5. The Birth of a Nation (1915)

D.W. Griffith, often described as fundamentally a 19th-century man who helped develop a 20th-century art form, was the proud son of a Confederate officer who managed, with his phenomenally high-grossing 1915 epic, to buttress the Lost Cause mythos and profoundly influence public perceptions regarding the Reconstruction Era by romanticizing white supremacy and celebrating the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith would deny until his final days that he set out to make a racist movie, but his words ring ludicrously false when a viewer sees, among other things, white actors in blackface playing clownish and brutish ex-slaves who must be put in their place because they’re much too uppity and, worse, politically ascendant. It wasn’t the first movie ever to be screened at the White House, but it almost certainly was the first to garner an exploitable blurb from a U.S. President.

4. Black Legion (1937)

The strong appeal and dire threat of hate groups are vividly illustrated in this rapid-fire Warner Bros. melodrama directed by Archie Mayo and featuring Humphrey Bogart in a dynamic early-career performance as an aggrieved machinist who goes to extremes after the factory foreman job he coveted goes to a 'foreigner'. Frank Taylor, played by Bogart, is sufficiently peeved by this career setback to accept a friend’s invitation to a recruitment meeting organization. Meanwhile, the money men behind the organization enjoy their ability to exploit angry white men like Taylor, and make profits by charging them monthly membership fees, then selling them Klan-like robes. Ku Klux Klansmen actually sued Warner Bros., unsuccessfully, because of the film’s 'unauthorized' use of patented Klan insignia.

3. In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Some diehards will never forgive Norman Jewison’s rousingly effective drama for beating 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'The Graduate' in the 1967 Oscar competition for Best Picture. But never mind: The movie still is engrossing and, yes, encouraging as a story about two disparate men, a redneck small-town Mississippi police chief and a visiting black homicide detective from Philadelphia, Pa, played by Sidney Poitier, who reluctantly overcome their mutual animosity to solve a murder. Despite a few tense moments when their wary relationship is sorely strained, they gradually develop respect for each other as professionals.

2. Blood in the Face (1991)

Still shocking after all these years, this documentary, co-directed by James Ridgeway, Anne Bohlen and Kevin Rafferty, sounds an urgent warning about homegrown fascism by focusing on gatherings, propaganda, and recruiting efforts by the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, the American Nazi Party and other hate groups eagerly awaiting a purging race war. Michael Moore shows up to slyly mock a beautiful woman with a swastika on her arm: 'You don’t look like a Nazi. You look more like a Coppertone girl'. But there’s nothing funny, and much that is chilling, when the extremists express gratitude for the publicity given to them by the documentarians.

1. American History X (1998)

Edward Norton gives a powerful performance in Tony Kaye’s blunt-force melodrama about Derek Vinyard, a racist skinhead who renounces his hateful ways after serving time in prison for killing two young black car thieves. Much to his dismay, Derek discovers that, during his absence, his younger brother, played by Edward Furlong, has fallen under the spell of a charismatic mentor: Cameron Alexander, the same fatherly neo-Nazi who recruited Derek into his ranks years earlier. 'American History X' would be worth seeing only for its depiction of how appealing fascism might be to impressionable and emotionally young men, especially if the trafficker of fascism has a smiling face.