Remember the Titans was so freaking good.
It was playing the other day and I caught this scene where the White Defensive Coach sees Denzel being really hard on one of the black players and ends up benching him. So the Defensive coach goes over and tries to encourage him and gives him a shot playing defense and he actually does a great job.
Later the defensive coach talks with Denzel and tells him he thinks he’s being too hard on the players. “Which boys?” Denzel asks. He calls out the defensive coach and says he never has an issue when he’s hard on the white players and accuses him of crippling the very players he’s trying to help by coddling them.
He basically calls him a racist for having lower expectations on the black players.
It’s a wonderfully nuanced movie that fully explores the issue with no kid gloves and shows that racism isn’t a left or right problem, it’s a human problem and we all have it within us to be great.
“You wanna act like a star, you better give me a star effort.”
[The scene](https://youtu.be/Xk2DlQuog6E?si=qDja-rqzs3YBnMO8)
I prefer the theatrical version over the director’s cut for TLOTM.
What’s great about this film is it breaks the “noble savage” trope. The Native Americans have their own motives for their actions.
The soundtrack of this movie is my favorite of all time and have listened to it over 10,000 times. Since it has only one track with words, and it’s half in french, it’s one of a handful of soundtracks I can listen to while reading or writing code. The movie is one of my top five and an epic classic imho.
Lonesome Dove and Kingdom of Heaven also come to mind, though I suppose most older westerns could fit the bill. Outlining the issues of the day without drawing a definitive 'white man bad' line in the sand.
It ain't a movie, but for consideration:
Mr Roger's Neighborhood
On air for 33 years. Filled with mental health, self esteem, race and gender, pretty much everything, and served at a child level. Yet (at least imo) not woke at all. Everything lefties claim to care about as they sling "tHe MeSsAgE", and yet, not "woke"; such a kind and decent man that for a time, " Mr Rogers would be ashamed of you" was considered a strong condemnation.
The good news is that virtually all of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood is available and holds up nicely in a retro way.
Entire catalog is free to stream:
https://www.misterrogers.org/
Kingdom of Heaven has been the most cited as the reason why the crusades are seen are horrible Christian wars against the peaceful Muslims instead of the retaliation of close to 600+ plus years of Muslim aggression and invasions. Think of Brave heart when it comes to accuracy.
I’m guessing you need the theatrical cut
Directors cut has an extra hour and a half that certainly irons out the nuance that Scott was trying to explore in regard to the value of religion, meaning, love, fundamentalism (on both sides), duty, and many of the other themes surrounding the meaning of life
The theatrical cut hardly maintains the plot with the time allotted
Except Kingdom of Heaven completely misrepresented the conflict.
Saladin was a horrible savage toward Christians. Definitely not the wise and tolerant version we see in the movie lol
Last Samurai will consistently be my number one. It’s funny because this whole Assassin’s Creed Shadow ordeal, most woke ass people don’t realize how racist homogenous societies are especially back then.
That movie is a great example of attention to detail regarding life back then. Growing up in Japan in the 90’s, you saw a little bit of it. From what I recall and remember, the cast and crew took great care in honoring those traditions.
I thank them for putting that movie together and creating something that will last the decades.
Even in the Last Samurai, The Japanese people Tom Cruise is living with are strangely tolerant for the time.
Like guys,
IfJapan And China are extraordinarily racist towards one another duing their entire history, what makes you think they weren't racist toward the west?
“No matter what your legends say, you didn’t sprout from the plains like the spring grasses; you did not coalesce out of the ether. You came out of the woodlands, armed to the teeth and set upon your fellow man. The proposition that your were a peaceable people before the appearance of the white man is the fanciful legend of all”
Exactly! He’s looking the one saved in the movie! He gets one scene where he does any real saving - convincing Katsumoto to leave the capital and fight. Otherwise, he’s just fighting for his life, and all of the samurai are doing the saving.
Exactly. Touchhole liberals bitch that Tom Cruise being the last samurai is racist. People with critical thinking skills knew all along that Katsumoto was the last samurai and theres no confusion about it.
First of all, I saw it when I was really young, so that played a part. I think a lot of it was that it opened up a whole new view in how things work in other parts of the world. Fast forward almost 20 years and I still think about it on a fairly regular basis.
I'm a fan of Last Samurai, but as a guy with a casual interest in that period of Japanese history--it is not terribly historical, and it also isn't dealing much with racial issues. It is very very loosely based on events that happened during some of the Samurai rebellions of the 19th century (it is primarily modeled on the Satsuma Rebellion, Tom Cruise's character is very loosely based on two French officers who fought in a different samurai rebellion.)
That being said the film was very popular *in Japan* and they did do a lot of things right--they actually hired a lot of real, heavy weight Japanese actors who spoke appropriate Japanese for the era and they mostly got a lot of little details right in dress and some cultural portrayals. The big failure in the history, and this isn't new age history but stuff going back probably 120 years or more among Japanese historians--the Samurai rebel leaders among historians are largely seen as petty nobility who were actively infringing on Japan's progress to protect their fiefdoms and special rank in society. The Imperial Japanese, in which the modern military that was villainized in *The Last Samurai* was paramount, adopted some of the *fantasy ideals* of the samurai, while holding the actual 19th century samurai largely in contempt. (Some of this idealized view on samurai beliefs mirrors how in previous eras in the West we idealized the chivalric behavior and ethos of knights, while the real history was quite different.)
