X
  • 2022
  • PG
  • Netflix
  • 1 h 49 m
  • 2022
  • PG
  • Netflix
  • 1 h 49 m

Summary Descendant tells the story of the Clotilda - the last known ship to smuggle stolen Africans to America - the unthinkable cover-up, and the impact of that crime on generations of descendants living in Africatown. Once the past is revealed, can the future be reclaimed?

Directed By: Margaret Brown

Written By: Kern Jackson, Margaret Brown

  • 2022
  • PG
  • Netflix
  • 1 h 49 m
  • 2022
  • PG
  • Netflix
  • 1 h 49 m

Descendant

Metascore Universal Acclaim Based on 13 Critic Reviews
87
User Score Generally Favorable Based on 10 User Ratings
7.4
My Score
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Where to Watch

Summary Descendant tells the story of the Clotilda - the last known ship to smuggle stolen Africans to America - the unthinkable cover-up, and the impact of that crime on generations of descendants living in Africatown. Once the past is revealed, can the future be reclaimed?

Directed By: Margaret Brown

Written By: Kern Jackson, Margaret Brown

Where to Watch

Top Cast

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 13 Critic Reviews
87
100% Positive
13 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 13 Critic Reviews
87
100% Positive
13 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
100
Oct 21, 2022
Descendant is worth seeing no matter who you are. For viewers like me, however, it engenders the reality that, no matter how hard anyone tries to whitewash history, our stories will forever continue to be told in full, by us and for us.
By Odie Henderson FULL REVIEW
100
Oct 20, 2022
There is a searching, ruminative dialogue running throughout the film. Brown and editors Michael Bloch and Geoffrey Richman beautifully weave together disparate voices into a meditative chorus.
By Jake Coyle FULL REVIEW
90
Oct 21, 2022
What Descendant demonstrates is how ignoring the real story — the ship sunk to the bottom of the river by people who find its truths uncomfortable — doesn’t just steal people’s history from them. It impoverishes the future. More than that: without facing the past with courage, exploring it without succumbing to emotional panic, there is no future.
By Alissa Wilkinson FULL REVIEW
83
Oct 21, 2022
With remarkably immediate cinematography and an intimate understanding of its subjects, Descendant becomes an essential ideal of how to tell a community’s story: not through distant talking heads, but capturing moving bodies through land and history, giving a voice to those that can often feel powerless.
By Jordan Raup FULL REVIEW
80
Oct 20, 2022
With Descendant, Brown wisely chooses to be respectfully, poetically alert instead of imposing, as her use of archival footage shot by Hurston suggests: She’s adding to a pioneering Black filmmaker’s anthropological empathy, updating the conversation, witnessing the witnessers.
By Robert Abele FULL REVIEW
75
Oct 21, 2022
A bit slow-moving at first, the history gives way to a thoughtful conversation about how best to remember this history and honor its victims, while simultaneously highlighting the modern science surrounding identifying the ship and, thanks to DNA, potentially linking its captives to their descendants.
By Brian Lowry FULL REVIEW
70
Oct 31, 2022
With a single shot, Descendant ceases to be a story about the recovery of a ship. It rapidly morphs into something broader: a story about the land. Who owned it back in the 1800s, who owns it now, and what all of this means for everyone else.
By K. Austin Collins FULL REVIEW

User Reviews

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User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 10 User Ratings
7.4
80% Positive
8 Ratings
10% Mixed
1 Rating
10% Negative
1 Rating

User Reviews

 View All
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 10 User Ratings
7.4
80% Positive
8 Ratings
10% Mixed
1 Rating
10% Negative
1 Rating

There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.

Details

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Production Company Higher Ground Productions, Participant, Two One Five Entertainment
Release Date Oct 21, 2022
Duration 1 h 49 m
Rating PG
Genres
Website https://www.netflix.com/title/81586731/
View All Details

Awards

Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Sundance Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Austin Film Critics Association
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations

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