APUSH with Mr. Johnson
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Movies

Extra Credit Opportunity

I will add seven points (one full letter grade) to a test or other assignment of your choice each time you complete the following assignment:

Watch and write a response to a U.S. History-related movie and receive extra credit.

  1. Watch a movie listed below under the unit we are currently studying or a unit we have already studied.  If you know of an appropriate movie I have not listed, email me and I will add it to the list.
  2. Type a one paragraph summary of the film, describing the characters and plot.
  3. Write an additional paragraph relating the film to the themes of the unit it is listed under.
  4. Finally, submit your work via the form at the bottom of this page.  Attach your summary using the "Browse" button.
  5. Limit one per week.
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Finding Movies

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Hopewell High School Media Center has a large collection of U.S. history movies available.  See the shelf just outside Mrs. Cothern's office to find a selection that interests you.

Titles available for checkout from the media center are marked with an asterisk (*) in the movie list below.

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Netflix is a relatively inexpensive source for movies. documentaries and television shows.  For a membership cost of less than $10 a month, Netflix offers thousands of movies available to stream on your computer, television, video game console and mobile devices.  Though the Netflix streaming library is more limited than its disk-by-mail library, Netflix streaming does have an excellent selection of U.S. history-related documentaries, many of which are included in the movie lists below.

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American Experience is an excellent documentary series from PBS.  Nearly all episodes of American Experience are available to stream online, free of charge.

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PBS Frontline is another excellent documentary series from PBS.  Unlike American Experience, most episodes of Frontline deal with current events.  You may watch and report on any episode of Frontline, whether it is included in my movie list or not.  All episodes of Frontline are available to stream online, free of charge.


Note to Parents

Previewing Content of Movies

This movie list is provided for optional entertainment and enrichment purposes only.  These films are in no way required viewing for the course.

If you decide to allow your child watch any of these films, please check the MPAA rating (G, PG, PG-13, R) of the film on the Internet Movie Database.  For much more detailed reviews of possibly objectionable content (violence, profanity, nudity, etc.), you may also research the movie at Kids in Mind, Common Sense Media, or Parent Previews.
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Movie List

Movies marked with an asterisk (*) are available for checkout in the Hopewell High School media center.

Unit 1: Colonization

Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)
1492: Conquest of Paradise
Apocalypto
The New World
The Mission
Black Robe
God in America: Episode 1 - The New Adam
We Shall Remain: Episode 1 - After the Mayflower
Africans in America: The Terrible Transformation*
America: The Story of Us - Rebels*
The Scarlet Letter
The Crucible*
The Salem Witch Trials*
The Last of the Mohicans*

Unit 2: Revolutionary Era

Benjamin Franklin: Citizen of the World*
The Declaration of Independence*
Founding Brothers*
1776
The Crossing*
The Patriot*
American Experience: War Letters
American Experience: Into the Deep - America, Whaling & the World
America: The Story of Us - Revolution*
Africans in America: Revolution*
Saving the National Treasures*

National Treasure

Unit 3: New Nation

John Adams*
Ken Burns: Thomas Jefferson*
Sally Hemings: An American Scandal
Jefferson in Paris
Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery*
Sacagawea
We Shall Remain: Episode 2 - Tecumseh's Vision
The War of 1812
*
American Experience: Dolley Madison

Unit 4: Expansion, Reform & Sectional Crisis

Roots
Amistad
Africans in America: Brotherly Love*
Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives
The Color Purple
12 Years a Slave
American Experience: The Abolitionists
Frederick Douglass*
Underground Railroad: The History Channel*
Underground Railroad: The William Still Story*

Whispers of Angels: The Story of the Underground Railroad*
We Shall Remain: Episode 3 - Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears*
God in America: Episode 2 - A New Eden
American Experience: The Amish
PBS: The Mormons, Part I
Ken Burns: Prohibition - Episode 1 - A Nation of Drunkards
Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton*
The Donner Party*
America: The Story of Us - Westward*
America: The Story of Us - Division*
The Alamo
Walker (1987)

Unit 5: Civil War & Reconstruction

Ken Burns: The Civil War
America: The Story of Us - Civil War*
Civil War Journal*
Virginia in the Civil War*
Ironclads
American Experience: Robert E. Lee
American Experience: U.S. Grant - Warrior
Gods & Generals*
Gettysburg*
Glory
Andersonville*
Civil War Battlefields*
American Experience: Death & the Civil War
American Experience: Abraham & Mary Lincoln - A House Divided
American Experience: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln*
Killing Lincoln*
National Treasure 2
Gone with the Wind
Birth of a Nation
Africans in America: Judgment Day*
Slavery by Another Name*
Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War*