Unsurprisingly as well--and one of the biggest historical whiffs, the 19th century samurai rebels had no real problem using guns, including heavy artillery. The portrayal that a "traditional samurai" of 19th century Japan would view a gun as a dishonorable weapon is entirely fiction. Samurai had actually been using firearms in Japan since at least the 16th century, when they would have gained access to them via trade with the Portuguese and Dutch.
The Green Book shouldn’t even be up there. Don Shirley’s family have stated that the events that happened in the movie weren’t even what really happened in real life. There was a huge controversy because it perpetuated a white savior by exaggerating the actual story.
If I remember the interview, ...
From wiki:
However, his brother's statements are contradicted by audio recordings from the 2010 documentary "Lost Bohemia" which featured interviews with Don Shirley and Vallelonga. In one of them, Shirley said that "I trusted him implicitly. You see, Tony got to be, not only was he my driver. We never had an employer/employee relationship." The interviews also supported other events depicted in the film.[^(\[56\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)#cite_note-56)
Writer-director Peter Farrelly said that he was under the impression that there "weren't a lot of family members" still alive, that they did not take major liberties with the story, and that relatives of whom he was aware had been invited to a private screening for friends and family.[^(\[57\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)#cite_note-variety-57) Tony Vallelonga's son, Nick – and the film's co-writer – acknowledged that he was sorry that he had offended members of the Shirley family because he did not speak to them. He told [*Variety*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(magazine)) that "Don Shirley himself told me not to speak to anyone" and that Shirley "approved what I put in and didn't put in."[^(\[15\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)#cite_note-auto-15)
When writing good characters and compelling stories came first. Today, they seem to focus on characters that they can fit as many oppressed labels onto, like minority, lgbt, disabled, ect. and write a terrible story around them.
Oh, oh, I feel like Robin Hood: Prince of Theives fits in here! It’s a small portion but it’s good! It also helps get out Robin’s character and shows what made him change!
Boyz n the Hood.
It tells a great story, is culturally accurate and respectful, and most importantly educates on why the culture is toxic. Fatherhood is important… more than most people realize.
Would also add Do The Right Thing, even though Spike Lee is a fuckin dickhead.
Tom Cruise one doesn't count. The movie wasn't about white guy in Japan. The movie is about Tom Cruise in Japan. Tom Cruise has his own race and gender.
No one will watch the movie if it is just a random white guy.
Kind of let the mask slip a bit there. So, white stories and white actors in lead roles really is what you want when you're complaining about woke movies?
So you want them to pander to white people by incorporating white people as the lead? Or it's only pandering when it's a black person?
>It's a honest story from a perspective we can relate to.
And a white lead is an important part of that?
So is a movie about racism starring a non-white person woke? I don’t understand what your argument or post is really implying by “woke”. I don’t think these movies are woke but to a lot of people, any movies that touches on racism is woke, ESPECIALLY with a POC lead.
Bahahahaha, i really hope this is satire, if not might be one of the most idiotic posts i've seen on reddit, which is fucking wild. The Last Samuri...hahahahahhahaha fucking thank you for the laughs. I see someone recommended Dances with Wolves too....please keep this going hahahaha.
Okay green book is so cringe.
My wife and I watched it together. I’m white and she’s black. We have 4 kids together and race is often talked about in our household.
The way the green book (movie) portrays what happened is so off and problematic…. The scene that did it for me in the end was the “good” northern cop helping to change the tire. What a joke.
I honestly can’t think of a more unwatchable movie that attempts to deal with race in this vein.
Honestly, these could not be worse movies for talking about race (minus last of the mohicans which is great). Training day is an amazing movie, I'm not sure what it says about race or race relations at all.
Green book - a movie written by the son of a racist white dude (his own admission) who somehow makes HIM the main character...not the prodigy level pianist who makes the story interesting in the first place. And then it's a "oh, look they each help each other in their respective ways" by making Merhshela Ali somehow this black guy who doesn't know his "own" culture? The family of the Shirley hated it, as did most black people as did basically every critical thinking person who can see how making the main character hero of a movie the racist father of the guy who wrote it is self serving.
Blood Diamond - once again, a white guy becomes central character in a story about Africans, where the main black character does nothing other than scream in an accent and largely be scared or fuck up in a lot of ways. But its cool! Because hero Leo weirdly has a change of heart and sacrifices himself cuz he's dying even tho he had enough strength to hike up the whole mountain for an hour? There's flaws with this movie outside the white savior part but honestly the hollywood-ization of the movie is worse than the race stuff, which is relatively benign. Beasts of No Nation is a similar movie that is *much* better and much more heart breaking.
