What We Love: Movies and Documentaries
Film is powerful. It shapes public understanding, emotion, and memory—sometimes more than facts ever could.
We share these films and documentaries with care. Not because they’re perfect, but because they invite questioning, disrupt dominant narratives, or open space for conversation.
Additions and Updated: December 4, 2025
Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism (screenshot)
Content notes: Ableism, medical dismissal, abuse of power.
Blonde woman of short stature (born with achondroplasia) stands by a roadway.
Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements (trailer)
Content notes: Medicalization, exclusion, audism.
Graphic illustration of a person playing a piano.
Unloved: Huronia’s Forgotten Children (trailer)
Content notes: Institutionalization, abuse, ableism.
Black and white side by side photos of a smiling dark curly haired baby.
Picture This (documentary)
Content notes: Sexual content, ableism.
A pink and white filtered photo of topless disabled man in a powerchair. He slyly smiles at the camera. The documentary title ‘Picture This’ takes up half the frame in lavender all caps.
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (trailer)
Content notes: Ableism, lauguage
Two young folks in the forefront of fielld and camp cabins. A smiling white young person is seated in a manual wheelchair, while a cheerful black young person holds a guitar over their shoulder and leans on a wheelchair handle.
#DanceBreak: Disability Artistry - Widen Embodiment (2 minute video)
A gradient peach to yellow background with a wave line spearating to photo of a black dancer leaning back. Various squiggles in blue and pink freckled along background. Text reads: Lincoln Center Dance Break - Disability Artistry
Who the Hell is Nigel? (documentary)
Content notes: Audism, refrence to pandemic, physical harm.
A person wearing a dusty pink hooded shirt gazes at the camera with a questioning expression, one hand raised slightly as if seeking an answer. The left side of the image features the documentary title in bold, all-caps white text.
Your Fat Friend. A film by Jeanie Finlay (trailer)
Content notes: Fat phobia, hateful language, gaslighting.
A fat woman with a bob haircut looks directly at the camera, wearing a white faux fur jacket with her hands pressed together. The background features a purple-to-pink gradient. White bubble text reads: Your Fat Friend. A film by Jeanie Finlay.
Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family (screenshot)
Content notes: Ableism, medical harm, adoption.
Ellie Simmonds stands on the right side, slightly smiling at the camera. Her blondelength hair rests on her shoulders. The background is blurred purple hues, with white text on the left reading: Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family. The "I" in "Simmonds" is stylized as a tree, with a blurred family photo visible behind it.
Is There Anybody Out There? (trailer)
Content notes: Ableism, medical harm, gaslighting.
Ella Glendining stands facing the camera with a serious expression, wearing all black. Her long, wavy blonde hair falls over her right shoulder. The background is dark grey, all-caps yellow text that reads: Is There Anybody Out There?.
Fire Through Dry Grass (trailer)
Content notes: Ableism, racism, insitutionalization, death, pandemic imagery.
Fire Through Dry Grass is a searing documentary that follows a group of disabled Black and brown artists, the Reality Poets, as they document life inside a New York City nursing home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using GoPros strapped to their wheelchairs, they expose horrifying neglect, including a lack of PPE and the placement of infected patients in their rooms. Through powerful spoken word and solidarity, they confront systemic racism, ableism, and abandonment.