company). Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  12. ↑ Kronke, David (April 21, 2000). "Hysterical drama of historical figure". Los Angeles Daily News (MediaNews Group). Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  13. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068838/
  14. ↑ Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (DVD, 20th Century Fox, 2004), disc 1.
  15. ↑ Corry, John (February 13, 1985). "TV Review; 'Solomon Northrup's Odyssey,' Story of a Slave". The New York Times.
  16. ↑ Davis, Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision (2002) ch 3
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