Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus

Twin sisters marked since childhood by disfiguring burn scars are contacted by the mother they believed dead, who reveals their father set the fire that scarred them — and sends her daughters on a cross-country mission to kill him. Adapted from Aleshea Harris's own award-winning play.

Why it’s here: Punk in framing righteous vengeance as a mission handed down by a mother rather than a moral failing to overcome — the film refuses to let "forgiveness" be the default answer to abuse. Pedagogical in tracing how violence passed down through a family can be interrupted, redirected, or repeated, letting the two sisters choose differently from each other.

In 1950s Brooklyn, a closeted union organizer, a teenage sex worker, and a pregnant factory girl move through interlocking stories of poverty, violence, and desperation during a labor strike. Adapted from Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel.

Why it’s here: Punk in refusing any redemptive arc — this is 1950s Brooklyn stripped of nostalgia, populated by people crushed by poverty, homophobia, and violence with no way out. Pedagogical, with a real content warning, in showing what "the good old days" actually cost the people the myth left out.