Cold Mountain
God in America: Episode 3 - A Nation Reborn
American Experience: Walt Whitman

Unit 6: Gilded Age, Populism & Progressivism

Coal Miners
Hatfields & McCoys
The Molly Maguires
Matewan

The Wild West
Ken Burns: The West
America: The Story of Us - Heartland*
The Railroads That Tamed the West*
Far and Away
Outlaws & Gunslingers*
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
High Noon
The Magnificent Seven
True Grit
Shane
Tombstone
Wyatt Earp
American Experience: Wyatt Earp
American Experience: Annie Oakley
American Experience: Billy the Kid
American Experience: Jesse James

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
American Experience: Dinosaur Wars
American Experience: Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Soldiers*

Plains Indians
We Shall Remain: Episode 4 - Geronimo
American Experience: Custer's Last Stand*
Fort Apache
Dances with Wolves
Little Big Man
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
There Will Be Blood

Immigration, Industrialization & Urbanization
Alexander Graham Bell*
The Men Who Built America
*
American Experience: The Rockefellers
The Wright Brothers' Flying Machine*

Thomas Edison: Father of Invention*
Tesla: Master of Lightning*
The Prestige
Madness in the White City
American Experience: Henry Ford
Henry Ford: Tin Lizzie Tycoon*
America: The Story of Us - Cities*
Ken Burns: Mark Twain*
Gangs of New York
Ellis Island*
The Statue of Liberty*
The Orphan Trains*
Hester Street
American Experience: Triangle Fire
The Godfather, Part II
God in America: Episode 4 - A New Light
The National Parks: America's Best Idea*

Unit 7: America on the World Stage

The Last Samurai
Hawaii’s Last Queen
Amigo
Rough Riders
American Experience: Panama Canal
American Experience: The Greeley Expedition
All Quiet on the Western Front
Battleship Potemkin
American Experience: The Great Famine
Lawrence of Arabia
Strike
Reds
Johnny Got His Gun
A Farewell to Arms
American Experience: Influenza 1918

Unit 8: Prosperity & Depression

Sacco & Vanzetti
Rosewood
Eight Men Out
Field of Dreams
A League of Their Own
Iron Jawed Angels*
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Inherit the Wind
The Great Debaters
Ken Burns: Jazz
Ragtime
Bird
The Great Gatsby
The Aviator
American Experience: Amelia Earhart
American Experience: War of the Worlds
America: The Story of Us - Boom*

Citizen Kane
Modern Times
Man with a Movie Camera
Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip*
Ken Burns: Prohibition - Episode 2 - A Nation of Scofflaws
Ken Burns: Prohibition - Episode 3 - A Nation of Hypocrites
The Untouchables
Road to Perdition
Public Enemies
Reefer Madness
American Experience: The Crash of 1929
America: The Story of Us - Bust*
American Experience: Mount Rushmore
American Experience: Hoover Dam
American Experience: Grand Coulee Dam
Frank Lloyd Wright*
Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl*
American Experience: Surviving the Dust Bowl
Black Blizzard*
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice & Men
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy*
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson*
The March of the Bonus Army*
American Experience: The Hurricane of '38
American Experience: Riding the Rails
O Brother Where Art Thou?
American Experience: Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit
Cinderella Man
American Experience: FDR
American Experience: Civilian Conservation Corps
American Experience: Huey Long
Warm Springs

UNit 9: World War II

Road to War
Triumph of the Will
The Great Dictator
The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Ken Burns: The War

European Theater

America: The Story of Us - World War II
Casablanca
Das Boot
Enemy at the Gates
The Longest Day
Saving Private Ryan
Band of Brothers
Patton
A Bridge Too Far
The Tuskegee Airmen
Red Tails
American Experience: The Bombing of Germany
Slaughterhouse Five
Saints & Soldiers
Valkyrie
Downfall

Pacific Theater
Empire of the Sun
Tora Tora Tora
Pearl Harbor
Midway
Bridge on the River Kwai
The Thin Red Line
The Pacific
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Windtalkers
American Experience: Victory in the Pacific
The Manhattan Project*
Hiroshima
Trinity & Beyond
Fat Man and Little Boy
American Experience: The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Homefront & Holocaust
American Pastime
The Rape of Europa
The Sorrow and the Pity
Schindler’s List
Life is Beautiful
The Pianist

Unit 10: Cold War

Post-WWII Economy & Society
Salesman
Death of a Salesman
A Beautiful Mind
Awakenings
Good Night & Good Luck
The Majestic
Citizen Cohn
Point of Order
The Good Shepherd
Atomic Cafe
Radio Bikini
Chosin
American Experience: The Lobotomist
American Experience: The Polio Crusade
Pleasantville
American Experience: Tupperware!
Julie & Julia

