Bryce Dallas Howard Recommends 10 Movies to Watch Instead of 'The Help'

Amid calls for America to self-reflect and educate itself on the black experience through movies, literature and other art forms, Netflix subscribers all seemingly turned to one resource: The Help -- the feel-good drama about race relations in the '60s -- became the streamer's most-viewed film over the weekend.

That news did not sit well with Bryce Dallas Howard, who took to social media to say that while she's grateful for the friendships she made on the movie, "The Help is a fictional story told through the perspective of a white character and was created by predominantly white storytellers." (It was written and directed by white director Tate Taylor and based off the novel by white author Kathryn Stockett.)

"We can all go further," she wrote. "Stories are a gateway to radical empathy and the greatest ones are catalysts for action."

Instead, Howard offered 10 alternate films "about the Civil Rights Movement, lynchings, segregation, Jim Crow, and all the ways in which those have an impact on us today," writing, "here are a handful of powerful, essential, masterful films and shows that center Black lives, stories, creators, and / or performers": 13th, Eyes on the Prize⁣, I Am Not Your Negro⁣, Just Mercy⁣, Malcolm X⁣, Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland, Selma⁣, Watchmen⁣ and When They See Us.

Viola Davis, who was Oscar-nominated for her performance in the film, previously spoke about regret she's felt over starring in The Help.

“I just felt that at the end of the day, it wasn’t the voices of the maids that were heard. I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They’re my grandma. They’re my mom,” Davis said in 2018. “I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie.” 

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