Andor, the best Star Wars show to date, is set to return for its second and final season on April 22. A lot of people are excited about it, not the least of which being Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy, who has gone so far as to describe it as “the most important thing [he’ll] ever get to do in terms of how much imagination went into it.”
That enthusiasm is owed not only to the cultural ubiquity of Star Wars itself, with its centuries-spanning chronology and incalculably vast offshoots, but the show’s intricate exploration of the nature of how rebellions are formed and what motivates the people who fight in them. What better way to prepare for Andor’s swan song than to watch some of the greatest films to depict the moral and mortal stakes of revolutionary movements, how despotic regimes come into power, and the lives of those who participate in them?
Here are five great films about revolution to watch while you wait for Andor season 2.
Image: The Criterion Collection
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Cast: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
In the final episode of Andor’s first season, Cassian listens to Karis Nemik’s manifesto while hiding out inside a derelict starcruiser on the outskirts of Ferrix City. “There will be times when the struggle seems impossible,” Nemik’s voice narrates from beyond the grave. “I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.” He could easily have been describing the premise of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 suspense-drama about French resistance fighters living in Nazi-occupied Lyon.
Lino Ventura stars as Philippe Gerbier, a leader of a resistance cell who narrowly escapes from a concentration camp before resuming his operation to frustrate and overcome the occupation. Buoyed by success as belayed setbacks, Gerbier and his fast-made compatriots sacrifice everything in their fight to free themselves from the yoke of Nazi oppression.
Melville’s film is a bleak, unglamorous depiction of the mortal and moral costs of resistance, as Gerbier’s compatriots are either outed as Nazi conspirators and subsequently executed or lose their lives in service of liberating France from its occupiers. While perhaps not as, say, propulsive as Andor’s premise, Army of Shadows is an exquisite film vindicated by its performances and marvelous execution. —Toussaint Egan
Image: The Criterion Collection
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Cast: Jean Martin, Saadi Yacef, Brahim Hadjadj
Where to watch: Max, Criterion Channel
Back in 2023, Benjamin Caron, who directed three episodes in the first season of Andor, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that the climax of season 1 was directly inspired by Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 war film. “I actually pitched [Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy] a reference for the last episode. One of my favorite films is The Battle of Algiers, and I was like, ‘There’s something about your writing that feels similar to that.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it! I’ve gotta go back and watch that.’ And so we just jammed about how great that film is and how much of that flavor and texture we could get from it. So that became a big reference point for the [season 1] finale where the locals rise up against the Empire.”
Released in 1966, just four years following the conclusion of the Algerian War, The Battle of Algiers centers on two protagonists: Ali La Pointe, the Algerian freedom fighter who led an uprising between 1954 and 1957, and Lt. Col. Mathieu, the French paratrooper commander tasked with quelling the rebellion and apprehending La Pointe. Shot on location with newsreel-inspired cinematography, Pontecorvo’s film is a blistering, kinetic experience from beginning to end, with crowd-sized street scuffles and explosive skirmishes.
Of all the memorable moments I can recall from my first time watching of The Battle of Algiers, it’s the quiet exchange between Ali and Ben M’hidi, a fellow revolutionary, that’s stuck in my mind. “It’s hard enough to start a revolution, even harder to sustain it, and hardest of all to win it,” Ben M’Hidi tells Ali. “But it’s only afterwards, once we’ve won, that the real difficulties begin.” —TE
Image: Paramount Home Entertainment
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin
Where to watch: Kanopy, Hoopla; available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
There’s two sides to every rebellion. For every uprising clamoring to be seen and heard, there’s a status quo pulling strings to stamp it out. For every revolutionary, there is a collaborator. In Andor, that collaborator is Syril Karn, a civil servant with a dedication to the Galactic Empire that borders on fanatical. In Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 classic The Conformist, that collaborator is Marcello Clerici, a mid-level flunky for the Italian Fascist secret police who is tasked with killing his mentor and former professor, an anti-Fascist dissident living in Paris.
The Conformist isn’t just a fascinating depiction of the tacit complicity and barbarism inherent to fascist regimes, but one of the most visually stunning stories ever committed to the medium of film. Bertolucci’s film has been cited by the likes of the Coen brothers, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg as an influence on their respective work, and for good reason. The Conformist’s use of canted angle cinematography, symbolic lighting, and composition coalesces into an immaculate aesthetic whole, conveying its exploration of the depths of Clerici’s cowardice and cruelty on both a visual and psychological level. Don’t just watch this film because it’s a terrific pairing with Andor; watch it because it’s a bona fide life-changing masterpiece. —TE
Image: Focus Pictures
Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna, Mía Maestro
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
The Battle of Algiers wasn’t the only prominent historical inspiration Caron divulged while discussing the making of Andor season 1 with The Hollywood Reporter. In the same interview, Caron shared that when Gilroy brought him on board to work on the show, they discussed Cassian Andor’s arc from a modest smuggler to a revolutionary leader. “[Tony] was like, ‘What was Che Guevara like before he became Che Guevara?’ So it was about how this individual who was a bit lost and just trying to make a quick buck could start believing in something bigger than himself, and that would be the start of a rebellion.”
What better film to watch in the lead-up to Andor’s final season than Walter Salles’ coming-of-age biopic about Guevara’s 1952 trek across the South American continent with his lifelong friend Alberto Granado? The Motorcycle Diaries stars Gael García Bernal (Y tu mamá también) as Ernesto “Fuser” Guevara, a 23-year-old medical student who embarks on the journey in order to see the world before graduating medical school. Over the course of their adventure, Guevara and Granado witness the harsh disparity between the haves and the have-nots, culminating in an fateful encounter working at a leper colony that shapes Guevara’s worldview for the rest of his life. If that connective tissue weren’t already enough, García Bernal and Diego Luna, who plays Cassian Andor, have been lifelong friends and co-starred in Y tu mamá también. —TE
Image: Olive Films
Director: Jules Dassin
Cast: Raymond St. Jacques, Ruby Dee, Julian Mayfield
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
The great filmmaker Jules Dassin is best known for the heist movie classic Rififi. Andor is a show that has its own heists, so there’s an argument to watch that one as well (and truly, you don’t need an excuse). But it’s his scintillating drama Uptight that most closely relates to Andor’s themes and narratives, and it’s an all-timer in the history of American movies about activism and the difficulties of organizing mass political movements amid times of despair.
Co-written by stars Ruby Dee and Julian Mayfield, Uptight takes place directly after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and follows a group of Black activists preparing for what seems like an inevitable, larger armed racial conflict. When one of the activists — distraught by King’s assassination, spiraling into alcoholism and despair, and outcast by the others — is tempted to make his life more simple by telling the police about the group’s activities, tensions flare and no easy answers are found.
Uptight is an explosive, sweaty, and immaculately constructed political drama that feels as relevant as it’s ever been. It fits with many of Andor’s themes about the challenges of revolution, but also just as well with our own current political moment. —Pete Volk
