Our members recommend movies that are available on DVD/Blueray that we can show at the Trinity Theater on Monday, once a month.
Movies are selected from the list at meetings or by email conversations.
Here are the movies recommended so far. If you want to vote for one of these, or suggest your own favorites, please go to Contact Us and send a message.
Already Shown:JoJo Rabbit, No Other Land, The Last Class, Salt of the Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, The Penguin Lessons, Hidden Figures, Cesar Chavez, 1984, Paper Clips
Selections for future months:
The Rosa Parks Story: a 2002 account of the life of Mrs. Rosa Louise McCauley Parks and her actions in the civil rights movement. After she refused to give up her seat for a White man on a racially segregated bus after a long day at work, she was arrested. Her example and treatment prompted a bus boycott as a major civil rights demonstration in Montgomery, Alabama; it lasted 381 days from 1955 to 1956. Angela Bassett portrays Rosa Parks, with Cicely Tyson in a supporting role as her mother. It was broadcast by CBS on February 24, 2002. It received awards from the NAACP and the Black Reel Awards.
The Help A 2011 period drama film set during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. In an attempt to become a legitimate journalist and writer, a young white woman decides to write a book from the point of view of the local maids, exposing the racism and discrimination they face as they work for white families. The Help received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Actress and a win for Best Supporting Actress The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
A Small Act: This 2012 documentary tells a compelling pay-it-forward story of a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl who fled to Sweden without her parents. She became a teacher and signed up to send about $15 per month to keep a child in primary school in Kenya. That Kenyan child went to Harvard Law School, became a human rights lawyer and dedicated his life to fighting genocide and crimes against humanity. He created a scholarship foundation to educate hundreds more Kenyan children. The ripples keep spreading, the kindness is still multiplying, and it all began with one small act.
Sullivan’s Travels is a 1941 satire of the film industry. A famous Hollywood comedy director longs to make a socially relevant drama. He sets out to live as a tramp to gain life experience for his forthcoming film. Along the way he unites with a poor aspiring actress who accompanies him. Sullivan's Travels received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, but over it has been called a "classic", "one of the finest movies about movies ever made" and a "masterpiece" In 1990, Sullivan's Travels was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Missing is a 1982 American biographical thriller drama based on the disappearance of American journalist Charles Horman in the aftermath of the US-backed Chilean coup of 1973, which deposed the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende. Set during the days and weeks following Horman's disappearance, it examines the relationship between Horman's wife Beth and his father Edmund and their subsequent quest to find Horman. Missing received four nominations at the 55th Academy Awards; Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Lemmon), Best Actress (Sissy Spacek), and won Best Adapted Screenplay. The film created significant controversy in Chile and was banned during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.
Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film written, produced, directed by, and starring Michael Moore, in his directorial debut. Moore portrays the regional economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's action of closing several auto plants in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, reducing GM's employees in that area from 80,000 in 1978 to about 50,000 in 1992.
Capitalism: A Love Story: Considered to be Michael Moore’s best film, skewers both major political partis for sellin out millions of people devastated by loss of homes and jobs to the interests of fat cat capitalists.
You Can’t Take It With You: a 1938 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Capra, and starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, and Edward Arnold. Adapted by Robert Riskin from the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart,[5] the film is about a man from a family of rich snobs who becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family. A critical and commercial success, the film received two Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Director for Frank Capra.
Places in the Heart: a 1984 American drama film written and directed by Robert Benton.[2][3] Set in 1930s Texas during the Great Depression, the film stars Sally Field as a recently widowed woman who struggles to save her farm with the help of a blind lodger and a Black laborer. The cast also includes John Malkovich, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Danny Glover, and Terry O'Quinn.
A Face in the Crowd is a 1957 American satirical drama film starring Andy Griffith in his film debut. In late 1950s America, Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a drifter, is discovered by the producer of a small-market radio program and rises to great fame and influence on national television. As his fame, influence and ego increase, he becomes hideously corrupted by his new power. Tagline: “Power! He loved it! He took it raw in big gulpfuls…he liked the taste, the way it mixed with the bourbon and the sin in his blood!” Sound familiar?
Why We Fight: An unflinching look at the anatomy of American war-making. This 2005 documentary explores a half-century of US foreign policy from World War II to the Iraq War, exploring the political, economic and ideological forces that drive America to fight.
Cabaret: A 1966 musical set in 1929–1930 Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age as the Nazis rise to power It focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around American writer Clifford Bradshaw's relations with English cabaret performer Sally Bowles. A subplot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor. Overseeing the action is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub, and the club itself serves as a metaphor for ominous political developments in late Weimar Germany.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy: 2025, on Director’s Tour now (not available on DVD/BlueRay yet)The second feature film project by Abby Martin, is a groundbreaking anti-imperialist environmental documentary. Exempt from international climate agreements and rarely scrutinized in mainstream reporting, the Pentagon is the world’s single largest institutional polluter—spewing carbon, contaminating water, and scarring landscapes across the globe. Combining investigative journalism, striking visuals, and stories from impacted communities, this film challenges audiences to rethink the hidden costs of a global military empire and its planetary consequences. Provocative, urgent, and eye-opening, this is a documentary that will change how you see both the military and environmentalism.
Raisin in the Sun: 1961 starring Sidney Portier The story tells of a black family's experiences on the south side of Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of their father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation.
Alone in Berlin: 2016 A war drama film based on the 1947 novel Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada. The novel's characters Otto and Anna Quangel are based on Otto and Elise Hampel. When their son dies in France, the couple start writing postcards to urge people to protest against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Streaming only: NOT AVAILABE IN THE DVD FORMAT REQUIRED BY THE THEATER.
Members have movie recommendations that don't meet the format requirements of the Theater, but can be streamed at home.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy 2025 The second feature film project by Abby Martin is a groundbreaking anti-imperialist environmental documentary. Exempt from internnational climate agreements and rarely scrutinized in mainstream reporting, the Pentagon is the world’s single largest institutional polluter—spewing carbon, contaminating water, and scarring landscapes across the globe. Combining investigative journalism, striking visuals, and stories from impacted communities, this film challenges audiences to rethink the hidden costs of a global military empire and its planetary consequences. Provocative, urgent, and eye-opening, this is a documentary that will change how you see both the military and environmentalism. Suggested by James http://www.earthsgreatestenemy.comSTREAM IT ON YOU TUBE by subscribing to the Empire Files You Tube channel for $9.99 per month at: / @empirefiles
Lightworkers: Twelve questions are posed to a diverse and dynamic group of American citizens who are considered positive forces called LIGHTWORKERS. Suggested by Jacqueline . Stream for $4.99 at: https://www.lightworkersdoc.com/product-page/lightworkers
The “Power of 504” Documentary is an award winning 18 minute documentary that chronicles the 1977 civil rights demonstration by people with disabilities in San Francisco, which led to the signing of the Section 504 Regulations — the first federal civil rights law protecting people with disabilities. Suggested by Dennis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyWcCuVta7M&t=20s