Space Race & Cold War Technology
October Sky
The Right Stuff
From the Earth to the Moon
When We Left Earth
Apollo 13
American Experience: The Living Weapon

Capote
Dr. Strangelove
J. Edgar
Hoffa
Thirteen Days
JFK
The Kennedys
Bobby
American Experience: The Kennedys
The Motorcycle Diaries
Che
I Am Cuba
Fidel Castro
America: The Story of Us - Superpower*
Julie & Julia
Monterrey Pop
Woodstock
Quiz Show
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Cider House Rules
Norma Rae

Vietnam War

The Fog of War
In the Year of the Pig
Hearts & Minds
American Experience: My Lai
Rescue Dawn
We Were Soldiers
Platoon
Born on the Fourth of July
The Deer Hunter
Full Metal Jacket
Good Morning, Vietnam
Apocalypse Now
The Most Dangerous Man in America
The Killing Fields
Berkeley in the Sixties
The Weather Underground

Nixon & Ford Administrations

The Battle of Chile
One Bright Shining Moment
All the President’s Men
Nixon
Frost/Nixon

Carter Administration
Argo
Miracle

Reagan Administration
God in America: Episode 6 - Of God & Caesar

Silkwood
War Games
Charlie Wilson's War
The Hunt for Red October
Crimson Tide
Romero

Unit 11: Peoples Movements

African Americans & Civil Rights
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman*
42
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Raisin in the Sun
American Experience: A Class Apart
The Help
Far From Heaven
Remember the Titans
God in America: Episode 5 - Soul of a Nation
Architects of Civil Rights*
The Rosa Parks Story*
American Experience: Freedom Riders
*
American Experience: Soundtrack for a Revolution
Let Freedom Sing: How Music Inspired the Civil Rights Movement*
The Murder of Emmit Till*
Four Little Girls*
Mississippi Burning
Ghosts of Mississippi
The Last White Knight
A Force More Powerful
Citizen King*
Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream*
Dr. Martin Luther King: A Historical Perspective*
Been to the Mountain Top: Martin Luther King, Jr.*
American Experience: Roads to Memphis - The Assassination of Martin Luther King*
Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement*
Thurgood Marshall: Justice For All*
We Shall Overcome*
Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin
Malcolm X
Panther
When We Were Kings
Ali
Little Rock Central High: 50 Years Later*
Searching for the Promised Land*
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

Hispanics & Latinos
American Experience: Roberto Clemente

Native Americans

We Shall Remain: Episode 5 - Wounded Knee
Trudell
Smoke Signals

Youth & Pop Culture
Rebel Without a Cause
Quiz Show
Monterrey Pop
Woodstock
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Women

The Cider House Rules

Antiwar Movement
King: A Man of Peace in a Time of War*
The Weather Underground

Gay Liberation
American Experience: Stonewall Uprising
Milk
The Times of Harvey Milk
How to Survive a Plague
Dear Jesse

Consumer Rights
Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man

Environmentalism

American Experience: Earth Days
Silkwood

Labor

Norma Rae
Harlan County, USA

Other Social Issues
American Experience: Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple

UNit 12: Into the 21st Century

Foreign Policy
Jarhead
Three Kings
The Devil's Double
Black Hawk Down
Captain Phillips
Hotel Rwanda
Sometimes in April
The Constant Gardener
Breach
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
World Trade Center
United 93
9/11*
Fahrenheit 9/11
The Special Relationship
W.
Frontline: Bush's War
Iraq for Sale
The Hurt Locker
No End in Sight
Standard Operating Procedure
Dirty Wars
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden
Zero Dark Thirty
The Square

Economics
Roger & Me
Barbarians at the Gates
Wall Street
Trading Places
Coming to America
The Insider
American Experience: Silicon Valley
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Capitalism: A Love Story
Detropia
Inequality for All

Politics
American Experience: Jimmy Carter
American Experience: Reagan
American Experience: Clinton
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
Hot Coffee
Mitt

Environmentalism
An Inconvenient Truth
Gasland
Gasland II

Media
Page One: Inside the New York Times
MissRepresentation
The Social Network
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks
The Fifth Estate
Helvetica

Social Issues
Powwow Highway
Trudell
Reel Injun
Smoke Signals
Lone Star
Freedom Writers
Waiting for Superman
Bully
Bowling for Columbine
American History X
Bamboozled
Traffic
The House I Live In
America: The Story of Us - Millenium*
Facing the New Millenium*
Man on Wire
A Mighty Heart
Sicko
Lake of Fire
PBS: The Mormons, Part II
Hoop Dreams
Urbanized
Supersize Me
30 Days
Inside Man (CNN)
American Experience: Test Tube Babies
Baraka
Samsara


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