Boys State(2020)
dir. Amanda McBaine & Jesse Moss
A thousand teens build a government. It gets ugly.
Where to watch: Subscription only: Apple TV (also via Amazon Channel); no free, rent or buy option listed (JustWatch US, checked 2026-11-02). Verify.Letterboxd ↗
Every year about 1,000 Texas high school boys spend a week building a fake government, with parties, campaigns and elections. The directors followed four of them, including a Black teen who is the first to win a seat and a conservative strategist who learns to play the game. A funny and unsettling look at how people learn to win power.
Why it’s here
The film makes a civics class feel like a Lord of the Flies preview. What's punk is how fast a made-up democracy turns into one that plays dirty. What's pedagogical is the way it lets students see rhetoric, tactics and compromise play out among peers. Pairs with How Democracies Die and the Fascism bundle. Note: it's boys-only by program design, and the American Legion runs the program, which the film shows with some irony.
Where This Film Lives
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