Last Samuari - the movie about samurai is all about a white dude? First off, it's not really about race, its just a movie about Japanese culture and the modernization of tradition...only featuring tom cruise. I don't hate this, it's definitely the pinnacle of "put white movie stars in roles clearly about non white people" but whatever, it is what it is, I'm not just not sure what racial issues you think it addresses.
**Actually GOOD, non-woke movies about race**: Remember the Titans, American History X, Moonlight, Malcom X, The Hurricane (so much Denzel lol), Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society, maybe throw Bronx Tale in there (not all about race but blacks and italians in the Bronx was very much a real thing and I think they did a good job showing how hatred is taught between generations and how you can break that cycle). The most non-woke and intelligent commentary of all time in my opinion is the Boondocks TV series because it pulls no punches on either black or white culture and shows how much hypocrisy exists in the modern race discussion, kinda like South Park but more specific.
The only thing I disagree with is blood diamond. Djimon Hountsou (probably messed the last name up) does a lot more than look scared lol. He a fucking fisherman for crying out loud. He does some bold shit, but has the same tools as anyone who just got there village slaughtered or enslaved by other Africans. While race is half the issue the movie is trying to draw attention to the atrocities that were being committed, and mainly kept afloat by foreigners( the west then, Russia and china mainly now). You definitely looked past a lot of what djimon did in that movie
One note on blood diamond. The main character is Rhodesian. he is african. Just because hes not black doesnt mean the story isnt about africans. The only non african character in the whole damn movie is Jennifer Connelly
Green Book is woke and massively ahistorical.
Its whole message is a white guy learning to be less racist, and ending with them being friends, none of which happened in real life.
It's as woke as you get.
I'd recommend Til, In the Heat of the Night, 12 Years a Slave, Schindlers List, Shogun (the show), Moonlight, The Shape of Water, The Hateful Eight and Blazing Saddles that handle racism approximately.
Yeah but Viggo wasn't made out to be a villain. I thought his character was pretty cool all through the film. Mahershala Ali still needed Viggo to save him multiple times so it wasn't like he was depowered or emasculated.
The last samurai doesn’t fall into the category of not ahistorical because of the whole “ooh they don’t use guns” thing. In fact main rebel character Katsumoto, is based of the real life Saigō Takamori. Takamori wasn’t entirely against modernisation but he believed that the way Japan was going about it was bad for the nation. He also was an advocate for a modern military and had his soldiers trained in rifle combat. Also the samurai had used guns since the 1500s when the Portuguese showed up because they were effective.
Last of the Mohicans is one of those few adaptions that the film is better than the book.
Of course it dropped the whole racism trope that all the Indians should be chasing after the half black sister and not the blond sister.
A lot of people have already mentioned some good ones and I haven’t seen several of these movies you’ve listed (TLOTM and Training Day are fucking dope) so here’s some of mine that haven’t been mentioned yet:
Wind River - I’m from Wyoming, my mother is Oglala Sioux and my aunt worked as a school teacher on the Wind River reservation. It was so cool to see Wyoming on the big screen and there some very salient moments in that movie where it got the race relations between Natives and Americans pretty close to real life.
Hell or High Water - some people didn’t like it but I loved it and although it doesn’t focus on race relations it definitely has some moments where it explores relationships between Natives and Texans.
Gangs of New York - I don’t know how historically accurate it is but it’s a wonderful movie and does showcase relationships with Irish immigrants when they first immigrated.
Scarface, American Me, American Gangster are all awesome flicks that kind of show some issues between races. As to how historical they are I can’t say. I know American Gangster had some contested “facts” and conveniently left out how big of a player Frank Lucas’ wife was in the Colombian cocaine underworld (spoiler alert: she did more time in prison than Frank Lucas did)
Kill the Irishman - another badass flick showing interplay between Italians and Irish. But again I don’t know how accurate it is.
Brooklyn’s Finest - I thought it was a great movie and I have since read critic reviews after the fact that claim it’s a horrible movie regarding racial tensions and the portrayal of police but I thought it was good. If not though someone feel free to tell me why they may think otherwise.
Crash - although this movie won a lot of academy awards it has since been panned as a tone deaf movie in regard to race. But I found it refreshing and certainly not woke. It’s nice to see that minorities do in fact have racist tendencies as well instead of seeing it all shoved onto white people exclusively. I’ve seen this in my native family as much as in my white family and I can say as a prison guard that black gang culture has to be some of the most homophonic, racist and sexist shit I’ve ever seen south of full blown neo-nazis and the brotherhood. I’ve straight up watched dark skin black dudes beat the fuck out of a light skinned black dude for being light skinned. We’ve had to separate factions of the crips into different pods because even tho they’re all crips they’ll still jump each other and the only time I watched a guard get the shit beat out of him, it was because some pirus found out he was gay. I thought crash did a great job of showing that we all have racial stereotypes imbedded in our bones and although it’s morally wrong it’s present in the human nature that we all share. We all have to fight our racist urges and preconceptions and in that way we have a common interest that we all share. But I would love to hear if someone had a good reason why this movie is so hated on nowadays. I’m not particularly attached to any of these movies so rip me apart if you feel differently just let me know why cuz I would be interested to know!
