8 Best Movies Set in or About South Africa

8 Movies Set in or About South Africa

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on South Africa.

1. 

   1. Searching for Sugar Man

   2012

   Two South African fans set out to solve a mystery: the fate of Rodriguez, an obscure 1970s American singer who flopped at home but, unknown to him, became a legend and an anti-apartheid anthem in South Africa. An Oscar-winning documentary with a stunning twist.

2. 

   2. District 9

   2009

   Decades after a stranded alien ship left its refugees confined to a squalid Johannesburg slum, a bureaucrat overseeing their forced relocation is exposed to an alien substance that begins to transform him into the most wanted being on earth. Neill Blomkamp's inventive sci-fi allegory.

3. 

   3. Zulu

   1964

   In 1879, a small garrison of British soldiers at an isolated mission station in South Africa must hold out against an overwhelming force of thousands of Zulu warriors. A grand, tense historical war epic of the Battle of Rorke's Drift.

4. 

   4. Cry Freedom

   1987

   Based on true events, a white South African newspaper editor befriends the charismatic Black consciousness leader Steve Biko, and after Biko dies in police custody, risks everything to expose the truth and flee the country. A powerful anti-apartheid drama.

5. 

   5. Invictus

   2009

   Newly elected as South Africa's first Black president, Nelson Mandela seizes on the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted by his still-divided nation, as a way to unite Black and white behind a single team. Clint Eastwood's inspirational, true-story drama.

6. 

   6. A Dry White Season

   1989

   During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a complacent white South African schoolteacher begins asking dangerous questions after a Black gardener's son dies in police custody, and his search for the truth shatters his comfortable life. A searing anti-apartheid drama.

7. 

   7. Come Back, Africa

   1959

   Shot secretly under apartheid, this docudrama follows a Zulu man who leaves his village for Johannesburg and endures a grinding cycle of hardship and injustice in the city. A historic, clandestine landmark of South African cinema.

8. 

   8. The Wilby Conspiracy

   1975

   A Black South African activist freed from prison finds himself on the run again almost immediately, and a cynical British engineer reluctantly helps him flee across the country while a ruthless security agent pursues them. A tense apartheid-era thriller.