12 Years a Slave (2013)

Based on a true story, 12 YEARS A SLAVE is a riveting account of a free black man kidnapped and sold into brutal slavery in mid-1850s Louisiana, and the inspiring story of his desperate struggle to return home to his family. Solomon Northup, an educated black man with a gift for music, lives with his wife and children in New York. One day he awakens to find he has been drugged and being shipped to the South as a slave. Refusing to abandon hope, Solomon watches helplessly as those around him succumb to violence, crushing emotional abuse and hopelessness.