Night Watch

In February 1943 Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were caught leaving anti-Nazi leaflets at Munich University. The film follows her last days, through the interrogation and the People's Court, and draws on the Gestapo transcripts that came out of East German archives. It's mostly two people in a room, one of them very calm.

Why it’s here: The film shows resistance as a decision made by ordinary students, and it spends most of its time on the interrogation. What's punk is Sophie's refusal to give the clerk an inch. What's pedagogical is the transcript-based detail on how a regime builds a case against a conscience. Pairs with the Fascism bundle and Number the Stars.

In 2001 a small investigative team at The Boston Globe began looking into one priest accused of abusing children, and found a pattern covering dozens of priests and a decades-long cover-up by the Archdiocese. The film follows the reporters through archives, lawsuits and doors that don't open. It won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Why it’s here: The film shows how an institution protects itself and how slow, boring work breaks it open. What's punk is that it's about a newsroom daring to take on the most powerful organization in its city. What's pedagogical is that it's a primer in investigative method and in how a town stays silent. Pairs with Catch and Kill and the Cults and Coercion bundle. Dramatized, though it follows the reporting closely, and the subject is child abuse, which the film handles off screen.