Summary
- Indigenous American filmmakers have created a diverse range of movies that highlight their culture, history, and personal experiences while also providing engaging stories that anyone can connect with.
- Many Indigenous films are not high-profile projects or big-budget blockbusters, but they still deserve to be seen and connected with by a wider audience.
- These films cover a variety of genres, from character studies to sci-fi and horror, providing something for everyone to enjoy and appreciate.
While most people associate Hollywood with North American movies, there are a number of Indigenous creators, artists, and filmmakers who have produced complex, narrative-rich movies. Ranging from small indie character dramas to entertaining genre flicks, Indigenous American directors, writers, and actors have all produced great works of art that manage to highlight their culture, history, and personal experiences while also creating overall engaging stories that anyone can follow and connect with. Whether it be a small character study about life as an Indigenous American, a sci-fi post-apocalyptic drama featuring Indigenous people, or a zombie horror story, there is an Indigenous movie for everyone to enjoy and connect with.
Films and TV shows starring and created by Indigenous Americans are growing in mainstream popularity, the biggest examples of which being Sterlin Harjo's Hulu series, Reservation Dogs (now in its third season), and Dan Trachtenberg's Predator prequel, Prey. However, in spite of these major successes, there is still a plethora of great films starring and made by talented Indigenous artists that aren't high-profile projects or big-budget franchise blockbusters, and they deserve to be seen and connect with an audience.
15 Smoke Signals (1998)
- Stream on Paramount+
A 1998 coming-of-age film, Smoke Signals follows two Native American men (Evan Adams and Adam Beach) who travel from their Coeur d'Alene Reservation in Idaho to Arizona to retrieve one of their estranged father's (Gary Farmer) ashes. Smoke Signals isn't the first movie created by Indigenous filmmakers, but it was recognized as being the first directed, written, and produced by Indigenous Americans that reached a wide audience in both the US and abroad. It is such an important and engaging film that it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2018 (The Associated Press).
14 Before Tomorrow (2008)
- Rent or buy on Apple TV
This Canadian drama tells the story of an Inuk elder named Ninioq (Madeline Ivalu, also one of the film's directors) and her grandson, Maniq, who are of a small Inuit community that suddenly dies of smallpox contracted from white settlers in the 1840s. What is particularly notable about Before Tomorrow is that not only is it the third film produced by Igloolik Isuma Productions, an Inuit film studio, but it is also the first feature film from Arnait Video Productions, a women's Inuit film production group. Co-directors Ivalu and Marie-Hélène Cousineau deliver a powerful, gripping story that manages to both inform and engage with its audience.
13 Night Raiders (2021)
- Stream on Hulu
Directed by Cree-Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet, this Canadian-New Zealand science fiction dystopian film tells the story of a Cree woman named Niska (Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers) who s a resistance movement to fight back against the military government and save her daughter. Executive produced by Next Goal Wins director Taika Waititi and partly inspired by Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, Night Raiders is a film that manages to be an entertaining sci-fi dystopian movie while also serving as an allegory for both the Dakota Access Pipeline protests on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and the Indian residential school system.
12 Beans (2020)
- Stream on Hulu
Beans centers on two Mohawk communities that engage in a 78-day armed stand-off against the government as they attempt to defend a burial ground that developers plan to build on. Directed by Mohawk-Canadian director Tracey Deer, the film is a semi-autobiographical story that is based on events that Deer herself experienced when she was a child. What is particularly noteworthy about Beans is that it perfectly captures the emotions and experiences that Deer had when she was about the same age as Beans (Kiawentiio) but without presenting it in a way that would be horrifying or traumatic for younger viewers.
11 Songs My Brother Taught Me (2015)
- Stream on Paramount+
The directorial debut of Nomadland and Eternals director Chloé Zhao, this coming-of-age drama follows Johnny (John Reddy), who dreams of moving to Los Angeles to start a new life but fears leaving behind his sister and single mother on the reservation, especially after the ing of their absentee father. Nominated for the Caméra d'Or Award for best first feature film at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, the movie is an incredibly heartbreaking story about not just the bond between a Lakota Sioux brother and sister, but an exploration of life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that does not sugarcoat any details.
10 Indian Horse
- Stream on Netflix
Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by author Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse focuses on a young Canadian First Nations boy named Saul Indian Horse (played by various actors) who becomes a star ice hockey player after surviving Canada's residential school system. While the film and the book may not be true stories, they are still based on real events and trauma that affected many Indigenous people across North America, and as entertaining as Indian Horse may be, it is still a reminder of the struggles that Indigenous people face even to this day.
9 The Body Re When The World Broke Open (2019)
- Unavailable to stream in the United States (available to stream on Crave in Canada)
Filmed in almost one continuous long take, this 2019 Canadian drama film centers on two Indigenous women (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Violet Nelson) living in completely different socio-economic positions who meet each other by chance and attempt to cope with the effects of intimate partner violence. Premiering at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival and screened at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, The Body Re When The World Broke Open was nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and won three. Additionally, in 2020, it won the Toronto Film Critics Association's Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, one of the most prestigious in Canada.
8
7 (2019)
- Stream on Tubi
Released in 2019, this documentary follows a Cree family that struggles to attain justice for their son, Colten Boushie, after his killer, white ranch owner Gerald Stanley, was acquitted of his crimes. The documentary also provides a broader history of the Indigenous people of Canada and how much they've been oppressed by the white majority in the country. The film has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and won several awards in Canada, and these accomplishments highlight not only how relevant and important the subject matter is in the documentary, but how masterfully it is told.
6 Fukry (2019)
- Unavailable for streaming
A film that took Navajo director Blackhorse Lowe nearly eight years to make, Fukry centers around Ching Yazzie (Lydell Mitchell) and her friends as they experience the positives and negatives of "falling in and out of love or not at all" (via Albuquerque Journal). Originally intended as a "silly comedy", the film slowly morphed into something so much more, and the end result is a very meticulous and methodical story that comments on the nature of love and how it affects a person. The film was shot in Albuquerque with an all-Indigenous American cast.
