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Here's the film list we've started. It's a mish-mash of fictionalized history, full-on fictional drama and documentary and is in no particular order. Feel free to comment or suggest additions. Disclaimer: I'm making no claims about the accuracy of my descriptions. Do not depend on them for your undergraduate film history exam or to make you sound smart at parties.

POLITICAL FILM LIST

Land and Freedom – Spanish Civil War
Reds - Bolshevik Revolution period
All the President's Men - US Watergate scandal
Ride with the Devil - US Civil War
The Constant Gardener - Kenya and pharmaceutical industry testing
Cry Freedom - About death of activist Steve Biko in S. Africa in 1977 and journalist Donald Woods
Trials of Henry Kissinger - documentary –charges against Henry Kissinger as a war criminal - allegations documented in Hitchens' book of the same title - based on his role in countries such as Cambodia, Chile, and Indonesia. Kissinger's story raises profound questions about American foreign policy and highlights a new era of human rights. Increasing evidence about one man's role in a long history of human rights abuses leads to a critical examination of American diplomacy through the lens of international standards of justice.
Matewan - US Miners unionizing in West Virginia in 1920’s
Fog of War - cool documentary Robert S. McNamara talks about Vietnam and his time as U.S. Secretary of Defense (McNamara was later head of World Bank 1980-1991)
Control Room - about invasion of Iraq
The Killing Fields - about Cambodia
Swimming to Cambodia - Spalding Gray's one man show about Killing Fields
The Quiet American - About early stages of Vietnam
Cradle Will Rock - about American federal theatre project, only time in US history such a thing existed - attacked by anti-communist Dyes Committee
In the Name of the Father - about the Irish Republican Army and the Guilford Four
Some Mother's Son - events leading up to and surrounding hunger strike where Bobby Sands, Sinn Fein activist, died. He was elected to be Northern Ireland's representative in Parliament while he was in jail.
The Interpreter – UN interpreter overhears information about plot to assassinate African head of state
The Mission – Jesuit missionaries in S. America and their falling out with Spanish colonial business interests. Jesuits were ordered to shut down missions because their plantations were becoming financially competitive with local businesses
Ararat – about Armenian genocide in Turkey, 1915-1918
Four Days in September – Marxists in Brazil kidnapped the US Ambassador and held him hostage and made demands of Brazilian gov’t.
Danton –post French Revolution (1793)
Das Boot – claustrophobic life on a WWII German submarine
Before the Rain – drama set in Balkans highlighting ethnic and cultural tensions between Muslims and Christians in the area
The Year of Living Dangerously – set in Indonesia, political drama during 1965 revolution
The Year of the Gun – about Red Brigades in Italy
Downfall – about Hitler’s last days in a bunker
City of God – drama based on true events –gang wars in Rio de Janeiro in late 1970’s and 80’s – beautifully made
Death and the Maiden – about disappearances in South America, adapted from a play, non-specific country
On the Waterfront – (marlon Brando) about gangster crime in labor unions (said to be Director Elia Kazan’s justification for snitching in McCarthy communism hearings)
Manchurian Candidate (1962 version) – drama about brainwashing and radical conspiracy theories set against the backdrop of Joseph McCarthy’s rise to power in the US
The Atomic Café – documentary using footage from US gov’t propaganda films about the atomic bomb and the effects of radiation – looks at American attitudes from the 1960’s
The Guns of August – documentary about WWI, lots of footage
Machuca – two boys observe a political coup in Chile
Battle of Algiers - commissioned by Algerian government - shows both sides of Algerian/French conflict - must see
The Revolution will Not be Televised - About brief coup against Chavez in Venezuela