CREDO Tip: 3 Political Documentaries to Stream on Netflix Right Now

As election season heats up, the first votes of 2020 have been cast, and politics is in the air. It’s an exciting time, because we’re that much closer to one of the most consequential elections of our lives.

But if the 24 hour news cycle isn’t your cup of tea — and you still need your political fix — we’ve got you covered. From courageous and progressive female candidates to propaganda in our news feeds to mass incarceration, we’ve picked out three political documentaries streaming right now on Netflix for your next binge session. 

Knock Down The House (2019)

2018 was another year of the woman. A record 529 women ran for Congress, many of whom were inspired to run in the wake of the election two years prior, when a misogynist entered the White House. Knock Down the House, directed by Rachel Lears, features four female progressive candidates — with a focus on now-Rep. Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez — who took on the establishment, following them through their campaigns and up to election night, and beyond. 2020 could again shape up to be another year of the female candidate, so this one is worth a watch.

Watch it streaming on Netflix here.

The Great Hack (2019)

If you’ve ever felt like your devices are listening to you — then serve you up eerily similar ads — you’re not alone. Technology companies and data brokers are constantly harvesting our private information for profit, and they’re playing an ever growing role to influence our behaviors, including at the ballot box. The Great Hack, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, examines how now-defunct Cambridge Analytica, the data firm backed by major Republican billionaire mega-donor Robert Mercer, harvested Facebook data of millions of Americans and Brits to feed them propaganda.

As election security bills to protect our democracy languish in Mitch McConnell’s Senate, the possibility of history repeating itself could become reality, so we recommend checking this out to know what we could be up against again.

Check it out streaming on Netflix here.

13th (2016)

More than 150 years ago, the 13th Amendment was ratified, cementing the abolishment of slavery in our nation’s most important governing document. But disturbingly, there remains one notable and ominous loophole: salvery and involuntary servitude were abolished “except as a punishment for crime.” Immediately post-Civil War, this exception was exploited, and, as director Ava DuVernay, widely known for her work on Selma, examines, is still being employed today.

Shocking as well as tear-jerking, DuVernay’s 13th lays bare the systemic racism in our criminal justice system, from Jim Crow through today’s crisis of Black mass incarceration. As the New York Times lays out 13th‘s overarching argument, “The United States did not just criminalize a select group of black people. It criminalized black people as a whole, a process that, in addition to destroying untold lives, effectively transferred the guilt for slavery from the people who perpetuated it to the very people who suffered through it.” 

Now streaming on Netflix here.