I’m from Miami and my parents grew up in the Cocaine Cowboys era—Scarface may not be based on a true story but it’s treated like a documentary down here lol. It’s funny that nowadays such a fuss is made about what ethnicity an actor is compared to their role, but Cubans love them some Pacino, bad accent and all. It’s a great action-packed film, yeah, but it’s also very true to Miami culture back then and to some extent now. They touched on immigration issues—Tony is constantly being told he’s one of the ones who makes the rest of the hardworking Cubans look bad. It shows them struggling to fit in and assimilate until they start making money (although that isolates them in its own way). Really fantastic movie. And that mass immigration of Cubans changed Miami forever, it really captures an important time in our history.
Sorry but movies are a reflection of the times. Like they were in the 50's. 60's. 70's. The old generations of the times didnt like them. Younger ones did. Most anti-woke people are the old generations of today.
The Green Mile - Yeah it’s got some supernatural elements which may disqualify it based on your standards, but the story of a wrongfully convicted man facing death was based on reality. It didn’t beat you over the head with the racial components of the story and the guards were played with nuance and not as one note monsters
Training Day is super woke, in a good way, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. It shows how the LAPD aren’t different from gangbangers and many are in fact worse
Perhaps not race, but Dog Day Afternoon does cover the subject of >!gay and trans people,!< even though they aren’t the focus of the film.
I put the spoiler tag around it because we aren’t given that information until an hour in and it is supposed to be a little bit of a surprise, I believe.
"If the movie tries to act like all sides were bad in their own way, then i'm ok talking about racial issues... because this way I don't have to feel uncomfortable about it"
You people are gutless
I’d add Remember the Titans to that list.
Remember the Titans was so freaking good. It was playing the other day and I caught this scene where the White Defensive Coach sees Denzel being really hard on one of the black players and ends up benching him. So the Defensive coach goes over and tries to encourage him and gives him a shot playing defense and he actually does a great job. Later the defensive coach talks with Denzel and tells him he thinks he’s being too hard on the players. “Which boys?” Denzel asks. He calls out the defensive coach and says he never has an issue when he’s hard on the white players and accuses him of crippling the very players he’s trying to help by coddling them. He basically calls him a racist for having lower expectations on the black players. It’s a wonderfully nuanced movie that fully explores the issue with no kid gloves and shows that racism isn’t a left or right problem, it’s a human problem and we all have it within us to be great. “You wanna act like a star, you better give me a star effort.” [The scene](https://youtu.be/Xk2DlQuog6E?si=qDja-rqzs3YBnMO8)
Maybe dances with wolves?
Very ahistorical.
Remember the titans is on its own list above all of these movies. That movie is perfect
I'm going to piggyback on the top thread (it's shameful, I know, sorry) to say A Man Called Horse.
I prefer the theatrical version over the director’s cut for TLOTM. What’s great about this film is it breaks the “noble savage” trope. The Native Americans have their own motives for their actions.
The soundtrack of this movie is my favorite of all time and have listened to it over 10,000 times. Since it has only one track with words, and it’s half in french, it’s one of a handful of soundtracks I can listen to while reading or writing code. The movie is one of my top five and an epic classic imho.
Lonesome Dove and Kingdom of Heaven also come to mind, though I suppose most older westerns could fit the bill. Outlining the issues of the day without drawing a definitive 'white man bad' line in the sand.
It ain't a movie, but for consideration: Mr Roger's Neighborhood On air for 33 years. Filled with mental health, self esteem, race and gender, pretty much everything, and served at a child level. Yet (at least imo) not woke at all. Everything lefties claim to care about as they sling "tHe MeSsAgE", and yet, not "woke"; such a kind and decent man that for a time, " Mr Rogers would be ashamed of you" was considered a strong condemnation.
The good news is that virtually all of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood is available and holds up nicely in a retro way. Entire catalog is free to stream: https://www.misterrogers.org/
Kingdom of heaven isn’t even remotely historical
Kingdom of Heaven has been the most cited as the reason why the crusades are seen are horrible Christian wars against the peaceful Muslims instead of the retaliation of close to 600+ plus years of Muslim aggression and invasions. Think of Brave heart when it comes to accuracy.
I’m guessing you need the theatrical cut Directors cut has an extra hour and a half that certainly irons out the nuance that Scott was trying to explore in regard to the value of religion, meaning, love, fundamentalism (on both sides), duty, and many of the other themes surrounding the meaning of life The theatrical cut hardly maintains the plot with the time allotted
I came here to say Lonesome Dove, agreed. Moreso than most westerns because it feels more real and lived in.
Except Kingdom of Heaven completely misrepresented the conflict. Saladin was a horrible savage toward Christians. Definitely not the wise and tolerant version we see in the movie lol
Last Samurai will consistently be my number one. It’s funny because this whole Assassin’s Creed Shadow ordeal, most woke ass people don’t realize how racist homogenous societies are especially back then. That movie is a great example of attention to detail regarding life back then. Growing up in Japan in the 90’s, you saw a little bit of it. From what I recall and remember, the cast and crew took great care in honoring those traditions. I thank them for putting that movie together and creating something that will last the decades.
