Movies Similar to Be A Patriot, Kill A Priest

Return to El Salvador(2010)

Return to El Salvador explores the reconstruction of El Salvador, post-civil war. The film revisits the struggles of the nation and examines what drives over 700 Salvadorans to flee their homeland each day, often risking their lives to illegally enter countries in search of a better life for their families. The film also profiles a number of Salvadorans effected by the civil war. One couple, who fled death threats in the 1980s, finds asylum and a political platform in the United States. The film also follows a different couple who, after escaping the war, returned to El Salvador to work with churches and poor communities.

Maria's Story(1991)

It is El Salvador, 1989, three years before the end of a brutal civil war that took 75,000 lives. Maria Serrano, wife, mother, and guerrilla leader is on the front lines of the battle for her people and her country. With unprecedented access to FMLN guerrilla camps, the filmmakers dramatically chronicle Maria's daily life in the war.

The Crazy Life(2008)

Reflects a depressing and hopeless reality by following some of the members of "la dieciocho", the so-called 18th Street gang in a poor San Salvador neighborhood.

The Tiniest Place(2011)

Years after the Salvadoran military destroyed the village of Cinquera in that country’s civil war, survivors have returned to rebuild their community. Soulful, beautifully rendered, this amazing debut is an evocative testament to place, memory and the power of life to rebound from tragedy.

Justice and the Generals

In late 1980, the bodies of four American women were exhumed from a crude grave in El Salvador. The women - Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, nuns of the Maryknoll Congregation in New York; Dorothy Kazel, a nun in the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland; and Jean Donovan, a lay missionary from the Cleveland Mission - had been abducted, raped, and murdered. An investigation led to the trial and conviction of five Salvadoran National Guardsmen.

Cuerpos juzgados(2022)

The Houses Are Full of Smoke(1987)

A powerful three-part documentary studying the US involvement in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The differing factions - Sandinista leaders, Guatemalan campesinos, CIA operatives, Contras and US government apologists - are interviewed and, in the absence of a controlling narration, the audience is encouraged to draw its own conclusions.

El Salvador: The People Will Win(1980)

The battle of El Salvador and its revolutionary history, from the time of the Spanish conquest and colonization, to the insurgency of the 80s, approached by a Puerto Rican filmmaker immersed in the conflict. Depicts a host of F.M.L.N. guerrillas marching forth from Monte Alzaco, the spiritual home of Salvadoran resistance.

Seeing El Salvador(1945)

This Traveltalk series short starts in San Salvador, El Salvador's capital, emphasizing the Spanish architectural heritage. We then go to the Izalco Volcano, which was created in 1770 by an eruption of the Santa Ana Volcano. The focus then shifts to the country's agriculture. The two main products are coffee and henequen, a plant with tough, fibrous leaves used to make rope, baskets, and other products.

One, the Story of a Goal(2010)

In the early 1980s, at the beginning of what would become a 12-year-long civil war, El Salvador's talented football team was one national institution upon which both the left and the right could agree. When the team pulled off a stunning 1-0 upset against Mexico and qualified to compete in the 1982 World Cup, it was a high point for the tiny country's national pride. Unfortunately, the team's Cinderella story devolved into a nightmarish farce.

El Salvador: Mega Prisons, Maras & the Coolest Dictator(2025)

Borderlands(2023)

Fleeing the 1980 Civil War in El Salvador, Dora Rodriguez, among a group of twenty-five asylum seekers, were abandoned by their guide and left to fend for themselves in the relentless Sonoran desert of Arizona.

Little Birds(2023)

Through dances and games, migrant boys and girls who live in a shelter in Reynosa, on the US-Mexico border, shared their dreams and stories of hope with us.

1932: Scars of Memory(2005)

January 22, 1932. An unprecedented peasant uprising erupts in western El Salvador, as a group of Latino and indigenous peasants cut army supply lines, attack a military garrison, and take control over several towns. Retribution is swift. After three days, the army and militias move in and, in some villages, slaughter all males over age 12. Elsewhere, they summarily execute anyone suspected of having a link to the Communists. Over the next few weeks, 10,000 people are massacred.

Salvador : vivre sous Bukele(2023)

Tiempo de Audacia(1983)

This documentary juxtaposes scenes of El Salvador's opposition factions, including U.S. government advisors and government troops, and guerrillas and their sympathizers.

Topiltzin(1975)

An experimental short film about a day in the life of a barefoot boy who sells newspapers in San Salvador.

The Tiger and the Deer(2013)

In El Salvador, Chelino tells about the indigenous massacre of 1932, of which he survived, while he teaches the melodies of traditional Salvadoran dances.

Fireflies at El Mozote

During the 1980s civil war in El Salvador, a rebel group of leftist guerrillas fight to expose its government's death squads via an underground radio network and hope to end their government's reign of terror with the help of an American journalist.

Innocent Voices(2005)

A young boy, attempting to have a normal childhood in 1980s El Salvador, is caught up in a dramatic fight for his life when he desperately tries to avoid the war that is raging all around him.