Strong IslandMovies like Strong Island
- Key Features:
- Racial injustice, Grief, Loss, Documentary, Systemic racism, Justice system, Family drama, Social commentary, Violence-high, Personal narrative, Trauma
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Social justice advocates, Documentary viewers, True crime enthusiasts, Social issue-focused audience
- Emotional Arc:
- Sorrow → Anger
Strong Island

Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.
Strong Island
Something lurks off the coast of Block Island, silently influencing the behavior of fisherman, Tom Lynch. After suffering a series of violent outbursts, he unknowingly puts his family in grave danger.

When police discover a young girl brutally murdered, brothers Joe Fairburns and Chrissie Fairburns join their supervisor Robert to investigate main suspect Jason Buliegh, a local sex offender and social outcast. Forced to release Jason from police custody, the Fairburns take matters into their own hands in an attempt to coerce a confession.

After the death of her daughter at the hand of her boyfriend, Marisela Escobedo began to fight for justice not only against the murderer but also against the corrupt Mexican judicial system.

Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son’s murder, attends a support group where she meets Eve, who urges her to take matters into her own hands to track down her son’s killers.

The true story of Mamie Till Mobley’s relentless pursuit of justice for her 14 year old son, Emmett Till, who, in 1955, was lynched while visiting his cousins in Mississippi.

The story centers on paroled white supremacist who has just killed a cop, and takes a black family hostage. Within hours of being released from 14 years of solitary confinement in maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, Garrett Tully is on the run again. When he finds a house off a dirt road and takes a family hostage, he thinks the Aryan Brotherhood has his back–and his kidnap victims are black. The family’s patriarch, Mr. Walker, is a jaded ex-con who hates cops so much he disavowed his own son for becoming one. Seeing a familiar desperation in Tully, Walker refuses to call the authorities for help, causing familial tensions to escalate, and soon grave missteps are made.

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

Vicaria is a brilliant teenager who believes death is a disease that can be cured. After the brutal and sudden murder of her brother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to bring him back to life.

A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.

Because he wanted to protect his little brother, Teddy, a young man without a history, is accused of the murder of his father and sent to a closed educational center, waiting for his trial for parricide. He then plunges into a brutal universe of which he does not know the rules.

An unsettling look at reality television, where a disturbing game show has its contestants ending their lives for the public's enjoyment.

When Mari Gilbert's daughter disappears, police inaction drives her own investigation into the gated Long Island community where Shannan was last seen. Her search brings attention to over a dozen murdered prostitutes.

When his brother is killed, LAPD officer Mark leaves the city to return to the island he grew up on. Seeking answers and ultimately vengeance, he soon finds himself in a bloody battle with the corrupt tycoon who's taken over the island paradise.

Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.

Two brothers from opposite sides of the tracks are reunited as adults. Desperate circumstances force them into a deal with an organized crime syndicate in Boston, and a young woman gets caught in the middle.

When Colin Warner was wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devoted his life to proving his innocence.

When Betty Anne Waters' older brother Kenny is arrested for murder and sentenced to life in 1983, Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two, dedicates her life to overturning the murder conviction. Convinced that her brother is innocent, Betty Anne puts herself through high school, college and, finally, law school in an 18 year quest to free Kenny. With the help of best friend Abra Rice, Betty Anne pores through suspicious evidence mounted by small town cop Nancy Taylor, meticulously retracing the steps that led to Kenny's arrest. Belief in her brother - and her quest for the truth - pushes Betty Anne and her team to uncover the facts and utilize DNA evidence with the hope of exonerating Kenny.

A novelist fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.

Marty is the ideal fifth grader—he gets good grades, listens to his teachers and doesn't start trouble in class. But a darkness is beginning to fall over Marty's life, the kids at school won't stop picking on him, his parents just don't seem to understand him, and now Marty must grapple with a terrible secret that threatens to destroy life as he knows it—his big brother is a serial killer.

A high school coach, whose teenage daughter was murdered, takes matters into his own hands by going after the men who kidnap his students for their sex trafficking operation.

Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family.

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.

A family of Irish immigrants adjusts to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.

A Marine veteran working as a school janitor tries to mend his relationship with his son after a divorce. When his son is killed by a police officer found innocent without standing trial, he takes matters into his own hands.

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

The McMartin family's lives are turned upside down when they are accused of serious child molestation. The family run a school for infants. An unqualified child cruelty "expert" videotapes the children describing outrageous stories of abuse. One of the most expensive and long running trials in US legal history, exposes the lack of evidence and unprofessional attitudes of the finger pointers which kept one of the accused in jail for over 5 years without bail.

