Best movies like The Bang Bang Club

Sometimes you get too close

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Bang Bang Club Starring Malin Åkerman, Ryan Phillippe, Taylor Kitsch, Frank Rautenbach, and more. If you liked The Bang Bang Club then you may also like: Zulu, Zulu Love Letter, Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, Catch a Fire, The Color of Friendship and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.

selected filters: Sort: Default

You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.

Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list

Know any good movies to watch like The Bang Bang Club 2011. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Zulu

As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain.

Zulu Love Letter

Thandeka, a young Black journalist, lives in fear of Johannesburg's past. She's so troubled that she can't work, and her relationship with her 13-year-old deaf daughter Mangi goes from bad to worse. One day Me'Tau, an elderly woman, arrives at the newspaper's office. Ten years earlier, Thandeka witnessed the murder of the woman's daughter Dinéo by the secret police. Me'Tau wants Thandeka to find the murderers and Dinéo's body so that the girl can be buried in accordance with tradition. What Me'Tau couldn't know is that Thandeka has already paid for her knowledge, for having dared stand up to the apartheid system run by the whites. Meanwhile, Mangi secretly prepares a Zulu love letter: four embroidered images representing solitude, loss, hope, and love, as a final gesture towards her mother so that she won't give up the fight.

Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony

The struggle to eradicate apartheid in South Africa has been chronicled over time, but no one has addressed the vital role music plays in this challenge. This documentary by Lee Hirsch recounts a fascinating and little-known part of South Africa's political history through archival footage, interviews and, of course, several mesmerizing musical performances.

Catch a Fire

The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.

The Color of Friendship

Mahree Bok lives on a farm in South Africa. Her father is a policeman who cannot hide his joy when activist Steve Biko is caught by the South African authorities. Piper Dellums is the daughter of a US congressman from California and who lives in a nice home in Washington DC. When Mahree is chosen to spend a semester at the Dellums' house, she doesn't expect that her host family would be black. Nor do her hosts suspect that she is not a black South African.

Come Back, Africa

Come Back, Africa chronicles the life of Zachariah, a black South African living under the rule of the harsh apartheid government in 1959.

Escape from Pretoria

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

Cry Freedom

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Sarafina!

The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.

A Dry White Season

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

Dangerous Ground

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.

Friends

The beginning of the end of the apartheid era in South Africa is seen through the perspectives of three female friends: Sophie, who is of English descent; Aninka, who is an Afrikaner; and Thoko, who is black.

Whitney

Examines the life and career of singer Whitney Houston. Features never-before-seen archival footage, exclusive recordings, rare performances and interviews with the people who knew her best.

Mandela and de Klerk

Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine both received Emmy nominations for their performances in this made-for-TV movie. The plot follows Nelson Mandela's 27-year struggle to end apartheid.

Bopha!

In this story of a black policeman during South African apartheid, Danny Glover plays the cop, who believes he's trying to help his people, even while serving as a pawn of the racist government. When his son gets involved in the anti-apartheid movement, he finds himself torn between his family and what he believes is his duty.

Skin

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema

This South African movie tracks the rise of a once-petty criminal to the heights of the criminal underworld. After cutting his teeth on hijacking, before moving onto bigger game, an ambitious man hits a setback when most of his gang are shot.

Goodbye Bafana

The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.

Pure Blood

Combining a new age black maid, blood-drinking zombie racists and a plot to poison the town with blood cakes, what ensues is a dark comedy that pits the forces of fascism against the redeeming power of true love and home cooking…

An Act of Defiance

Apartheid is rampant in South Africa, 1963. When ten men are arrested on a farm in Rivonia for conspiring to commit sabotage and violent acts against the repressive S. African government, tenacious lawyer Bram Fisher steps up to the challenge as lead counsel. He soon finds that political leader Nelson Mandela is also on trial. Mandela urges his fellow defendants to plead not guilty and shine light on the systemic corruption against the African people. As the outcome of the trial looks bleak, Mandela gives his famous "I'm Prepared to Die" speech, discussing how the ANC's resistance is justified. But will Mandela's impassioned speech save these men's lives?

Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains

A chronicle of the former president's tour recent for his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

Death of Apartheid

The secret history of the negotiations that led to Mandela's release from prison, the ANC becoming the government of South Africa, and the end of apartheid.

Endgame

The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.

The Good Man

Michael is a young Irish banker, whose life begins to unravel after causing a stranger's death in an accident. Sifiso is a teenager living in a shack in a Cape Town township, dreaming of escape. When their stories unexpectedly collide, their impact on one another's lives is far greater, and more surprising, than either could have imagined.

Black Butterflies

Confronted by Apartheid and a father who was Minister of Censorship, Ingrid Jonker searched for a home, searched for love. With men like Jack Cope and André Brink she found much love, but no home. Later, in his first speech to the South African Parliament Nelson Mandela read her poem "The Dead Child of Nyanga" and addressed her as one of the finest poets of South Africa.

The Fourth Reich

Robey Leibbrandt history , South African boxer who became fascinated with Nazi ideology after the Olympic Games in Berlin and led an operation to overthrow the pro- allied government of General Jan Smuts during the Second World War.

Soweto Green

An American couple moves to Johannesburg after Nelson Mandela is elected president.

Amandla

Amandla is an anti-apartheid resistance slogan and means power. Apartheid in South Africa is still in full force when, in 1987, the two brothers Impi and Nkosana grew up on a farm as the sons of servants. The white owners are liberal people who aren't too particular about racial segregation. Black Africans have it relatively good there. Even a tender love bond develops between Impi and the blond daughter Elizabeth. But they have to be on their guard when neighboring farmers come to visit. When three racist upstart Boers arrive on the farm one day, tragic incidents occur with terrible consequences. The two Zulu boys are now on their own. Several years after surviving this childhood tragedy, the now grown brothers each find themselves on the opposing sides of the law. One is a gangster, the other is a police officer. A heinous gang crime tests their loyalty to one another.

Eddie Izzard: Marathon Man for Sport Relief

Eddie Izzard pushes her body and sense of humour to the limit for Sport Relief as she takes on an immense challenge - travelling to South Africa to run 27 marathons in 27 days to mark the 27 years that their hero Nelson Mandela spent in prison. It is a gruelling, uplifting and hilarious journey through baking heat, high roads and hospitals - but can Eddie make it to the final finish line?

Son

1981. Apartheid is taking a heavy toll on South Africa. Townships are burning, and on the border with Angola, a war is raging. Young men are called up to military duty right after school, and sent to battle the "Rooi Gevaar" the threat of communist oppression. Paul is one of those boys. He is smart, handsome, and ambitious, with dreams of becoming a medical doctor one day. The story starts during the summer holiday, after Paul has matriculated. He is determined to enjoy these few weeks before he has to report to the military. In January, Paul leaves for the Army, basic training,and finally, the war on the border. During a skirmish with the enemy, Paul is seriously wounded. He gets sent home, and everything is in jeopardy. Can Paul put together the very broken pieces of his life?

The Candidate

This multi-faceted drama, which depicts a group of intellectual Afrikaners struggling with pertinent moral, ethical and racial issues in apartheid South Africa, is widely acknowledged as one of Jans Rautenbach’s finest films.

More Than Just a Game

A drama about political prisoners playing soccer at Robben Island prison, where Nelson Mandela was held.

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama is a documentary film produced by Edward Norton broadcast in November 2009 on HBO, which follows Barack Obama and various members of his campaign team, including David Axelrod, through the two years leading up to the United States presidential election on November 4th, 2008.

Mandela

A documentary that chronicles the life of South African leader Nelson Mandela. Mandela is probably best known for his 27 years of imprisonment, and for bringing an end to apartheid. But this film also sheds light on the little-known early period of Mandela's life.

More custom members lists

Sort results by:

X close
Default
Clear filters
...