Film
Do Not Resist
- Crime
- Very dark
Do Not Resist follows the surplus of military hardware flowing from the War on Terror into local police departments, from armored trucks in small towns to SWAT raids over minor drug busts. Craig Atkinson keeps his camera close and quiet, letting body-cam footage, training seminars, and one chilling Dave Grossman speech speak for themselves. It's less an argument than an accumulation — clinical, unsettling, and hard to shake.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you want a clear-eyed, unhurried look at how police gear and tactics crept toward the battlefield, and you're happy to sit with uncomfortable footage rather than be told what to think.
Skip it if you came for a neat argument or a warm story; this is a fairly blunt, one-note piece with little interest in the people on either side of the badge beyond what the camera catches.
What it asks of you: Seventy minutes of mostly raw footage and talking heads, with no narrator steering you toward a verdict, so you'll need to do the connecting yourself.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Peace Officer2015
Made by a man whose father-in-law helped found the first SWAT team in the US, then died at the hands of one — it's the same subject as Do Not Resist told through a single devastating family story instead of a national survey.
But Its narrower, personal frame means you lose the wide-angle statistics and cross-country scope that made Do Not Resist so damning.
Whose Streets?2017
Shot by activists on the ground in Ferguson rather than journalists parachuting in, it gives you the view from inside the tear gas that Do Not Resist only glimpses from outside.
But It's angrier and more polemical, with less interest in balance or restraint — some will find that clarifying, others exhausting.
13th2016
Ava DuVernay traces the line from slavery to mass incarceration with the same rigor Do Not Resist brings to militarization, and together they make a fuller picture of how American law enforcement got here.
But It's a much bigger historical canvas — if you wanted more ground-level Ferguson-style footage, this pulls back further than you might want.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Do Not Resist
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Battle of Algiers1966
This is the film actually screened to train soldiers and police strategists in urban warfare — the ideological ancestor of the militarized playbook Do Not Resist documents being used on American streets.
A black-and-white dramatization of Algerians fighting French colonial rule, shot like real newsreel footage — it's been studied by military academies and the Pentagon as a manual for urban counterinsurgency.
But It's a 1966 foreign film with subtitles and no surface interest in American politics — the connection takes some work to see.
More like this (8)
Crime + Punishment2018
Embedded with NYPD whistleblowers fighting illegal arrest quotas, it shows the bureaucratic machinery behind the tactics Do Not Resist films from outside — the paperwork behind the armored trucks.
But It's a slower, quota-and-lawsuit kind of story, with less of the visceral street-level tension.
LA 922017
Built entirely from archival footage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, it's a startling reminder that everything Do Not Resist warns about has already happened once, in full view, on live television.
But No narration, no talking heads — it demands you sit with raw footage and draw your own conclusions, which not everyone wants.
The House I Live In2012
Eugene Jarecki traces the War on Drugs from Nixon to now, giving you the policy history that explains why police departments wanted tanks in the first place.
But It's more talking-heads and history lecture than Do Not Resist's fly-on-the-wall style — informative rather than immersive.
Copwatch2017
Follows citizen activists who film police as a form of accountability, flipping the camera around on the same institutions Do Not Resist observes from a more official vantage point.
But Less polished and more scattershot than Do Not Resist, following several loosely connected stories rather than one clean argument.
Strong Island2017
A quieter, more personal film about a family failed by a justice system that treated a Black man's killer with more sympathy than the victim — it's the human cost Do Not Resist's statistics point toward.
But It's a grief memoir more than a policy documentary, and it moves at a slow, mournful pace some will find hard to sit with.
The Central Park Five2012
Ken Burns' account of five teenagers wrongly convicted shows what happens when law enforcement decides guilt before evidence — the same institutional certainty Do Not Resist finds terrifying in a SWAT briefing room.
But It's set decades before militarization took off, so the throughline to armored trucks and flashbangs is more thematic than direct.
Cops1989
It's the mirror image of Do Not Resist: same militarized tactics, same handheld footage style, opposite conclusion — one calls it a warning, the other calls it Friday night TV.
The long-running reality show that turned ride-alongs into entertainment, presenting the exact same raids and tactical gear as thrilling television rather than a crisis — pure, uncut, unquestioning.
But It offers zero critique or context, which is either fascinating as propaganda or simply repugnant depending on your mood.
Do the Right Thing1989
It's the emotional register Do Not Resist mostly withholds: rage, grief, and community fallout dramatized from inside the block rather than observed from a camera crew's careful distance.
Spike Lee's Brooklyn heat-wave drama builds to a police chokehold and a riot, dramatizing the human temperature that statistics and briefing-room footage can't quite capture.
But It's fiction, not documentary, and over thirty years old — if you want current data and interviews, this won't give you that.
People
Cast
Rand PaulHimself (archive footage)- Dave GrossmanSelf - Trainer of Militarized Tactics
Directing
- Craig AtkinsonDirector
Production
- David MenschelExecutive Producer
- Laura HartrickProducer
Recommended by
Crime + Punishment, Law and Order, The Force, Live PD, Peace Officer