As I get ready to teach my global health course online this year, I wanted to compile a list of great movies focused on global health topics.
I posed the question on Twitter and received a large number of suggestions. Here is the compilation of over 100 films (as of Sept 2024) recommended by a variety of people. I have provided a hyperlink to a website with more details on each movie. The list is alphabetically organized using the movie title.
I am grateful to all those who contributed to this list. I will aim to keep it updated, as I am doing with a similar list of global health books.
Happy viewing!
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Title of the film |
Directors or producers |
Link |
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A doctor’s dream: A pill for sleeping sickness
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DNDi |
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A Quiet Inquisition |
Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn |
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And The Band Played On |
Roger Spottiswoode |
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Antibiotic resistance |
Nitai Steinberg |
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Awakenings |
Penny Marshall |
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Be Your Sisters' Keeper |
Maisha Fiti |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDH3gP0MAeA&feature=emb_logo |
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Bending The Arc |
Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos |
https://bendingthearcfilm.com/ (now on Netflix) |
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Birth of a Family |
Hans Olson | ||
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Birth In Nepal |
Subina Shrestha |
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2010/05/20105372154435803.html |
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Birth Wars |
Janet Jarman |
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Breathtaking |
Craig Viveiros, Rachel Clarke (written by) |
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Cefalea |
Kim Hyejin |
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C'era una volta la città dei matti (There was once the city of the mad) |
Marco Turco |
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Chernobyl (2019) |
Craig Mazin |
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Contagion |
Steven Soderbergh |
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Dallas Buyers Club |
Jean-Marc Vallee |
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Dark Waters |
Todd Haynes |
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Dirty Pretty Things |
Stephen Frears |
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Doctors of War |
Nathaniel Lippiett |
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El Susto! |
Karen Akins |
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Erin Brockovich |
Steven Soderbergh |
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Escape Fire |
Susan Froemke, Matthew Heineman |
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Ek Doctor Ki Maut |
Tapan Sinha |
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Euphoric |
Nirmala Choudhary and Roopali Ramesh Kumar | ||
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Faces |
Joseph Adesunloye | ||
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Fire In The Blood |
Dylan Mohan Gray |
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Nacho Corbella |
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For Sama |
Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts |
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From Durban To Tomorrow |
Dylan Mohan Gray |
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Ganashatru |
Satyajit Ray |
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God Loves Uganda |
Roger Ross Williams |
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Hear Our Voices - Mental Health in a Developing World |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbpncXY1WtA&feature=emb_logo |
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Heroines of Health |
Lisa Russell |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpVzvY636TA&feature=youtu.be |
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Hospital |
Kesang Tseten Lama |
https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/738a7b45-015e-4ebe-8074-c1da0878db17/hospital/docs-for-sale |
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How I Live |
Meghan Shea and Mike Rogers |
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How to Survive A Pandemic |
David France |
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How To Survive A Plague |
David France |
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Hunger Ward |
Skye Fitzgerald |
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I Am Belmaya |
Sue Carpenter |
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Inside Story |
Rolie Nikiwe |
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In Our Hands |
Millie Harvey |
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Io Capitano |
Matteo Garrone |
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Jackson |
Maise Crow |
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Knock on my door |
The Specialty Hospital in Jordaan and produced by Fawzi Al Hammouri, Abdullah Haymour and Rania Al Shadeed. |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2c02hiAsvY&feature=emb_logo |
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Life and Debt |
Stephanie Black |
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Life In A Day
|
Kevin Macdonald |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaFVr_cJJIY&feature=youtu.be&has_verified=1 |
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Limbo |
Saw Eh Doh Poe, Nann Win May Aye and Nwaye Zar Che Soe |
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Living without limits |
BBC StoryWorks for the Helmsley Charitable Trust. |
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Living in Emergency |
Mark Hopkins |
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Lovesick |
Ann S. Kim & Priya Giri Desai |
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Man Facing Southeast |
Eliseo Subiela |
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Medicine Man |
John McTiernan |
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Manus |
Angus McDonald |
