Fight the power: Great movies about resistance

Slide show: From "Amistad" to "Ali," the movies that bring political resistance to passionate life

Published February 5, 2011 12:30AM (EST)

Resistance takes all kinds of forms. It could be as mundane as sneaking out of school without teachers finding out, or a more dramatic gesture: a factory worker organizing a union, prisoners fighting back against the brutality of their jailers. There are nonviolent demonstrations and explosions of righteous bloodshed, intimate rebellions that took place outside of the public eye and spectacular protests that riveted the attention of the world.

We originally assembled this slide show -- about oppressed people standing up to their oppressors -- in honor of Black History Month, but given the events in Egypt over the past week, it's become about much more than that.

Please share your own favorite screen images of defiance in the Letters section.


By Matt Zoller Seitz

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