5 movies to watch on Amazon this weekend to celebrate Black History Month

February is Black History Month. It’s a chance to look back at the change that has happened over the years. We can’t forget the bad of the past. All we should do is learn from that history.

Why not spend this weekend looking back at events that happened in the past? It’s time to see how things have grown throughout the decades and look at how far we still need to go today.

I did want to add the movie Passing to this list, but it’s only available on Netflix. That’s the only reason it’s not there as there is no way of watching it on Amazon. It is worth the watch this weekend, though.

5 must-watch movies on Amazon for Black History Month

12 Years a Slave

We start off in pre-Civil War America. Solomon Northup was a Black man born free in New York. One night, he’s kidnapped and sold as a slave in the South. It doesn’t matter how much he argues, nobody will listen to the fact that he is a free man. He doesn’t have his paperwork on him because it was taken.

12 Years a Slave is based on a true story. It took 12 years for Northup to find someone who would help him get word to his family to be able to free him.

12 Years a Slave is available to buy on Amazon Instant Video or watch on Paramount+ with Amazon Channels.

Harriet

Another story set in pre-Civil War America is also based on truth. Harriet tells the story of Harriet Tubman, the woman who helped to free slaves through the Underground Railroad. She was a slave herself and managed to get free with this Underground Railroad. She was going to make sure it happened for others, too.

This is a movie about survival and fighting for what was right. Harriet risked her life and her freedom to make it possible for others to get out.

Harriet is available to buy or rent on Amazon Instant Video.

Hidden Figures

We jump to the 1960s with the next one. Yes, Hidden Figures is based on a true story, too. This time, we get to see the brilliant Black women at NASA who made it possible to get men into space and onto the moon.

Not only would they be overlooked because they were women, but also they were Black women. Their parts in getting John Glenn into space to orbit the Earth have gone unrecognized until now. It was all thanks to Katherine Goble Johnson Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson.

Hidde Figures is available to buy or rent on Amazon Instant Video.

Loving

Set in the 1960s, Loving tells the story of an interracial couple. Nowadays, there’s nothing illegal about Black and white people being together. We can marry whoever we want, but it took a Supreme Court decision in 1967 to make that possible.

Before that, many interracial couples lived in secret. That’s the case for Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton’s characters in Loving. We see the fight that they go through to get the love they deserve.

Loving is available to buy or rent on Amazon Instant Video.

Just Mercy

Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx star in the last of the movies on Amazon for Black History Month to check out this weekend. It’s all about Just Mercy, which focuses on a criminal case. It follows a civil rights attorney who puts everything on the line to represent a Black man on Death Row.

Walter McMillan is potentially innocent, but nobody will listen. He’s a Death Row inmate in Alabama, and his time is coming up. A civil rights attorney races against time to prove his client is innocent.

Just Mercy is available to buy or rent on Amazon Instant Video or on Max with Amazon Channels.