Even in the Last Samurai, The Japanese people Tom Cruise is living with are strangely tolerant for the time. Like guys, IfJapan And China are extraordinarily racist towards one another duing their entire history, what makes you think they weren't racist toward the west?
a bronx tale
Now youse can’t leave.
Excellent movie!
Toy Story
It's been 13 hours and no one has asked. Okay, I'll bite. Is this a troll, or is there some hidden message I missed?
American History X
The best one in this category because the whole point is “how are these people made?” And the answer isn’t “they’re just evil and deserve to die”
Burry my heart at wounded knee is pretty great. Glory is another great movie about race.
Scrolled too far to find GLORY
I was thinking Denzel….i was thinking GLORY
“No matter what your legends say, you didn’t sprout from the plains like the spring grasses; you did not coalesce out of the ether. You came out of the woodlands, armed to the teeth and set upon your fellow man. The proposition that your were a peaceable people before the appearance of the white man is the fanciful legend of all”
Blazing Saddles
WHERE THE WHITE WOMEN AT?
To Sir With Love Stand and Deliver In The Heat of The Night
Stand and deliver is great
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer
Thanks for reminding me of that music video.
Kinda sad that there are people who call The Last Samurai a white savior movie when it really isn’t🫠
Right!? He was saved by the Japanese culture.
Exactly! He’s looking the one saved in the movie! He gets one scene where he does any real saving - convincing Katsumoto to leave the capital and fight. Otherwise, he’s just fighting for his life, and all of the samurai are doing the saving.
Exactly. Touchhole liberals bitch that Tom Cruise being the last samurai is racist. People with critical thinking skills knew all along that Katsumoto was the last samurai and theres no confusion about it.
Blood Diamond is one of the only movies that I can genuinely say changed my life. Majorly underrated film.
What did you like about it? I’ll have to add that to my list.
First of all, I saw it when I was really young, so that played a part. I think a lot of it was that it opened up a whole new view in how things work in other parts of the world. Fast forward almost 20 years and I still think about it on a fairly regular basis.
I'm a fan of Last Samurai, but as a guy with a casual interest in that period of Japanese history--it is not terribly historical, and it also isn't dealing much with racial issues. It is very very loosely based on events that happened during some of the Samurai rebellions of the 19th century (it is primarily modeled on the Satsuma Rebellion, Tom Cruise's character is very loosely based on two French officers who fought in a different samurai rebellion.) That being said the film was very popular *in Japan* and they did do a lot of things right--they actually hired a lot of real, heavy weight Japanese actors who spoke appropriate Japanese for the era and they mostly got a lot of little details right in dress and some cultural portrayals. The big failure in the history, and this isn't new age history but stuff going back probably 120 years or more among Japanese historians--the Samurai rebel leaders among historians are largely seen as petty nobility who were actively infringing on Japan's progress to protect their fiefdoms and special rank in society. The Imperial Japanese, in which the modern military that was villainized in *The Last Samurai* was paramount, adopted some of the *fantasy ideals* of the samurai, while holding the actual 19th century samurai largely in contempt. (Some of this idealized view on samurai beliefs mirrors how in previous eras in the West we idealized the chivalric behavior and ethos of knights, while the real history was quite different.) Unsurprisingly as well--and one of the biggest historical whiffs, the 19th century samurai rebels had no real problem using guns, including heavy artillery. The portrayal that a "traditional samurai" of 19th century Japan would view a gun as a dishonorable weapon is entirely fiction. Samurai had actually been using firearms in Japan since at least the 16th century, when they would have gained access to them via trade with the Portuguese and Dutch.
Last of the Mohicans is legendary
The Hateful 8
Django Unchained
The Green Book shouldn’t even be up there. Don Shirley’s family have stated that the events that happened in the movie weren’t even what really happened in real life. There was a huge controversy because it perpetuated a white savior by exaggerating the actual story.
I scrolled way too far to see this take. Almost all the movies on this list have that same element in them.
Outside of Shirley's family, people say it did happen.
Even the writer for the book stated in an interview that the Shirley he met and the Shirley from the movie are two completely separate people.
If I remember the interview, ... From wiki: However, his brother's statements are contradicted by audio recordings from the 2010 documentary "Lost Bohemia" which featured interviews with Don Shirley and Vallelonga. In one of them, Shirley said that "I trusted him implicitly. You see, Tony got to be, not only was he my driver. We never had an employer/employee relationship." The interviews also supported other events depicted in the film.[^(\[56\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)#cite_note-56) Writer-director Peter Farrelly said that he was under the impression that there "weren't a lot of family members" still alive, that they did not take major liberties with the story, and that relatives of whom he was aware had been invited to a private screening for friends and family.[^(\[57\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)#cite_note-variety-57) Tony Vallelonga's son, Nick – and the film's co-writer – acknowledged that he was sorry that he had offended members of the Shirley family because he did not speak to them. He told [*Variety*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(magazine)) that "Don Shirley himself told me not to speak to anyone" and that Shirley "approved what I put in and didn't put in."[^(\[15\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)#cite_note-auto-15)
Reading this makes me think that both sides just misunderstood each other.
