Knock Down the House

Name: Knock Down the House
Director: Rachel Lears
Released: 2019

Rachel Lears

2019

Synopsis

In 2018, a young bartender in the Bronx, a coal miner’s daughter in West Virginia, a grieving mother in Nevada and a registered nurse in Missouri join a movement of insurgent candidates challenging powerful incumbents in Congress. Without political experience or corporate money, these four women are attempting to do what many consider impossible.

Your Movie Library

Cast

Recommendations

100
Chicago Sun-Times
Director Lears and co-writer/editor Robin Blotnick had the benefit of knowing the outcomes when they put together the film, so it’s easy to understand why Ocasio-Cortez is the primary focus. But they do an excellent job of weaving in the stories of the three equally impressive candidates.
90
The Hollywood Reporter
Any way you slice it, and even if you're not entirely in agreement with the various subjects' positions on Medicare for all or the Green New Deal, this film is a winner by a landslide.
90
Variety
Knock Down the House has a clear political agenda. It wants to promote the hard work, courage and progressive policies of these women, who have all experienced financial hardship. Still, the film lets its subjects do the talking instead of cluttering things with statistics.
90
The New York Times
Exuberant.
83
The Film Stage
Rachel Lears’ Knock Down the House is a fun, emotionally powerful, inspiring look at the incredible wave of would-be politicians that sought, in 2018, to challenge status quo Democrats and enact meaningful change.
83
The Playlist
Beyond Ocasio-Cortez and her magnetism, we may look back at Knock Down the House years from now as a nascent document of the beginnings of a groundswell in American politics.
80
The Guardian
Knock Down The House is far more effective when it is about the people and the process, not landing quips.
80
Los Angeles Times
It all comes together on election night, as Lears shadows Ocasio-Cortez and captures her disbelief as she nears her post-election party and suddenly realizes she has in fact won. It’s precisely the kind of you-are-there moment, one of many, that makes Knock Down the House so satisfying.