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Merchants Of Doubt |
Robert Kenner |
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Minutes To Die |
James Reid |
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Miss Evers' Boys |
Josesph Sargent |
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Nasrin |
Jeff Kaufman |
https://www.nasrinfilm.com/ |
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Nothing Without Us: The Women Who Will End AIDS |
Harriet Hirshorn |
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Outbreak |
Wolfgang Petersen |
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Out of Breath |
Hein Seok |
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Parasite |
Bong Joon Ho |
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Period. End of Sentence. |
Rayka Zehtabchi |
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Phir Milenge |
Revathi |
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Susana Beatriz Serrano |
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Pili |
Sophie Harman & Leanne Welham |
https://www.studiosohodistribution.com/movie/pili?country=united-kingdom |
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Pills Profits Protest |
Shanti Avirgan |
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Poverty, Inc. |
Michael Matheson Miller |
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Priya's Mask |
Ram Devineni & Shubhra Prakash |
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Putuparri and the Rainmakers |
Nicole Ma & John Moore |
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Rabbit- Proof Fence |
Phillip Noyce |
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Resistance |
Michael Graziano |
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RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge |
Gail Willumsen |
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!Salud! |
Connie Field |
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Saving Face |
Daniel Junge & Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy | ||
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Sema |
Macherie Ekwa Bahango |
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Ship of Theseus |
Anand Gandhi |
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Sicko |
Michael Moore |
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Something Like a War
|
Deepa Dhanraj |
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Smile Pinki |
Megan Mylan |
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State of Mind
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Hopewell Chin'ono |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XKAkTmPZSs&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop |
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Stressed: a pandemic of fear |
Daniel Wheeler |
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Survivors |
Arthur Pratt |
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That Sugar Film |
Damon Gameau |
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The Cost of Cobalt |
Fiona Lloyd-Davies and Robert Flummerfelt |
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The Divide |
Katherine Round |
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The Devil We know |
Stephanie Soechtig |
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The Friendship Bench |
Reabetswe Moeti-Vogt & Graham Leader |
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The Insider |
Michael Mann |
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The Journey of Hope |
Jorik Dozy and Sean Lin |
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The Lucky Specials |
Rea Rangaka |
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| The New Barbarianism |
Stephen Morrison |
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The People Vs. Agent Orange |
Alan Adelson & Kate Taverna |
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The Physician |
Philipp Stölzl |
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The Lazarus Effect |
David Gelb |
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The Constant Gardener |
Fernando Meirelles |
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| The Final Inch | Irene Taylor | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1360061/ | |
| The Unforgotten | Ewan Affleck | https://theunforgotten.cma.ca/film | |
| There is Something in the Water | Ian Daniel, Elliot Page, Ingrid Waldron | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10864040/ | |
| TISHALA: Nothing to Lose | Emmanuel Yegon | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBtXD2n5lak&feature=youtu.be | |
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Toilet. A Love Story |
Shree Narayan Singh |
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The Life Equation |
Rob Tinworth |
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The Necessities of Life (Ce qu'il faut pour vivre) |
Benoit Pilon |
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Tigers |
Danis Tanovic |
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The Price of Free |
Derek Doneen |
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The Swimmers |
Sally El Hosaini |
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Township Yogi |
Peter Matthews |
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| United in Anger |
Jim Hubbard |
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| Unmasked: We All Breathe |
Janet Tobias |
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Virus (2019) |
Aashiq Abu |
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War & Grace |
Sonia Lowman |
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We Were Here |
David Weissman |
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Welcome To Sodom |
Florian Weigensamer & Christian Krönes |
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What Doesn't Kill Me |
Rachel Meyrick |
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What The Health |
Kip Andersen & Keegan Kuhn |
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WOMENstruate |
Lauren Anders Brown |
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Yellow Card |
John Riber |
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Yesterday |
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93 Days |
Steve Gukas |
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130 BPM (Beats Per Minute) |
Robin Campillo |
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