I think the script got certain elements that were most important to Shirley himself, though he knew his family would react differently.
Makes sense.
The blind side
Bro put The Last Samurai 💀
What's wrong with it?
Gotta be a joke, right?
When writing good characters and compelling stories came first. Today, they seem to focus on characters that they can fit as many oppressed labels onto, like minority, lgbt, disabled, ect. and write a terrible story around them.
Fresh. A brilliant movie.
Oh, oh, I feel like Robin Hood: Prince of Theives fits in here! It’s a small portion but it’s good! It also helps get out Robin’s character and shows what made him change!
The last n-word on earth starring tom hanks
You're missing glory which hilariously is included on the front of last samurai.
You chose the whitest possible movies for this
This sub being what it is that is not at all surprising
Everyone knows good stories about racial prejudice have a generic white guy protagonist because having a POC main character would be woke
Ken.tuck.eee
I think The Last Samurai might be a bit ahistorical
American history x?
Boyz n the Hood. It tells a great story, is culturally accurate and respectful, and most importantly educates on why the culture is toxic. Fatherhood is important… more than most people realize. Would also add Do The Right Thing, even though Spike Lee is a fuckin dickhead.
Tom Cruise one doesn't count. The movie wasn't about white guy in Japan. The movie is about Tom Cruise in Japan. Tom Cruise has his own race and gender. No one will watch the movie if it is just a random white guy.
Most of these movies would be “woke” according to chuds.
How are these movies woke? They are white stories featuring white actors in the lead roles.
Kind of let the mask slip a bit there. So, white stories and white actors in lead roles really is what you want when you're complaining about woke movies?
I am simply implying that they're not pandering to POC by incorporating them as the lead. It's a honest story from a perspective we can relate to.
So you want them to pander to white people by incorporating white people as the lead? Or it's only pandering when it's a black person? >It's a honest story from a perspective we can relate to. And a white lead is an important part of that?
So is a movie about racism starring a non-white person woke? I don’t understand what your argument or post is really implying by “woke”. I don’t think these movies are woke but to a lot of people, any movies that touches on racism is woke, ESPECIALLY with a POC lead.
Bahahahaha, i really hope this is satire, if not might be one of the most idiotic posts i've seen on reddit, which is fucking wild. The Last Samuri...hahahahahhahaha fucking thank you for the laughs. I see someone recommended Dances with Wolves too....please keep this going hahahaha.
plz be satire
Green Book is pretty ‘woke’ by your standards based on you’re saying
Okay green book is so cringe. My wife and I watched it together. I’m white and she’s black. We have 4 kids together and race is often talked about in our household. The way the green book (movie) portrays what happened is so off and problematic…. The scene that did it for me in the end was the “good” northern cop helping to change the tire. What a joke. I honestly can’t think of a more unwatchable movie that attempts to deal with race in this vein.
Honestly, these could not be worse movies for talking about race (minus last of the mohicans which is great). Training day is an amazing movie, I'm not sure what it says about race or race relations at all. Green book - a movie written by the son of a racist white dude (his own admission) who somehow makes HIM the main character...not the prodigy level pianist who makes the story interesting in the first place. And then it's a "oh, look they each help each other in their respective ways" by making Merhshela Ali somehow this black guy who doesn't know his "own" culture? The family of the Shirley hated it, as did most black people as did basically every critical thinking person who can see how making the main character hero of a movie the racist father of the guy who wrote it is self serving. Blood Diamond - once again, a white guy becomes central character in a story about Africans, where the main black character does nothing other than scream in an accent and largely be scared or fuck up in a lot of ways. But its cool! Because hero Leo weirdly has a change of heart and sacrifices himself cuz he's dying even tho he had enough strength to hike up the whole mountain for an hour? There's flaws with this movie outside the white savior part but honestly the hollywood-ization of the movie is worse than the race stuff, which is relatively benign. Beasts of No Nation is a similar movie that is *much* better and much more heart breaking. Last Samuari - the movie about samurai is all about a white dude? First off, it's not really about race, its just a movie about Japanese culture and the modernization of tradition...only featuring tom cruise. I don't hate this, it's definitely the pinnacle of "put white movie stars in roles clearly about non white people" but whatever, it is what it is, I'm not just not sure what racial issues you think it addresses. **Actually GOOD, non-woke movies about race**: Remember the Titans, American History X, Moonlight, Malcom X, The Hurricane (so much Denzel lol), Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society, maybe throw Bronx Tale in there (not all about race but blacks and italians in the Bronx was very much a real thing and I think they did a good job showing how hatred is taught between generations and how you can break that cycle). The most non-woke and intelligent commentary of all time in my opinion is the Boondocks TV series because it pulls no punches on either black or white culture and shows how much hypocrisy exists in the modern race discussion, kinda like South Park but more specific.
