Films you think while difficult are important to watch

[Baconyum]

In response to the thread on films some regret seeing I thought it would be interesting to start a thread on films we think people should watch, if only just once, because of the issues they address rather than just because they're 'good'.

I personally think films aren't just to entertain (though they can be individually), but to enlighten, educate, inform and challenge.

Mine are:
An imitation of life
Blackboard Jungle
A time to kill
Girl, interrupted
Magdalene sisters
In the name of the father
Butterbox babies
The boy in the striped pyjamas
An eye for an eye
Kathy come home
The color purple
Corrina Corrina
The impossible
Children of a lesser God
Flowers for Algernon
American history x
The elephant man
Death of a salesman
Glengarry glen Ross
JFK
Silkwood
My fellow Americans
Wag the dog
Kramer vs Kramer
Ma vie en rose
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
The jazz singer - either version
12 angry men
Boyz n the hood
Born on the fourth of July
Ghandi
Pay it forward
Cry freedom
The accused

Geez better stop as that's quite a lot.

Thoughts?

I found 12 years a slave incredibly difficult to watch.

Schindler's Lust

Grr autocorrect!
Schindler's List

Lady penelope is that the adult version! sorry my dirty mind, I know it's no laughing matter but it's too early for me to be a grown up!

Girl, Interrupted the movie pales in comparison to the book. If you like the movie, you'll love the book.

The Last King of Scotland.

Blackfish.
Totally changed my opinion on whales in captivity.
Really educated me.
I think all secondary school aged kids should watch it.

handmaid tale
schindlers list
das experiment

American History X

Unthinkable - harrowing for lots of reasons. Contains torture of a terrorist. Michael Sheen and Samuel L Jackson do an outstanding job. It really rattled me, and I am not easily rattled.

My first thought was Mississippi burning as pp suggested. My history teacher showed it to us whilst studying the civil rights movement. As a class we watched in horror.

Amistad
Amazing Grace

I'd also add Philadelphia to the list.

And though it's not a film, the first season of Garrow's Law is important, I think, to show why presumption of innocence is such a vital legal principal.

That's a bloody long list.

I don't think that there are any films that are important to watch.
There are some parts of history that are important to know about, or ideas that it's important to have heard of.

But some people don't really enjoy films.
Some people find films about war or loss too upsetting.
Some people wouldn't learn the thing you want them to learn via a film, and would learn it better another way.

I've read Flowers for Algernon.
I've been to the holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
I studied JFK in school.
Could I scratch three films off your list?

City of Life and Death

Its about the atrocities carried out by Japanese soldiers on Chinese civillians and does have some characters that are based on people who were there.

The most chilling part was the soldiers camped around the fire just chatting about this and that. Looking just like they could be anyones DH, brother, uncle etc. It was state sanctioned rape on a mass scale.

Born on the fourth of July.

Dances with wolves for me, as well as a few already mentioned.

Casualties of War, starring Michael J Fox was so hard for me to watch. It's all about some American soldiers who ransack a Vietnamese village, kidnap, repeatedly rape and eventually murder a young girl.
I was taught about the Vietnam war at school, and our textbooks told of the napalm attacks on civilians (showed the famous photo of the little girl running naked), but we weren't taught about the other atrocities committed. I think the film portrays this brilliantly even though the violence is so graphic. It's painful to watch, but I think it's important that people know that things like that went on.

Shoah. 9 hour documentary about the Holocaust.

I agree with Trills. It's important to be well-informed, but you don't have to do that by watching films - you can do it by reading books, reading newspaper and magazine articles and listening to radio programmes.

And just to take one example from that list - In the Name of the Father. I saw the film and thought it was OK, though it distorted some of the facts (especially the courtroom scene in which a solicitor, rather than a barrister, represented the Guildford Four). But before the film, I had read numerous articles about the Guildford Four and other miscarriages of justice, as well as Chris Mullin's book about the Birmngham Six and Gerry Conlon's own book about his experience, so the film didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

Hmm. I agree with pp who think it's not really a film's job to educate. There are plenty of documentaries to do that, as well as books. The problem as well is that people could think some of the important things that may be covered are in fact fictional. Then there's a director's own bias on the subject, and (usually these days for shock value) an excessive amount of violence unnecessarily graphically portrayed.

I agree with Trills - the subject matter in many of those films is important, but the films themselves aren't - and most started out as books anyway. I spent an important 20 minutes reading Flowers for Algernon (and have re-read it a few times) - what would I gain from the film?
Given that films tend to omit side plots and lots of narrative detail that their source books cover, I'd stick to books for a first pass at any topic - while films can help provide that immersive vision if people aren't very good at visualising scenes from words.
For handling emotions, nothing beats a play - eg Bent vs the excellent documentary Paragraf 175.

put this in films?

I agree films can waver from the truth but so can books can't they.
Some people just aren't readers unfortunately, it's not the way info sinks in.
I think documentaries are a happy medium.

*wavier