The Fight is a 2020 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed and produced by Eli Despres, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg.

Kerry Washington Kerry Marisa Washington (born January 31, 1977) SidebarCertificate of Live Birth: Isabelle Amarachi Asomugha(County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health). Gives Kerry Washington birth dateArchivedfrom the original on May 2, 2016.Note: Fi ...

serves as a producer under her Simpson Street banner. It follows legal battles that lawyers for the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

(ACLU) are facing during the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...

. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020, where it won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking. It was released on July 31, 2020, by

Magnolia Pictures Magnolia Pictures is an American film distributor. It is a subsidiary of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. Magnolia was formed in 2001 by Bill Banowsky and Eamonn Bowles, and specializes in both foreign and independent films. Ma ...

Premise

The film follows five legal battles brought by the

(ACLU) against various Trump administration policies. The lawsuits regard: #

Opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * '' The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Com ...

to the

Trump travel ban The Trump travel ban (labeled the "Muslim ban" by critics) denotes a series of executive actions taken by Donald Trump as President of the United States. On January 20, 2021, newly-inaugurated president Joe Biden issued a proclamation revok ...

, brought by Lee Gelernt # Pursuit of abortion access for immigrants in ICE custody, brought by Brigitte Amiri # A challenge to the proposed citizenship question on the census, brought by Dale Ho # Rejection of the Trump order banning transgender personnel in the military, brought by

Chase Strangio Chase Strangio (; born October 29, 1982) is an American lawyer and transgender rights activist. He is the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Early life and education Strang ...

# An attempt to reunite families separated at the border, brought by Lee Gelernt

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020. Shortly after,

acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released in the United States on July 31, 2020.

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''The Fight'' takes an engaging look at some of the people working on the front lines for the ACLU -- and makes a passionate case for the legal battles they wage." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film holds a rating of 73 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". At the

2020 Sundance Film Festival The 2020 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 23 to February 2, 2020. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 4, 2019. The opening night film was ''Miss Americana'' directed by Lana Wilson and produced by Morga ...

, the film won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fight, The (2020 film) 2020 films 2020 documentary films American documentary films Documentary films about lawyers Documentary films about human rights Sundance Film Festival award winners Topic Studios films 2020s English-language films 2020s American films