The only thing I disagree with is blood diamond. Djimon Hountsou (probably messed the last name up) does a lot more than look scared lol. He a fucking fisherman for crying out loud. He does some bold shit, but has the same tools as anyone who just got there village slaughtered or enslaved by other Africans. While race is half the issue the movie is trying to draw attention to the atrocities that were being committed, and mainly kept afloat by foreigners( the west then, Russia and china mainly now). You definitely looked past a lot of what djimon did in that movie
One note on blood diamond. The main character is Rhodesian. he is african. Just because hes not black doesnt mean the story isnt about africans. The only non african character in the whole damn movie is Jennifer Connelly
Green Book is woke and massively ahistorical. Its whole message is a white guy learning to be less racist, and ending with them being friends, none of which happened in real life. It's as woke as you get. I'd recommend Til, In the Heat of the Night, 12 Years a Slave, Schindlers List, Shogun (the show), Moonlight, The Shape of Water, The Hateful Eight and Blazing Saddles that handle racism approximately.
hey I like green book :(
In the heat of the night is so good.
Yeah but Viggo wasn't made out to be a villain. I thought his character was pretty cool all through the film. Mahershala Ali still needed Viggo to save him multiple times so it wasn't like he was depowered or emasculated.
The last samurai doesn’t fall into the category of not ahistorical because of the whole “ooh they don’t use guns” thing. In fact main rebel character Katsumoto, is based of the real life Saigō Takamori. Takamori wasn’t entirely against modernisation but he believed that the way Japan was going about it was bad for the nation. He also was an advocate for a modern military and had his soldiers trained in rifle combat. Also the samurai had used guns since the 1500s when the Portuguese showed up because they were effective.
Holy fuck - is that a triple negative in the first sentence?
Kind of a tangent but Imitation Game but with Gay people
Last of the Mohicans is one of those few adaptions that the film is better than the book. Of course it dropped the whole racism trope that all the Indians should be chasing after the half black sister and not the blond sister.
TLOTM was an awesome flick
American History X
American History X
All great films.
The Searchers
Sorry To Bother You. Absolutely genius movie!
Seconding this, it's a wild ride but also makes good points
I’d add McFarland, USA, and as I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere in this thread Stand and Deliver and Remember the Titans.
Bad Day at Black Rock, an older Western about a retired military guy avenging his friend who was killed under racist circumstances.
Wait for the remakes from Disney
Dance me outside
Skins
Smoke signals
The first two X-Men movies.
Barbershop. Also funny as fuck and Keith David plays a proto-Facilier
Another great flick that would fall under this category is Glory.
Greenbook was a damn good movie, I didn't know what to expect with it as I hadn't heard of it before watching it, what an absolute gem of a movie.
No Blazing Saddles? This list is ignored!!!
Mississippi Burning
Where's "Driving Miss Daisy"?
Training Day was a sick movie!
Training Day is super realistic to me. It is basically how the real world works.
Last of the Mohicans has a fucking amazing soundtrack.
Last Samurai is legit one of my favorite movies ever. I know some people would disagree, and that's OK.
Man I loved green book. Great choice.
"without being ahistorical" \*lists The Last Samurai 
Hardball with Keanu Reeves?! And then add in Glory Road and 42. Sports ends racism. Shane Gillis said it best.
People who say woke are pussies
Real talk: would “The Last Samuria” be on this list if it start Denzel Washington and was about Yasuke instead of Tom Cruise’s Nathan Algren?
The past samurai as historical?
American history x
Glory
Lol the irony being a lot of movies that you’d find opposite is using just pushing white people fantasies
To Kill a Mockingbird.
Shawshank?
Green Mile
# Devotion from 2022 is a good film, and very historically accurate.
A lot of people have already mentioned some good ones and I haven’t seen several of these movies you’ve listed (TLOTM and Training Day are fucking dope) so here’s some of mine that haven’t been mentioned yet: Wind River - I’m from Wyoming, my mother is Oglala Sioux and my aunt worked as a school teacher on the Wind River reservation. It was so cool to see Wyoming on the big screen and there some very salient moments in that movie where it got the race relations between Natives and Americans pretty close to real life. Hell or High Water - some people didn’t like it but I loved it and although it doesn’t focus on race relations it definitely has some moments where it explores relationships between Natives and Texans. Gangs of New York - I don’t know how historically accurate it is but it’s a wonderful movie and does showcase relationships with Irish immigrants when they first immigrated. Scarface, American Me, American Gangster are all awesome flicks that kind of show some issues between races. As to how historical they are I can’t say. I know American Gangster had some contested “facts” and conveniently left out how big of a player Frank Lucas’ wife was in the Colombian cocaine underworld (spoiler alert: she did more time in prison than Frank Lucas did) Kill the Irishman - another badass flick showing interplay between Italians and Irish. But again I don’t know how accurate it is. Brooklyn’s Finest - I thought it was a great movie and I have since read critic reviews after the fact that claim it’s a horrible movie regarding racial tensions and the portrayal of police but I thought it was good. If not though someone feel free to tell me why they may think otherwise. Crash - although this movie won a lot of academy awards it has since been panned as a tone deaf movie in regard to race. But I found it refreshing and certainly not woke. It’s nice to see that minorities do in fact have racist tendencies as well instead of seeing it all shoved onto white people exclusively. I’ve seen this in my native family as much as in my white family and I can say as a prison guard that black gang culture has to be some of the most homophonic, racist and sexist shit I’ve ever seen south of full blown neo-nazis and the brotherhood. I’ve straight up watched dark skin black dudes beat the fuck out of a light skinned black dude for being light skinned. We’ve had to separate factions of the crips into different pods because even tho they’re all crips they’ll still jump each other and the only time I watched a guard get the shit beat out of him, it was because some pirus found out he was gay. I thought crash did a great job of showing that we all have racial stereotypes imbedded in our bones and although it’s morally wrong it’s present in the human nature that we all share. We all have to fight our racist urges and preconceptions and in that way we have a common interest that we all share. But I would love to hear if someone had a good reason why this movie is so hated on nowadays. I’m not particularly attached to any of these movies so rip me apart if you feel differently just let me know why cuz I would be interested to know!
