While staying alert to fascist escalations and moments that demand action, we must also deepen our understanding. Over the holidays and into January, we urge everyone to study, reflect, and talk together. Use this list on your own, with friends and family, or in small gatherings in cafés, libraries, or other shared spaces. These films and readings sharpen our understanding of the fascist threat and the strategy needed to defeat it—so we can act with greater clarity, confidence, and power to bring forward the millions required to stop this regime.
Films
Cabaret (1972)
A musical drama set in Weimar Germany as Nazism gains strength beneath the surface of nightlife and decadence.
Why it fits: Captures the danger of denial and distraction as fascism grows in plain sight.
Freedom Riders (2010)
Documents the courageous activists who challenged segregation in interstate travel during the Civil Rights Movement.
Why Watch It: Demonstrates how disciplined, collective nonviolent action can confront violent repression and change history.
Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial
This six-episode documentary series on Netflix examines Adolf Hitler and the Nazis’ rise, rule and reckoning from pre-WWII to the Holocaust to the Nuremberg trials.
Why Watch It: It exposes how fascism functioned as a system—how ordinary institutions, elites, and enablers normalized unspeakable crimes—offering essential lessons on why fascism must be confronted and stopped before it consolidates power.
Selma (2014)
Depicts the 1965 voting rights campaign and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches.
Why it fits: Shows people returning to the streets after brutal repression—and winning through sustained mass struggle.
Sir! No Sir! (2005)
Explores the GI antiwar movement during the Vietnam War and its role in undermining the war effort.
Why it fits: Highlights resistance from unexpected places and the power of organized refusal within institutions.
Swing Kids (1993)
Follows German teenagers who use swing music as a form of cultural rebellion against Nazi conformity.
Why Watch It: Illustrates everyday resistance and the mounting danger as fascism consolidates, forcing people to conform or betray one another.
The Chicago 8 (2011)
A dramatization of the prosecution of anti–Vietnam War organizers after the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Why Watch It: Lesson in responding to repression – gathering more people and coming right back.
The Movement and The “Madman” (2023)
Shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 — the largest the country had ever seen — pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his “madman” plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including threats to use nuclear weapons.
Why Watch It: Demonstrates how the people massively and repeatedly converging on DC to nonviolently protest the Vietnam War changed the political terrain for Nixon.
The Pianist (2002)
A harrowing account of a Jewish musician’s survival in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.
Why Watch It: Confronts the human cost of fascism and the deadly consequences of waiting too long to stop it.
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! A Film of a Talk by Bob Avakian (2017)
A speech by Bob Avakian drawing on decades of work analyzing the rise of American fascism, exposing the fascist nature of the first Trump regime, and arguing for mass nonviolent resistance to drive it from power.
Why Watch It: Gives a comprehensive overview and understanding of what gave rise to Trump/MAGA fascism, why relying on the normal channels will not stop it, and how it is possible to drive the Trump fascist regime from power.
Books
Hitler’s First Hundred Days – Peter Fritzsche
Examines how German society adapted to Nazi rule in its early months.
Why Read It: Helps readers understand how rapid consolidation happens and why early resistance is decisive.
In the Garden of Beasts – Erik Larson
A narrative history of the U.S. ambassador’s family living in Berlin as Hitler consolidates power.
Why Read It: Reveals how fascism normalized itself while elites minimized the danger—until it was too late.
They Thought They Were Free – Milton Mayer
Based on interviews with ordinary Germans who lived under Nazism.
Why Read It: Explains how “normal people” become complicit—and how that process can be interrupted.