The 2014 biographical film about Martin Luther King Jr. directed by Ava DuVernay is Selma.
The film focuses on the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting-rights marches, a pivotal campaign against racial discrimination in voter registration. David Oyelowo portrays King, while Carmen Ejogo plays Coretta Scott King. The story also includes John Lewis, Hosea Williams, James Bevel, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Alabama governor George Wallace.
Selma dramatizes the march across Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers attacked peaceful demonstrators on March 7, 1965. The violence became known as “Bloody Sunday” and helped build public support for federal voting-rights legislation.
The film is sometimes described simply as a historical drama rather than a traditional cradle-to-grave biopic because it concentrates on one campaign in King’s life. That focus is intentional: Selma presents the voting-rights struggle as a collective movement, not solely as the achievement of one leader. It received a Best Picture nomination and won Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards.