Chapter 24

Ten (Plus) Worthy Movies and Documentaries about Native Americans and Their History

These movies, miniseries, and documentaries are listed in chronological order and are all fascinating cinematic looks at Indian history.

Some great directors and actors have turned their attention to the stories of Native Americans; likewise some brilliant documentarians (most notably Ken Burns, of course) have produced works that expanded on our knowledge of the American Indian in a passionate and artistic search for the truth.

Little Big Man (1970)

Dustin Hoffman plays the 121-year-old title character in this irreverent, somewhat revisionist anti-Western that tells the story of Custer’s Last Stand and other Indian history from the non-white point of view.

Director: Arthur Penn

Writers: Thomas Berger (novel), Calder Willingham (screenplay)

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, Martin Balsam

DVD: Paramount Home Video, 2003, 139 minutes, PG-13

Note: Another movie about Indians from the seventies worth checking out is A Man Called Horse.

Powwow Highway (1989)

Two Northern Cherokee men, Buddy and Philbert, who live on a reservation in Montana have to leave their tribe — and their important tribal council meetings — to bail out Buddy’s sister, who has been arrested on drug charges in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Basically, a buddy road trip set in the Native American zeitgeist, this film is a look at life in Native America today, and the two unforgettable characters powerfully illustrate just how taken for granted among Indians is the sense of community and respect for the past.

There is a plot of sorts — Buddy’s sister was arrested solely as a trick to get him out of Montana just before a referendum on an important land deal that he would have voted against — but it’s more entertaining and insightful as a look at a modern culture still coming to terms with modern America.

Powwow Highway was one of the first films that included Native input into the characters and, like Smoke Signals, it drew heavily on Native humor. While not everything about the film is precisely accurate, there’s a lot that they get right.

Director: Jonathan Wacks

Writers: Janet Heaney and Jean Stawarz (screenplay); David Seals (novel)

Cast: A. Martinez, Gary Farmer, Joannelle Nadine Romero, Amanda Wyss, Margot Kane, Wes Studi

DVD: Anchor Bay, 2004, 91 minutes, R

Dances with Wolves (1990)

To this day there are Martin Scorsese fans who are still upset that Dances with Wolves beat Goodfellas for the Best Picture Oscar in 1990. It’s wise to avoid weighing in on that argument, except to say that the Academy probably should have declared a tie that year.

While this film did much to redress the previous stereotype of Native peoples as bloodthirsty savages, it did so only for the Lakota at the expense of the Pawnee. This film is not widely praised by Native people because it adheres too closely to the romantic stereotype of the “Noble Savage.” To its credit, it was among the first mainstream films that accurately depicted Native American humor and chose to have actors speaking in a Native language.

The movie tells the story of John Dunbar, a Union general who meets and bonds with a Sioux tribe. After fighting side-by-side with the tribe against a savage Pawnee tribe, he is accepted into the tribe and named Dances with Wolves (because he did, indeed, dance with his pet wolf, Two Socks.)

He falls in love with a white woman — Stands With a Fist — who had been adopted by the tribe after her family was killed by Pawnee.

Director: Kevin Costner

Writer: Michael Blake (novel and screenplay)

Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene

DVD: MGM, 2003, 236 minutes, PG-13

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

A love story during the French and Indian War.

This film is an Oscar-winning adaptation of the James Fenimore Cooper novel that tells the story of a white man raised as a Mohawk who falls in love with the daughter of a British general.

Director: Michael Mann

Writers: James Fenimore Cooper (novel); John L. Balderston (adaptation); Paul Perez (adaptation), Daniel Moore (adaptation); Philip Dunne (1936 screenplay); Michael Mann (screenplay); Christopher Crowe (screenplay)

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Russell Means

DVD: Twentieth Century Fox, 2001, 117 minutes, R

Christmas in the Clouds (2001)

Now, this is a rare bird in the aviary of movies about the American Indian.

Why? Because it’s about an upscale ski resort run by affluent Native Americans. That plot alone is worthy of being singled out. Well-off Native Americans? Yup. It’s about time that the successful Indians in America were given their due.

The romantic comedy plot is simple: The manager is trying to impress an incoming restaurant reviewer and wacky confusion ensues that could easily be cleared up with a couple of lines of dialogue, but that would have made for a super-short movie and we wouldn’t have been treated to warm and funny scenes that work to resolve everything in a heartwarming way.

Graham Greene steals many scenes as the vegetarian chef who insists on telling diners the histories of the animals they’re eating. Tim Vahle plays the romantic male lead role and is of the Choctaw tribe in real life.

Director: Kate Montgomery

Writer: Kate Montgomery

Cast: Timothy Vahle, Sam Vlahos, Mariana Tosca, M. Emmet Walsh, Graham Greene, Rita Collidge, Lois Red Elk

DVD: Hannover House, 2006, 96 minutes, PG

Atanarjuat (2001)

Atanarjuat means “The Fast Runner” and is the first movie shot completely with Inuit actors, a 90 percent Inuit crew, and in the Inuit language, Inuktitut.

It takes place in the frozen north and is the story of an Inuit community that not only has to survive in a hostile environment, but also has to contend with the personal squabbles, rivalries, jealousies, and infidelities that are part and parcel of any close-knit — emotionally and physically — community.

The movie boasts several memorable scenes and is unlike anything most moviegoers have ever seen.

Director: Zacharis Kunuk

Writer: Paul Apak Angilirq

Cast: Natar Ungalaaq, Sylvia Ivalu, Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Madeline Ivalu, Pauloosie Qulitalik

DVD: Columbia Tristar Home, 2003, 172 minutes, R

The Native Americans (Documentary, 1994)

A terrific six-part documentary on the history of Native Americans. The six parts in this TBS production are:

bullet Vol. 1: The Nations of the Northeast

bullet Vol. 2: The Tribal People of the Northwest

bullet Vol. 3: The Tribes of the Southeast

bullet Vol. 4: The Natives of the Southwest

bullet Vol. 5: The People of the Great Plains, pt. 1

bullet Vol. 6: The People of the Great Plains, pt. 2

Directors: John Borden, George Burdeau, Phil Lucas

Cast: Joy Harvo (narrator), John Mohawk

DVD: None, but used Turner Home Entertainment VHS tapes of all six parts are commonly available online at Amazon, eBay, and elsewhere, individually, and in a set.

Northern Exposure: The absolutely greatest TV depiction of Native Americans ever

Northern Exposure debuted on CBS in 1990 and was immediately noticed by viewers, of course, but also by people who pay attention to the portrayal of Native Americans in the media. Why? Because many of the characters on the show were Indigenous people — Native Americans, Inuits, and so on — and for the most part they were played by Indigenous people and portrayed realistically.

The most memorable Native character (as well as being the most ubiquitous throughout the run of the show) was Marilyn Whirlwind, transplanted New Yorker Dr. Joel Flesichman’s calm, inscrutable receptionist. Talk about oil and water! Marilyn was played by Cayuse-Nez Perce actress Elaine Miles. In a 1993 interview with Radiance magazine, she expressed her feeling that she was representing all Native Americans: “I’ve found out that I’m not just myself or my family or my tribe, but I’m representing all Native Americans.”

Other Native characters included Ed Chigliak, a half-Native Alaskan who was a budding filmmaker and a shaman-in-training (played by Apache Darren Burrows); Menominee Lester Haynes Apesanahkwat); and One Who Waits (played by Dakota Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman).

500 Nations (Documentary, 1995)

Kevin Costner does a serviceable job as host and reins in what could have easily descended into self-righteousness. His tone throughout his intros for the docu’s several parts is respectful and informative. (A lot of people think it was his way of making up for Dances With Wolves. Ouch.)

500 Nations itself is very watchable, yet it is limited in the scope of its coverage of Native American history. It focuses on specific events and personalities for its individual episodes, but it is certainly instructive and well-researched in the topics it covers.

In terms of style, it is very Ken Burns–esque, with its zoom ins on photos and pans across paintings, and it manages to be both educational and entertaining at the same time and is recommended.

Director: Jack Leustig

Writers: Roberta Grossman, Jack Leustig, Lee Miller, W. T. Morgan, John Pohl

Cast: Kevin Costner (Host), Gregory Harrison (Narrator)

DVD: Warner Home Video, 2004, 376 minutes, Not Rated

Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (Documentary, 1997)

Another Ken Burns classic — a fine documentary on the Corps of Discovery well worth the 240 minutes of your time.

Director: Ken Burns

Writers: Ken Burns (book); Dayton Duncan (book)

Cast: Adam Arkin (voice), Hal Holbrook (voice), Murphy Guyer (voice), Sam Waterston (voice), Matthew Broderick (voice)

DVD: PBS Paramount, 2005, 240 minutes, Not Rated

Smoke Signals (1998)

This movie is based on short stories from Coeur d’Alene author Sherman Alexie’s collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven, and tells the story of two young Coeur d’Alene men — Victor and Thomas — who take a bus trip to claim the ashes of Victor’s father.

Smoke Signals won the Sundance Audience Award in 1998 and portrays Indians today living in a world not of their making, yet (and often humorously) remembering the world of theirs that was unmade by whites.

Director: Chris Eyre

Writer: Sherman Alexie (book, screenplay)

Cast: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard

DVD: Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 1999, 89 minutes, PG-13

Skins (2002)

This film by Native American director Chris Eyre (director of 1998’s Smoke Signals) won the 2003 IFP Independent Spirit Awards, and is considered a raw and realistic portrayal of life on a modern Indian reservation, a place where alcoholism is nine times the national average and where Mount Rushmore is considered a blasphemous desecration of sacred mountains.

Two Sioux brothers — one a cop, one an alcoholic Vietnam vet — live angry, stilted lives and, as is often the case, one turns to crime to vent his rage.

As the mask of drama boasts both a laughing and crying face, Smoke Signals and Skins are Chris Eyre’s laughing and crying looks at his own culture, people, past, and problems.

These two films paint a stark portrait of what happened when vast numbers of an entire race of people were systematically marginalized and, in many cases, destroyed in the name of, and for the purpose of, white expansionism.

Director: Chris Eyre

Writers: Adrian C. Louis (novel), Jennifer D. Lyne (screenplay)

Cast: Eric Schweig, Graham Greene, Gary Farmer, Noah Watts

DVD: First Look Pictures, 2003, 87 minutes, R

Images of Indians: How Hollywood Stereotyped the Native American (Documentary, 2003)

This documentary is only 25 minutes long and we haven’t seen it.

But we wish we could. It doesn’t seem to be available on DVD and was apparently aired on TV in 2003, but it does have an Internet Movie Database listing and the cast alone — everyone from Wes Studi and Russell Means, to Iron Eyes Cody and Elaine Miles — makes it worth seeking out.

Images of Indians shows a slew of clips from movies over the years that illustrate the portrayal of Indians and, by highlighting particular moments, the stereotyping and racist rendering of Indigenous people becomes obvious.

We include it here on the chance it shows up on TV one day, or a DVD is released, so you’ll at least be aware of it. This is the kind of program that often magically appears one day on the shelves of local public libraries, even if it’s not available for sale.

So now you know what to keep an eye out for when you visit your local library!

Directors: Chris O’Brien, Jason Witmer

Writers: Brock DeShane, Jeff Hildebrandt, Chris O’Brien, Jason Witmer

Cast: Nicholas Schatzki, Casey Camp-Horinek, Ward Churchill, Chris Eyre, Dr. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick, Russell Means, Elaine Miles, Dr. Peter C. Rollins, Wes Studi

DVD: None

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006)

This is the story of a 1922 encounter between Inuit Natives and European explorers and is co-directed by Zacharias Kumuk, the director of the acclaimed Atanarjuat.

It is told mainly from the Inuit’s perspective and includes some interesting moments, and heartbreaking depiction of how Christianity came to the Inuit.

It is a rich story about the conflict between ancient cultures, different religions, men and women, and the living and the dead, and it notable for its reliance on Inuit actors and the use of Inuktitut dialogue.

Director: Norman Cohn, Zacharias Kunuk

Writers: Eugene Ipkarnak, Madeline Ivalu, Herve Paniaq, Pauloosie Qulitalik, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Abraham Ulayuruluk, Louis Uttak (all for Inuktitut dialogue)

Cast: Pakak Innuksuk, Leah Angutimarik, Neeve Irngaut, Natar Ungalaaq, Samueli Ammaq