The Best Political Movies on Netflix

What it's about: The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Demonic gang-leader Alex goes on the spree of rape, mugging and murder with his pack of "droogs". But he's a boy who also likes Beethoven's Ninth and a bit of "the old in-out, in-out". He later finds himself at the mercy of the state and its brainwashing experiment designed to take violence off the streets.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A tragic love story set in East Berlin with the backdrop of an undercover Stasi controlled culture. Stasi captain Wieler is ordered to follow author Dreyman and plunges deeper and deeper into his life until he reaches the threshold of doubting the system.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth. Not to conquer or give aid, but to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by Multi-National United, which is unconcerned with the aliens' welfare but will do anything to master their advanced technology. When a company field agent contracts a mysterious virus that begins to alter his DNA, there is only one place he can hide: District 9.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons - they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve the case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that tears them apart.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Dangal is an extraordinary true story based on the life of Mahavir Singh and his two daughters, Geeta and Babita Phogat. The film traces the inspirational journey of a father who trains his daughters to become world class wrestlers.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National Headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. After the editor of the Post runs with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it, they find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party—and eventually into the White House itself.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A biopic depicting the life of filmmaker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate, while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The true story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man ever elected to public office. In San Francisco in the late 1970s, Harvey Milk becomes an activist for gay rights and inspires others to join him in his fight for equal rights that should be available to all Americans.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Kuzco is a self-centered emperor who summons Pacha from a village and to tell him that his home will be destroyed to make room for Kuzco's new summer home. Kuzco's advisor, Yzma, tries to poison Kuzco and accidentally turns him into a llama, who accidentally ends up in Pacha's village. Pacha offers to help Kuzco if he doesn't destroy his house, and so they form an unlikely partnership.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A paranoia-fueled action thriller about an unsuccessful writer whose life is transformed by a top-secret "smart drug" that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life in this darkly comic and provocative film.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 4 others). Coming soon to Prime Video on May 30th, 2019 (PDT).

What it's about: A thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on a the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in America, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, a rich but sheltered American girl who joins the growing anti-war movement in New York's Greenwich Village. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (FX) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hulu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Pocahontas, daughter of a Native American tribe chief, falls in love with an English soldier as colonists invade 17th century Virginia.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix), stream on a TV everywhere service (Freeform) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Meet the dirtiest cop in NYC history. Michael Dowd stole money and dealt drugs while patrolling the streets of '80s Brooklyn.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback: All citizens get a chance of being 'renewed' in a Civic Ceremony at their 30th birthday, unless they run and escape before their time comes.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Dave Skylark and his producer Aaron Rapaport run the celebrity tabloid show "Skylark Tonight". When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the CIA to turn their trip to Pyongyang into an assassination mission.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (TBS) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Spain, 1953. Kilian is a young man from the mountains of Huesca who travels with his brother to the island of Fernando Poo, a province of the Spanish Guinea in Africa, to work in his father's cocoa plantation. Once there, he embarks on a journey of twenty years towards maturity and knowledge, although he will also have to deal with pain and loss.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Gurukant Desai hails from Idhar, a small village in Gujarat, but dreams of setting up his own business in Mumbai. After he returns from Turkey, he marries Sujatha for getting the dowry and arrives in Mumbai to start his business. This film chronicles the obstacles he meets, his subsequent rise and the huge backlash he receives when it is revealed that he used unethical means to rise in the business circuit.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & YouTube).

What it's about: A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In 1921 New York. an immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Ted Kennedy's life and political career become derailed in the aftermath of a fatal car accident in 1969 that claims the life of a young campaign strategist, Mary Jo Kopechne.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Jodhaa Akbar is a sixteenth century love story about a marriage of alliance that gave birth to true love between a great Mughal Emperor, Akbar and a Rajput princess, Jodhaa.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A girl with the nickname "Dumplin'" enters a beauty pageant in order to win over the boy she likes and stick it to the other girls at school.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: In 2018, a young bartender in the Bronx, a coal miner’s daughter in West Virginia, a grieving mother in Nevada and a registered nurse in Missouri join a movement of insurgent candidates challenging powerful incumbents in Congress. Without political experience or corporate money, these four women are attempting to do what many consider impossible.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Navy SEAL Lieutenant A.K. Waters and his elite squadron of tactical specialists are forced to choose between their duty and their humanity, between following orders by ignoring the conflict that surrounds them, or finding the courage to follow their conscience and protect a group of innocent refugees. When the democratic government of Nigeria collapses and the country is taken over by a ruthless military dictator, Waters, a fiercely loyal and hardened veteran is dispatched on a routine mission to retrieve a Doctors Without Borders physician.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Spanish photographer Francesc Boix, imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, works in the SS Photographic Service. Between 1943 and 1945, he hides, with the help of other prisoners, thousands of negatives, with the purpose of showing the freed world the atrocities committed by the Nazis, exhaustively documented. He will be a key witness during the Nuremberg Trials.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A tale of cheats and impostors, taking its inspiration from true facts and from one of the most intriguing characters of recent decades: the spy Francisco Paesa.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: In a rural Indian village, four ordinary women begin to throw off the traditions that hold them in servitude in this inspirational drama.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A common man kidnaps the Indian Home Minister's son to get answers about the loss of his son, caused by corrupt government officials.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: True story of Ashraf Marwan, who was President Nasser's son-in-law and special adviser and confidant to his successor Anwar Sadat - while simultaneously Israeli Intelligence's most precious asset of the 20th century. Based on NYT bestselling book 'The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel' by Uri Bar-Joseph.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend that draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: The film tells the story of Malony and his education as he grows from a six-year-old into an 18-year-old. A minors’ judge and a caseworker work tirelessly to try to save the young offender.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (Vudu, PlayStation Store & FandangoNOW).