The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

Jess is a British Punjabi eighteen-year-old in West London who plays soccer better than anyone in her park, and her parents want her to learn to cook a full Indian dinner. She joins a women's team behind their backs, falls for her coach, and has to find a way to be both daughters at once. It's a comedy with a wedding, an ugly sports bra and a lot of heart.

Why it’s here: The film makes a joke out of the fight between family expectations and a girl's ambition, and the girl wins on her own terms. What's punk is that Jess isn't asked to choose between her people and her game. What's pedagogical is how it handles racism, sexism and homophobia in a form a family can watch together. Pairs with Persepolis and Funny Boy.

On New Year's Eve 2008, Oscar Grant spends the last day of his life with his daughter, his girlfriend and his mother, trying to be better than he has been. He's shot by a transit police officer on a BART platform in Oakland a few hours after midnight. Coogler made it as his first feature, and it begins with the real cell phone video.

Why it’s here: The film gives a man who became a headline a whole day, and makes the viewer sit with how ordinary it was. What's punk is that it starts with the real video and refuses to turn him into a symbol. What's pedagogical is how it rebuilds a person from a statistic. Pairs with The Hate U Give, Just Mercy and the Dear White People pick. It is a dramatization and shows the shooting.