It's fire and brimstone time as grieving mother Karen McCann takes justice into her own hands when a kangaroo court in Los Angeles fails to convict Robert Doob, the monster who raped and murdered her 17-year-old daughter.

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

Chronicling one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes.

After the high-profile killing of Damilola Taylor, Cornelius' family move out of London. But when they discover their new town is run by racists, Cornelius takes a drastic step to survive.

Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.

When a hard-working single mother, Sara Diaz, has her children taken from her after she is suspected of injuring her son, Ally Fisher, a recent law school graduate, is assigned to represent her case before Judge Martha Schulman, a veteran of the Family Court System.

The line between justice and revenge blurs when a devastated family uses social media to track down the people who killed 24-year-old Crystal Theobald.

A brother's journey to unravel the truth about the mythic death and little known life of Kitty Genovese, who was reportedly murdered in front of 38 witnesses and has become the face of urban apathy.

Teaming up for the first time for a special episode of a supernatural reality TV show, two rival crews get more then they bargained for when they make physical contact with a ferocious spirit of terrifying power. They must band together before it destroys them all. After 49 killer episodes…this is the true story of what happened on episode 50.

Boston, 1920. Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are charged and unfairly tried for murder on the basis of their anarchist political beliefs.

A woman is sent to a mental institution after stabbing her classmate in an attempt to conjure an evil spirit called, Mercy Black. Fifteen years later she's released, and must save her nephew, who has become obsessed with the phenomenon.

A documentary of the decline of America. Featuring footage (most exclusive to this film) from race riots to serial killers and much, much more.

Traumatized since childhood by her brother's accidental death, Danika Merrick hallucinates a bank robbery and quits her job. Despite support from her three children and loving husband, Danika continues to experience unnerving visions. She seeks help from therapist Evelyn Harris but pervasive reports of violent incidents involving children make Danika fear for her own family, and she grows increasingly paranoid, worrying she may be going insane.

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.

Enforcing the law within the notoriously rough Brownsville section of the city and especially within the Van Dyke housing projects is the NYPD's sixty-fifth precinct. Three police officers struggle with the sometimes fine line between right and wrong.

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Prominent gang leader Cyrus calls a meeting of New York's gangs to set aside their turf wars and take over the city. At the meeting, a rival leader kills Cyrus, but a Coney Island gang called the Warriors is wrongly blamed for Cyrus' death. Before you know it, the cops and every gangbanger in town is hot on the Warriors' trail.

Luigi has lived with his mother and little brother since their abusive father Franco left when he was 10. Now a young man brimming with rage, he joins a far-right gang in search of belonging, but Franco's return poisons everything.

A foster family in South Central a few weeks before the city erupts in violence following the verdict of the Rodney King trial in 1992.

An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.

In a small supermarket in a blue collar town, a black man smiles at a 10 year old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash.

A grieving widower is drawn into a custody battle over his granddaughter, whom he helped raise her entire life.

A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to kill people who were in fact "demons."

A cerebral revenge film about two adopted siblings who fall in love, and hatch a plan to kill their abusive father.

With their father in prison for murder, siblings Alison and Brandon are instantly considered suspects when a string of killings plagues their town, and they must fight to clear their names.

A Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to bring a white supremacist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.

Two brothers live in the economically-depressed Rust Belt, when a cruel twist of fate lands one in prison. His brother is then lured into one of the most violent crime rings in the Northeast.

Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.

A woman appeared to have a fairy-tale life, but six years into her marriage, the fairytale crumbles when her husband is found buried in the backyard of their home with numerous stab wounds.

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

A married couple on the verge of separation are leveled by the news their 18-year-old son committed a mass-shooting at his college, then took his own life.

A successful lawyer returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral only to discover that his estranged father, the town's judge, is suspected of murder.

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

Camilla is a successful attorney in her forties who accidentally causes the death of an undocumented migrant. At first, she is only interested in exonerating herself, but soon a feeling of responsibility starts nagging her: the dead body of a young man is lying in the morgue because their destinies fatally crossed. Camilla is used to shielding herself from pain, and she is incapable of really caring, even for her own daughter. In the midst of discovering the victim’s identity, she meets Bruno, the head of the morgue, who seems to be the only one who can truly understand her. The investigation she pursues will take her far from her surroundings until she will be forced to question herself, her unresolved past, and the life she really wants to live.

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

After a revenge obsessed society incorrectly selects its next target, a young man must survive the night as the online witch-hunt arrives at his front door.

Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.

A group of contest winners arrive at an island hotel to live out their dreams, only to find themselves trapped in nightmare scenarios.