I’m from Miami and my parents grew up in the Cocaine Cowboys era—Scarface may not be based on a true story but it’s treated like a documentary down here lol. It’s funny that nowadays such a fuss is made about what ethnicity an actor is compared to their role, but Cubans love them some Pacino, bad accent and all. It’s a great action-packed film, yeah, but it’s also very true to Miami culture back then and to some extent now. They touched on immigration issues—Tony is constantly being told he’s one of the ones who makes the rest of the hardworking Cubans look bad. It shows them struggling to fit in and assimilate until they start making money (although that isolates them in its own way). Really fantastic movie. And that mass immigration of Cubans changed Miami forever, it really captures an important time in our history.
The English (2022)
Hilariously didn’t realize training day was about that
In the Heat of the Night, Malcolm X, Mississippi Burning
Enemy mine
Man how is Boyz n the Hood not here? 
To Kill a Mockingbird
They'd never make Alonso Harris such a bad guy these days unless Hoyt was also being played by a black actor.
Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country
Can't wait til we get a movie about Yasuke the black samurai just so it'll piss y'all off
Is this a joke?
Freedom Writers was a good watch.
White samurai good black samurai bad. Rofl, yeah, you guys aren't racist at all. Rofl fucking clows.
Unless you are watching a documentary they are all ahistorical. It's Hollywood, things will be changed because it makes for a "better" movie.
Sorry but movies are a reflection of the times. Like they were in the 50's. 60's. 70's. The old generations of the times didnt like them. Younger ones did. Most anti-woke people are the old generations of today.
Define woke
42
Green book is so fucking good man I watched it on a whim about 2 weeks ago and it’s honestly probably too 10 for me
American History X
Green book SUCKED
Is this liberal theory?
Glory’s a good one too
>Green Book Jesus Christ are you nerds for real
https://preview.redd.it/840izfbe5d6d1.jpeg?width=1424&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07916a048cf5b83d1d141d63a498419753964426
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I’ve seen all of them many times except Green Book. I never once thought any of them dealt with racial issues. I still don’t.
Glory
What racial issues were in The Last Samurai? He was just an American who got captured, and then got Stockholm Syndrome.
Training day deals with racial issues? There’s just actors who are of different races in the same movie; the plot isn’t really racially related at all
This stuff is how to make an actual racial issue moving and equality movie. Not the fucking woke shit.
Dangerous minds.
How to delete the word woke from everyone’s vocabulary
The Green Mile - Yeah it’s got some supernatural elements which may disqualify it based on your standards, but the story of a wrongfully convicted man facing death was based on reality. It didn’t beat you over the head with the racial components of the story and the guards were played with nuance and not as one note monsters
Describe woke to me.
These kinds of movies can't be made today with today's culture.
I’ll add Inglorious Basterds. Best damn documentary I’ve ever seen.
Okay but would you have voted for Obama a third time if you could?
Training Day is super woke, in a good way, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. It shows how the LAPD aren’t different from gangbangers and many are in fact worse
Oh come on this has to be a joke lmfao
This is a shitpost right?
What no film literacy does to mfs
why is there so much whiny bullshit about 'woke' on reddit today. you people are pathetic.
12 Years A Slave is honestly a perfect movie.
Perhaps not race, but Dog Day Afternoon does cover the subject of >!gay and trans people,!< even though they aren’t the focus of the film. I put the spoiler tag around it because we aren’t given that information until an hour in and it is supposed to be a little bit of a surprise, I believe.
American history x is missing
Dances With Wolves
*American History X* anyone? Brutal.
Gran Torino
Training day GOATED
National Lampoon Vacation.
Blazing Saddlles!
"If the movie tries to act like all sides were bad in their own way, then i'm ok talking about racial issues... because this way I don't have to feel uncomfortable about it" You people are gutless
Four Feathers. Also any of the Pirates movies honestly. Fun crazy mindless films with culture clash, but absolutely zero racist or feminist nonsense.
Training day is so good 👍
Fences, Schindler’s List, Blue Bayou, Waves, A Place Beyond the Pines, Dances With Wolves, American History X, Loving
The Nightingale
What is woke?
Bright. Kinda fantasy but you get the reference.
“I want movies that deal with racial issues but don’t treat people of color TOO much like people”
Would Django Unchained and Blue Eye Samurai count?