Best South African history movies

Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch history films from South Africa, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

  • Poster for The Visual Bible: Matthew

    The Visual Bible: Matthew 1993

    The only dramatization using the actual scriptures...word for word from the New International Version (NIV). In Israel, then known as Judea of the Roman Empire, Nazarene Jesus Christ travels around the country with His disciples preaching to the people about God and salvation of their souls.

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  • Poster for Blood and Glory

    Blood and Glory 2016

    Set in 1901, this period epic follows Willem Morkel, a Boer family man whose wife and son are murdered during the Anglo-Boer War. Captured as a prisoner of war, Willem must survive incarceration in the notorious St. Helena concentration camp and defeat the ruthless Colonel Swannell, at his own game—Rugby

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  • Poster for Proteus

    Proteus 2003

    An exquisite period piece that skillfully explores the intersections of sex, race and politics takes place in 18th century South Africa, telling the passionate (true) story of two men caught in an unjust system rife with racism, homophobia and cruelty.

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  • Poster for Mr. Kingstreet's War

    Mr. Kingstreet's War 1973

    A couple sets up an African game preserve, only to have British and Italian armies fight over the waterholes.

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  • Poster for Shangani Patrol

    Shangani Patrol 1970

    Set in the First Matabele War in what was then Rhodesia; a scouting group from the British South African Company are chasing the Ndebele king Lobengula when they are ambushed by a massive Ndebele forced and must take a desperate last stand.

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  • Come see the bioscope 1994

    Sol Plaatje was a politician, novelist, historian, musician, translator of Shakespeare into vernacular language, and founder member of what was to become the African National Congress. In 1924, a visionary South African, Sol Plaatje, set out to bring the wonders of cinema to the community. Brandishing a few educational 16mm films under his arm, Plaatje arrives in a dusty, Blacks-only township in the Western Transvaal. He is looking for a venue which can be set up as a bioscope. Things do not seem promising, but Plaatje is first befriended by a helpful young boy. And then, despite prevailing apartheid obstacles, a room is found. The township community is excited and set to be overawed by the new celluloid world about to unfold before them.

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  • Poster for Torn Allegiance

    Torn Allegiance 1986

    Piet du Bois is a miner who wants to buy a farm. He meets a Bushman and his wife buying their land and expelling after. The Bushman exposes a legend about a fabulous hidden treasure.

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  • Poster for Hotel Rwanda

    Hotel Rwanda 2004

    Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

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  • Poster for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

    Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom 2013

    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.

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