MLK/FBI

Name: MLK/FBI
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2020-08-04T10:35:51-07:00
Rating: 99

Critics Consensus

MLK/FBI presents a sobering overview of the American intelligence community's efforts to discredit and destroy a leader of the civil rights movement.

99%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 97

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Release date: Jan 15, 2021

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User Ratings: Not yet available

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Movie Info

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered today as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic documentary, award-winning editor and director Sam Pollard (Editor, 4 LITTLE GIRLS, MO’ BETTER BLUES; Director/Producer, EYEZ ON THE PRIZE, SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME) lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. In crafting a rich archival tapestry, featuring some revelatory restored footage of King, Pollard urges us to remember that true American progress is always hard-won.

Genre:

documentary
Original Language:

English
Director:

Samuel D. Pollard
Producer:

Benjamin Hedin
Release Date (Theaters):

Jan 15, 2021 limited
Release Date (Streaming):

Jan 15, 2021
Runtime:

1h 42m
Production Co:

Field of Vision

Cast & Crew

Samuel D. Pollard
Director

Benjamin Hedin
Writer

Laura Tomaselli
Writer

Benjamin Hedin
Producer

Charlotte Cook
Executive Producer

Steven Farneth
Executive Producer

Show all Cast & Crew

News & Interviews for MLK/FBI

Indie Fresh List: One Night in Miami, MLK/FBI, and Promising Young Woman

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Critic Reviews for MLK/FBI

All Critics (97) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (96) | Rotten (1)

Cleverly uses the FBI's pursuit of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr to tell the entwined history of leftwing protest and state-sanctioned surveillance.

January 16, 2021 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Simran Hans
Observer (UK)
I think it really shows the importance of King as a person, as a human, as opposed to the icon that we have come to think of him as.

January 16, 2021 | Full Review…

Claudia Puig
FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
This documentary is a really necessary rewind... to remind everybody how Martin Luther King Jr. was seen in his day, at his time.

January 16, 2021 | Full Review…

Amy Nicholson
FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)
In you're interested in American politics, you will obviously be interested in this...a relevant subject to be discussing.

January 16, 2021 | Full Review…

Mark Kermode
Kermode & Mayo's Film Review
By suggesting the enormous strain King endured while he was being taunted and blackmailed by his own government, "MLK/FBI" provides another lens through which to appreciate his commitment.

January 16, 2021 | Full Review…

Justin Chang
Los Angeles Times
Pollard doesn't just rely on talking heads; instead he shrewdly overlays the words on damning evidence of a campaign to destroy a Black activist.

January 16, 2021 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…

Randy Myers
San Jose Mercury News
The riveting documentary MLK/FBI gives a clear and precise presentation of how the FBI targeted civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s.

January 19, 2021 | Full Review…

Carla Hay
Culture Mix
If you're going to make a documentary about the FBI spying on Martin Luther King, why leave the tastiest bits on the cutting room floor?

January 19, 2021 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Neal Pollack
Book & Film Globe
An effective way to engage the audience first through image, then through argument.

January 18, 2021 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Michael J. Casey
Michael J. Cinema
Tells the story well for what we know now.

January 17, 2021 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Peter Canavese
Celluloid Dreams
While the film adds nothing new to this story, "MLK/FBI" is a good primer for those who may be unaware of this dark chapter of our history.

January 16, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Russ Simmons
KKFI-FM (Kansas City)
MLK/FBI stands as a movie that inspires us with King's commitment while appalling us with the lengths to which an American institution went not only to destroy him but to upend an entire movement.

January 16, 2021 | Full Review…

Robert Denerstein
Denerstein Unleashed