The Best Political Movies on Netflix

What it's about: A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action, attempting to save a preadolescent prostitute in the process.

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

What it's about: In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?

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: 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: 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: 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: An adaptation of the successful stage musical based on Victor Hugo's classic novel set in 19th-century France, in which a paroled prisoner named Jean Valjean seeks redemption.

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: The TRUE STORY of what was intended to be a peaceful protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention turned into a violent clash with police and the National Guard. The organizers of the protest—including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale—were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot and the trial that followed was one of the most notorious in history.

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

What it's about: When tyrannical dictator Josef Stalin dies in 1953, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. Among the contenders are the dweebish Georgy Malenkov, the wily Nikita Khrushchev and Lavrenti Beria, the sadistic secret police chief.

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 drama based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows the journey of Agu as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. 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, painting 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: A raw and emotionally revealing look at one of the most iconic artists of our time during a transformational period in her life as she learns to embrace her role not only as a songwriter and performer, but as a woman harnessing the full power of her voice.

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

What it's about: Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi, PlutoTV, Plex & 1 other), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix, Hoopla & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.

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

What it's about: A look at the life of Cecil Gaines who served eight presidents as the White House's head butler from 1952 to 1986, and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made.

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 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, Hoopla & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shepherd, one of the world's most powerful men, can have anything he wants -- and what he covets most is Sydney Ellen Wade, a Washington lobbyist. But Shepherd's attempts at courting her spark wild rumors and decimate his approval ratings.

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 father and son go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.

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 cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis—the personal and political fuse to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history. With unprecedented access to Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva, we witness their rise and fall and the tragically polarized nation that remains.

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

What it's about: Spain, 2003. An accidental discovery leads Clarence to travel from the snowy mountains of Huesca to Equatorial Guinea, to visit the land where her father Jacobo and her uncle Kilian spent most of their youth, the island of Fernando Poo.

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

What it's about: To prove a point about measuring up and fitting in, Texas teen Willowdean “Dumplin’” Dickson enters a local pageant run by her ex-beauty queen mom.

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 2 services (iTunes & Google Play).

What it's about: A lazy law school grad adopts a kid to impress his girlfriend, but everything doesn't go as planned and he becomes the unlikely foster father.

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: From his days of testifying at the Watergate hearings to advising recent presidential candidate Donald Trump, Roger Stone has long offended people on both sides of the political fence as a force in conservative America. Outspoken author, pundit, ahead of his time election strategist, this is his story.

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

What it's about: A grieving mother transforms herself into a vigilante following the murders of her husband and daughter, eluding the authorities to deliver her own personal brand of justice.

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: 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: 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 $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

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 $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Microsoft & 2 others).

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, fuboTV & Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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: 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 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: When a covert mission to rescue a kidnapped CIA operative uncovers a chilling plot, an elite, highly trained U.S. SEAL team speeds to hotspots around the globe, racing against the clock to stop a deadly terrorist attack.

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: James Reese has a good job as an ambassador's aid in France, but his real passion is a side gig—working in a minor role in the CIA. He would love to be a full-fledged agent and can't believe his luck when he lands an assignment with Charlie Wax. Trigger-happy Charlie soon has James crying for his desk job, but when he learns that the same guys they're trying to catch are after him, James realises that Charlie may be his only hope of survival.

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 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: After a group of friends graduate from Delhi University, they listlessly haunt their old campus, until a British filmmaker casts them in a film she's making about freedom fighters under British rule. Although the group is largely apolitical, the tragic death of a friend owing to local government corruption awakens their patriotism. Inspired by the freedom fighters they represent in the film, the friends collectively decide to avenge the killing.

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

What it's about: Chronicles Jack Harris, one of the pioneers of internet commerce, as he wrestles with his morals and struggles not to drown in a sea of conmen, mobsters, drug addicts, and pornstars.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi, PlutoTV, Peacock & 1 other), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hoopla) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: An elite group of American operatives, aided by a top-secret tactical command team, must transport an asset who holds life-threatening information to an extraction point 22 miles away through the hostile streets of an Asian city.

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: When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin begins investigating a fake insurance policy, only to find herself down a rabbit hole of questionable dealings that can be linked to a Panama City law firm and its vested interest in helping the world's wealthiest citizens amass larger fortunes.

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

What it's about: Gloria Allred overcame trauma and personal setbacks to become one of the nation’s most famous women’s rights attorneys. Now the feminist firebrand takes on two of the biggest adversaries of her career, Bill Cosby and Donald Trump, as sexual violence allegations grip the nation and keep her in the spotlight.

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

What it's about: Cambodia, once the ancient kingdom of Funan, April 17th, 1975. The entire country falls under the tyranny of Angkar, the communist party of the Khmer Rouge. The cities are abandoned, the population is thrown to the roads and forced to walk towards an uncertain future…

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hoopla) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: The anti-Ching patriots, under the guidance of Ho Kuang-han, have secretly set up their base in Canton, disguised as school masters. During a brutal Manchu attack, Lui manages to escape, and devotes himself to learning the martial arts in order to seek revenge.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hiyah) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: A filmmaker is granted unprecedented access to a political candidate and his family as he runs for President.

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

What it's about: Comedian Michelle Wolf takes on outrage culture, massages, childbirth, feminism and much more (like otters) in a stand-up special from New York City.

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

What it's about: An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.

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 young man who stands for the right discovers that he's destined to do bigger things, which will transform him from a common man into a Superhero.

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

What it's about: Busan, South Korea, 1970s. Lee Doo-sam is a small-time smuggler. After helping a drug gang to smuggle meth, he falls into the dark crime world. Quick-witted and full of ambition, he eventually takes over the drug underworld and starts to lead a double life: a good community leader during the day but an infamous drug lord during the night.

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

What it's about: Data—arguably the world’s most valuable asset—is being weaponized to wage cultural and political wars. The dark world of data exploitation is uncovered through the unpredictable, personal journeys of players on different sides of the explosive Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data story.

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

What it's about: In 1977, a book of photographs captured an awakening - women shedding the cultural restrictions of their childhoods and embracing their full humanity. FEMINISTS: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? revisits those photos, those women and those times and takes aim at our culture today that alarmingly shows the need for continued change.

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

What it's about: In her many years as a social worker, Emily Jenkins believes she has seen it all, until she meets 10-year-old Lilith and the girl's cruel parents. Emily's worst fears are confirmed when the parents try to harm the child, and so Emily assumes custody of Lilith while she looks for a foster family. However, Emily soon finds that dark forces surround the seemingly innocent girl, and the more she tries to protect Lilith, the more horrors she encounters.

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