Out drinking one night after a fight with her boyfriend, three men brutally rape Sarah Tobias in a bar while people watch and cheer. District Attorney Kathryn Murphy takes the case; however, she allows the rapists to receive a mild sentence. A distraught Sarah decides to seek punishment for the men who witnessed and encouraged the rape. To get justice, Sarah must take the stand and revisit the night of her attack.

When Juan Catalan is arrested for a murder he insists he didn't commit, he builds his case for innocence around unexpected raw footage.

The lives of two siblings are completely upended when they discover a dead body, long buried in their parent’s basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder.

A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.

When a new friend is brutally assaulted, Detective John Droomor is put by chance in charge of the investigation. Although the evidence against the perpetrators seems overwhelming, there is nothing definitive in the case that guarantees justice is served, even more so if some people are willing to twist and betray it.

As a police officer investigates the gruesome murder of her colleague, she discovers that a mysterious supernatural force is behind it.

Terminal Island, New York: 2020. Overcrowding in the US penal system has reached a breaking point. Prisons have been turned over to a monolithic Weyland Corporation, which sees jails full of thugs as an opportunity for televised sport. Adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for violence and a spectacular, enclosed arena come together to form the 'Death Race', the biggest, most brutal event.

At an elite New England university built on the site of a Salem-era gallows hill, two black women strive to find their place. Navigating politics and privilege, they encounter increasingly terrifying manifestations of the school's haunted past… and present.

When a 5-year-old girl falls from her father's apartment, her mother embarks on a quest for justice — and is put under the national spotlight.

A troubled woman on the edge of divorce returns home to her younger sister after years apart. But when her sister and brother-in-law betray her trust, she embarks on a vicious crusade of revenge.

When a handshake deal goes sour, funeral home owner Jeremiah O'Keefe enlists charismatic, smooth-talking attorney Willie E. Gary to save his family business. Tempers flare and laughter ensues as the unlikely pair bond while exposing corporate corruption and racial injustice.

A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.

A woman tries to exonerate her brother's murder conviction by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon.

After a cheerleader is sexually assaulted by the high school football team, she must overcome her shame and use the evidence gathered from the subsequent social media firestorm to piece together the night that she can't remember in her fight for justice. Based on the true story of the Steubenville, Ohio rape case.

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.

Walter and his neglected wife lure a young man into their Victorian home to escape a hurricane. When the man is charged with murder by Det. Jones, he must reveal the couple's wicked secrets to save himself.

A year after the murder of her sister Zoë, Echo is determined to uncover the truth. With Zoë's diary as her guide, Echo finds herself pulled into the darkness of her sister's secret life and she uncovers how one small decision can lead to tragic consequences.

In a rural town in Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. Military lawyer, Captain Davenport—also a black man—is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Davenport must battle with deceit and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill the Master Sergeant.

New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. When a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, he goes berserk and vows revenge.

After their bank heist goes wrong, a desperate criminal, his out-of-control brother, and their motley crew of ex-marines must escape New Orleans, United States.

Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.

Ray is an aging ex-socialist who has become a bankrobber after seeing the demise of socialism in 1980s Britain. Teaming up with a gang of other has-beenish crims, he commits one bank job too many. The gang dissolves in a murderous flurry of recriminations.

A fashion designer suffers from a mysterious illness that puzzles her doctors and frustrates her husband until help arrives in the form of a Filipino carer who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.

Respected black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior officer.

Off the coast of North America, locals simultaneously fight a zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure to revert their undead relatives back to normal.

Police chief Xavier Quinn investigates the gruesome murder of Donald Pater, one of the wealthiest residents on a Caribbean island. He was found decapitated in his Jacuzzi. Although the local political establishment, especially crooked Governor Chalk, insists that small-time thief Maubee is responsible, Xavier has his doubts. This view is complicated by the police chief's personal history with Maubee: The men have been friends since childhood.

A brutal home-jacking goes hopelessly wrong. Dave, one of the two robbers, manages to run off, leaving his brother Kenneth behind. Four years later, Kenneth is released from prison and much has changed. Dave has his life back on track and is trying to help Kenneth however possible, but is witnessing how the highly strung Kenneth tries to win back his ex-girlfriend Sylvie.

A showdown decades in the making brings the Donovan family legacy full circle. As the events that made Ray who he is today finally come to light, the Donovans find themselves drawn back to Boston to face the past. Each of them struggles to overcome their violent upbringing, but destiny dies hard, and only their fierce love for each other keeps them in the fight.

In the near future, a group of war journalists attempt to survive while reporting the truth as the United States stands on the brink of civil war.

A pair of working-class brothers flee their Reno Motel after getting involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.

