Steve McQueen
Author
Series
Appears on list
Description
Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...
2) Shame
Description
Brandon is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his wayward younger sister moves into his apartment stirring memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's insular life spirals out of control.
3) Hunger
Series
Criterion collection volume 504
Description
In Northern Ireland's Maze prison in 1981, 27-year-old Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands went on a hunger strike to protest the British government's refusal to recognize him and his fellow IRA inmates as political prisoners. A transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure in order to be heard.
4) Widows
Description
Four women with nothing in common except a debt left by their dead husbands' criminal acts conspire to take fate into their own hands.
Description
Based on the true story of Solomon Northup. It is 1841, and Northup, an accomplished, free citizen of New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Stripped of his identity and deprived of all dignity, Northup is ultimately purchased by ruthless plantation owner Edwin Epps and must find the strength within to survive. Filled with powerful performances by an astonishing cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad...
6) Small axe
Description
"The first television project from Academy Award and BAFTA-winner Steve McQueen, this collection of films for television is based on the real-life experiences of London's West Indian community. Set between 1968 and 1982, these standalone stories celebrate courage and community. From a group of activists taking on a seemingly hopeless battle against police persecution, to a teenager experiencing a blues party full of dance, danger and romance, they're...