In order to be able to protect human rights, it is first necessary to see the denial of those rights. Aside from experiencing human rights violations directly, either as a victim or as an eyewitness, more than any other medium film is able to bring us closer to this aspect of the human experience. Yet, notwithstanding its importance to human rights, film has received virtually no scholarly attention and thus one of the primary goals of this book is to begin to fill this gap. From an historical perspective, human rights were not at all self-evident by reason alone, but had to gain standing through an appeal to human emotions found in novels as well as in works of moral philosophy and legal theory. Although literature continues to play an important role in the human rights project, film is able to take us that much further, by universalizing the particular experience of others different from ourselves, the viewers. Watching Human Rights analyzes more than 100 of the finest human rights films ever made-documentaries, feature films, faux documentaries, animations, and even cartoons. It will introduce the reader to a wealth of films that might otherwise remain unknown, but it also shows the human rights themes in films that all of us are familiar with.

Introduction; Part I Feature Films; Chapter 1 Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993); Chapter 2 The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006); Chapter 3 Missing (Costa-Gavras, 1982); Chapter 4 The Official Story (Luis Puenzo, 1985); Chapter 5 The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé, 1984); Chapter 6 Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994); Chapter 7 Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008); Chapter 8 Precious: Based on the Novel 'oePush'? by Sapphire (Lee Daniels, 2009); Chapter 9 (tie) Sometimes in April (Raoul Peck, 2005) Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004); Chapter 11 Dead Man Walking (Tim Robbins, 1995); Chapter 12 The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002); Chapter 13 Journey of Hope (Xavier Koller, 1990); Chapter 14 Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969); Chapter 15 Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982); Chapter 16 Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008); Chapter 17 Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008); Chapter 18 Norma Rae (Martin Ritt, 1979); Chapter 19 The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999); Chapter 20 V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005); Chapter 21 A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989); Chapter 22 Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993); Chapter 23 Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, 2005); Chapter 24 To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962); Chapter 25 Days of Glory (Indigÿnes) (Rachid Bouchareb, 2006); Chapter 26 District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009); Chapter 27 Sophie's Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982); Chapter 28 Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass, 2002); Chapter 29 Omagh (Pete Travis, 2004); Chapter 30 Paradise Now (Hany Abu-Assad, 2005); Chapter 31 Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, 2007); Chapter 32 Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008); Chapter 33 Amazing Grace (Michael Apted, 2006); Chapter 34 Mississippi Burning (Alan Parker, 1988); Chapter 35 The Circle (Jafar Panahi, 2000); Chapter 36 Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006); Chapter 37 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007); Chapter 38 Vera Drake (Mike Leigh, 2004); Chapter 39 Lilya 4-Ever (Lukas Moodysson, 2002); Chapter 40 Men with Guns (John Sayles, 1997); Chapter 41 The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966); Chapter 42 Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987); Chapter 43 Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembÿne, 2004); Chapter 44 The Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles, 2005); Chapter 45 Even the Rain (Icíar Bollaín, 2010); Chapter 46 Lord of War (Andrew Niccol, 2005); Chapter 47 Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961); Chapter 48 The Road to Guantanamo (Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, 2006); Chapter 49 City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan, 2009); Chapter 50 Rabbit-Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, 2002); Part II Documentaries; Chapter 1a Darwin's Nightmare (Hubert Sauper, 2004); Chapter 2a Nero's Guests: The Age of Inequality (Deepa Bhatia, 2009); Chapter 3a Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994); Chapter 4a USA vs. Al-Arian (Line Halvorsen, 2007); Chapter 5a The Agronomist (Jonathan Demme, 2003); Chapter 6a 4 Little Girls (Spike Lee, 1997); Chapter 7a Arna's Children (Juliano Mer-Khamis and Danniel Danniel, 2004); Chapter 8a We Were Here (David Weissman, 2011); Chapter 9a Long Night's Journey into Day (Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffmann, 2000); Chapter 10 Waiting for 'oeSuperman'? (Davis Guggenheim, 2010); Chapter 11a Roger & Me (Michael Moore, 1989); Chapter 12a White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Steven Okazaki, 2007); Chapter 13a Where Soldiers Come From (Heather Courtney, 2011); Chapter 14a In the Land of the Free (Vadim Jean, 2010); Chapter 15a You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo (Luc Cÿté and Patricio Henriquez, 2010); Chapter 16a An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006); Chapter 17a Last Train Home (Lixin Fan, 2009); Chapter 18a Jung (War) in the Land of the Mujaheddin (Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Alberto Vendemmiati, 2001); Chapter 19a Pushing the Elephant (Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel, 2010); Chapter 20a Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Gini Reticker, 2008); Chapter 21a Enemies of the People (Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, 2009); Chapter 22a Presumed Guilty (Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith, 2008); Chapter 23a Taxi to the Dark Side (Alex Gibney, 2007); Chapter 24a Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (Rory Kennedy, 2007); Chapter 25a Crude (Joe Berlinger, 2009); Chapter 26a Better This World (Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega, 2011); Chapter 27a The Pinochet Case (Patricio Guzmán, 2001); Chapter 28a Budrus (Julia Bacha, 2009); Chapter 29a When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, 2006); Chapter 30a Well-Founded Fear (Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini, 2000); Chapter 31a Children Underground (Edet Belzberg, 2001); Chapter 32a Invisible Children (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole, 2006); Chapter 33a The Inheritors (Eugenio Polgovsky, 2008); Chapter 34a Out in the Silence (Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, 2009); Chapter 35a Public Housing (Frederick Wiseman, 1997); Chapter 36a Harlan County, USA (Barbara Kopple, 1976) American Dream (Barbara Kopple, 1990); Chapter 37a Shipbreakers (Michael Kot, 2004); Chapter 38a Mardi Gras: Made in China (David Redmon, 2005); Chapter 39a The Interrupters (Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz, 2011); Chapter 40a The Age of Stupid (Franny Armstrong, 2009); Chapter 41a Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony (Lee Hirsch, 2002); Chapter 42a The Devil Came on Horseback (Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern, 2007); Chapter 43a When the Mountains Tremble (Pamela Yates and Newton Thomas Sigel, 1983) Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (Pamela Yates, 2011); Chapter 44a Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004); Chapter 45a Petition (The Court of Complaints) (Zhao Liang, 2009); Chapter 46a (tie) Burma VJ (Anders Ã~stergaard, 2008) Burma Soldier (Nic Dunlop and Ricki Stern, 2010); Chapter 48a One Day in September (Kevin Macdonald, 1999); Chapter 49a The Farm: Angola, USA (Liz Garbus and Wilbert Rideau, 1998); Chapter 50a The Dictator Hunter (Klaartje Quirijns, 2007); Chapter 51 The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (Kazuo Hara, 1987);