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: In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

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: Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two thugs who tried to break into/steal his truck. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

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 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 & The Criterion Channel) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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 & Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 3 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 & CBS All Access) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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: Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, works with her boyfriend and colleague, Mason, to help at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Sundance Now) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 5 others).

What it's about: Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix, Hulu, CBS All Access & 1 other), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & 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: 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 & Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

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 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: 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 $2.99 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: Australian good girl Sandy and greaser Danny fell in love over the summer. But when they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance despite their eccentric friends?

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 story of journalist, Edward R Murrow's stand against Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

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 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: 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 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In a dystopian future, a totalitarian regime maintains peace by subduing the populace with a drug, and displays of emotion are punishable by death. A man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system.

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: Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

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 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 & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Brennan Huff and Dale Doback might be grown men. But that doesn't stop them from living at home and turning into jealous, competitive stepbrothers when their single parents marry. Brennan's constant competition with Dale strains his mom's marriage to Dale's dad, leaving everyone to wonder whether they'll ever see eye to eye.

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: In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 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 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

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 2 services (iTunes & Google Play).

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 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 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: 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: Barents Sea, August 12th, 2000. During a Russian naval exercise, and after suffering a serious accident, the K-141 Kursk submarine sinks with 118 crew members on board. While the few sailors who are still alive barely manage to survive, their families push for accurate information and a British officer struggles to obtain from the Russian government a permit to attempt a rescue before it is late. But general incompetence are against all their efforts.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: When the girl that detective Joe Hallenback is protecting gets murdered, the boyfriend of the murdered girl attempts to investigate and solve the case. What they discover is that there is deep seated corruption going on between a crooked politician and the owner of a pro football team.

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 drama based on the experiences of Agu, a child soldier fighting in the civil war of an unnamed African country. Follows the journey of a young boy, Agu, who is forced to join a group of soldiers in a fictional West African country. While Agu fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination Depicts the mechanics of war and does not shy away from explicit, visceral detail, and paints a complex, difficult picture of Agu as a child soldier.

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

What it's about: Kingdom of Goguryeo, ancient Korea, 645. The ruthless Emperor Taizong of Tang invades the country and leads his armies towards the capital, achieving one victory after another, but on his way is the stronghold of Ansi, protected by General Yang Man-chu, who will do everything possible to stop the invasion, even if his troops are outnumbered by thousands of enemies.

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: 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 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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 young Prince Asoka works to perfect his skills in battle and also deals with family conflict. During a struggle with one of his step-brothers, his mother urges Asoka to escape to stay alive. While away, Asoka meets Kaurwaki and falls in love, but must use his skills as a warrior to protect her. A dangerous and heartbreaking web of conspiracy follows, which leads Asoka to embrace a Buddhist path.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Google Play).

What it's about: A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: La Antena (English: The Aerial, 2007) is an Argentine drama film, written and directed by acclaimed film director Esteban Sapir. The film features Alejandro Urdapilleta, Rafael Ferro, Florencia Raggi, and others. The movie begins with a pair of hands typing on a typewriter. The denizens of a nameless city "in the year XX" have lost their voices. People communicate by mouthing out words that are spelled mid-air. The only person who has kept the use of her voice is La Voz ("the voice"), a singer working for the sole TV channel broadcast in the city, run by Mr. TV, who desires La Voz. La Voz wears a hood over her head that hides away her face. She has a son called Tomás, an eyeless little kid who nonetheless also has a voice (although this is kept a secret). Tomás lives next door to Ana, whom he one day befriends after a letter addressed to his house is erroneously delivered to hers.

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: 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 & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Vudu & 2 others).

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 & Prime Video) & rent or buy from $29.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).