15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made
Best Native American Movies
Hollywood spent nearly a century treating Indigenous characters as scenery, stock villains, or tragic ghosts of a vanishing frontier. The last three decades have changed that equation entirely. The best Native American Movies today fuse sweeping visual craft with authentic cultural consultation, sovereign-nation storytelling, and performances from an entire generation of Indigenous actors the studios can no longer ignore. From the Osage-led testimony inside Martin Scorsese’s late-career masterpiece to the Comanche-language hunting grounds of a blockbuster action prequel, this is no longer a fringe genre. It is a vital wing of American cinema.
15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made
15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made is a curated selection of 15 Movies spanning 1970 to 2023 across Native Americans · Adventure and Drama. Each title was handpicked by Movievia and ranked below from the strongest pick downward, so you can start at the top and discover your next watch — no endless scrolling, no algorithmic guesswork.
Dances with Wolves (1990)
A Union soldier, broken by the carnage of the Civil War, requests a posting at the furthest edge of the American frontier,...
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
The forests of 1757 colonial America are burning with conflict, as British, French, and Native American forces tear the frontier apart. When...
Little Big Man (1970)
At 121 years old, Jack Crabb has a story nobody would believe, and he tells every word of it anyway. Raised among...
Hostiles (2017)
New Mexico, 1892. A decorated but deeply bitter Army captain who has spent his career fighting and despising Native Americans receives orders...
Smoke Signals (1998)
Victor has spent years nursing a quiet rage toward the father who abandoned him on their Idaho reservation. When word arrives that...
Wind River (2017)
A young woman is found frozen in the Wyoming snow, miles from anything, on the Wind River Reservation. When an FBI agent...
Thunderheart (1992)
Ray Levoi has spent his whole life running from his Native American heritage, so being posted to a Sioux reservation in South...
Wild Indian (2021)
Michael has spent years constructing a new life far from the reservation where he grew up, building a career, a marriage, and...
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
In 1920s Oklahoma, the Osage Nation sits atop one of the richest oil deposits in the country, and that wealth makes them...
Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)
Forced onto reservation land and handed a farmer's life, Geronimo refuses to disappear quietly. When the U.S. government breaks its promises one...
Windtalkers (2002)
During the Pacific campaign of World War II, the U.S. military deployed Navajo soldiers as code talkers, their native language serving as...
The New World (2005)
Terrence Malick turns the story of John Smith and the Powhatan people into something closer to a poem than a period piece....
Prey (2022)
Set in the Northern Great Plains of 1719, Prey follows Naru, a young Comanche woman determined to prove herself as a hunter...
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002)
Rooted in an ancient Inuit oral legend, this film follows Atanarjuat across a frozen Arctic world where jealousy and betrayal fracture a...
Blood Quantum (2019)
When a zombie outbreak tears through the surrounding towns, the residents of the Mi'kmaq reserve of Red Crow discover something remarkable: they...
15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made
The most powerful Native American Movies ever made, from Dances with Wolves to Killers of the Flower Moon, celebrating Indigenous cinema and stories.
Best Native American Movies
A complete reference of every movie on this list, ranked in the editorial order above. Use this table as a quick scan: tap any title for the full movie page including trailer, synopsis, and streaming availability.
- 1 Dances with Wolves (1990)
- 2 The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
- 3 Little Big Man (1970)
- 4 Hostiles (2017)
- 5 Smoke Signals (1998)
- 6 Wind River (2017)
- 7 Thunderheart (1992)
- 8 Wild Indian (2021)
- 9 Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
- 10 Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)
- 11 Windtalkers (2002)
- 12 The New World (2005)
- 13 Prey (2022)
- 14 Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2002)
- 15 Blood Quantum (2019)
Frequently asked
Which movie on the 15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made is the highest rated?
Dances with Wolves (1990) is the highest-rated film on the 15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made, with a viewer rating of 7.8/10. You can find it featured at the top of the ranked list above, along with the full lineup ordered from best to last so you always know which title to start with.
How many movies are on the 15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made?
The 15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made contains 15 movies, spanning 1970 to 2023, primarily within the Native Americans · Adventure and Drama genre. The selection is updated regularly as Movievia's editors discover new titles worth adding or refining the lineup based on viewer feedback and rating shifts.
Is the 15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made worth watching?
Yes — the 15 Best Native American Movies Ever Made carries an average viewer score of 6.8/10 across all 15 movies, well above the typical film average. Each entry was handpicked rather than algorithm-selected, so the list reads more like a recommendation from a friend with great taste than a generic top-100 dump. Start with the #1 pick at the top of the page.
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