Hollywood has a troubling history with the depiction of indigenous communities in its past. In many classic westerns, stereotyping of Native Americans for example was common – with 1953 Disney classic Peter Pan also includes problematic depictions. Into modern day, there’s continued to be unfortunate depictions of indigenous people, including through 1995’s Pocahontas and the whitewashing of beloved characters in live-action movies like The Last Airbender film, The Lone Ranger and X-Men Origins: Wolverine to name a few. However, there are numerous great characters from indigenous communities to shed light on over the years, including in 2024 movies like Moana 2 and shows on the 2024 TV schedule like Yellowstone.
People from all backgrounds deserve to be seen on the big and small screen, and when movies and TV shows depict characters from indigenous communities, it can encourage more conversation and understanding. Estimates say indigenous people only make up around 5 percent of the world population, but are especially important people to Earth given their ancestors originated on the land many of us call home. Here are some great characters from indigenous communities to check out:
Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) - Moana & Moana 2
One of the most beloved Disney Princesses, Moana, is a native Polynesian woman derived from the culture’s mythology. To properly emulate the hero who shares a close connection with the sea, the filmmakers relied heavily on something called the Oceanic Trust, which is a group of anthropologists, cultural practitioners, historians, linguists and choreographers from the islands of Samoa, Tahiti, Mo’orea, and Fiji to pay attention to every detail of the movie, per Vanity Fair. Two of the upcoming Moana sequel’s co-directors by Dana Ledoux Miller and David Derrick Jr. have ancestral ties to Samoa
Chief Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) - Yellowstone
Gil Birmingham is one of the most recognizable native actors in Hollywood, who famously played Jacob Black’s dad, Billy Black, in the Twilight movies along with playing a native person in movies like Hell or High Water, Wind River or Transformers: The Last Knight. Birmingham has said that he’s particularly proud of his recurring role in the Yellowstone cast for being “more realistic” of the Native American community, per KGET. In the popular series, Birmingham plays a wealthy casino mogul and chief to the Broken Rock Reservation named Thomas Rainwater, who seeks to expand his reservation.
The Rez Dogs (Devery Jacobs, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor, Paulina Alexis) - Reservation Dogs
Another great title with indigenous representation available to watch with a Hulu subscription is the Emmy-nominated series Reservation Dogs, which ran from 2021 to 2023 across three seasons. It premiered in summer 2021, and had its second season come out over summer 2022. The series centers on four teens – Elora (played by Davery Jacobs), Bear (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Cheese (Lane Factor) and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) – all of whom live on a reservation in rural Oklahoma with hopes of making it to California. The comedy series , which was co-created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi and is a comedy series that also deals with the struggles young Native Americans face today.
Jax (Lily Gladstone) - Fancy Dance
After Lily Gladstone made history at the Oscars for portraying Mollie Burkhart in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, the actor starred in Fancy Dance. The movie, which is available to stream with an AppleTV+ subscription, is about a woman named Jax who cares for her 13-year-old niece amidst her search for her missing sister Tawi (and her niece’s mother). The movie sheds light on the thousands of unsolved missing person cases regarding Native American women. Plus, Gladstone worked with writer/director Erica Tremblay to have Jax be an authentic queer indigenous person.
Naru (Amber Midthunder) - Prey
In 2022’s Prey’s Naru was portrayed byAmber Midthunder, who is an Assiniboine Native American and a member of the Fort Peck Sioux Tribes. In the Predator prequel, Naru is a young Comanche woman who is trained as a healer in her tribe, yet dreams of being a great hunter instead. Over the course of the science fiction action movie, she rises to glory and saves her people. The movie itself features a cast of actors from indigenous communities, and went on to become the No. 1 Hulu premiere to date and earned positive praise from critics and Predator fans.
Sasappis "Sass" (Román Zaragoza) - Ghosts
While it’s important for indigenous communities to get their spotlight, we certainly don’t see enough comedy from Native American characters. However, in the beloved CBS comedy, Ghosts, there’s the hilarious Sasappis “Sass” played by Román Zaragoza. The actor is mixed race with Native American heritage (specifically Akimel O'odham) on his father’s side, along with being Mexican, Japanese and Taiwanese as well. In Ghosts, he plays a member of the Lenape Tribe from the 1500s who has since become a ghost in the Woodstone Mansion. The series also features a Viking, Prohibition-Era lounge singer, and a hippie, among other characters. Ghosts Season 4 begins this fall on October 17.
Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) - Smoke Signals
1998’s Smoke Signals was a seminal movie for Native American representation because it was the first to not only star two leads from the community along with it being written, directed and produced by native actors, it became a mainstream film as well. The movie follows Adam Beach’s Victor and his friend Thomas (Evan Adams) who go on a road trip to retrieve the ashes of Victor’s father after he dies. While the movie isn’t a glowing example of indigenous representation today, it’s an important part of the fabric of films from indigenous communities and remains one of Adam Beach’s most memorable roles.
Lincoln (Phillip Lewitski) And Pasmay (Joshua Odjick) -Wildhood
In 2021, Wildhood told a groundbreaking indigenous and queer coming-of-age story. The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival from director Bretten Hannam, who tells the story of a two-spirit Mi’kmaw teen named Link, played by Phillip Lewitski, who is in the midst of escaping the abuse of his father with his brother Travis when he meets a fellow Mi’kmaw teen, Joshua Odjick’s Pasmay. Link and Pasmay have electric romantic chemistry that contributes to the overarching moving and beautiful story. It’s a rare movie to highlight an openly two-spirit in the character of Pasmay, bringing an LGBTQ+ movie through the lens of an indigenous-led storyline.
Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding) - Rutherford Falls
Lakota Sioux actress Jana Schmieding stars as Native character Reagan Wells in the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls. The series follows two lifelong friends, Reagan and Ed Helms’ Nathan Rutherford, who come to a head when a statue of Nathan’s ancestor is chosen to be moved and he fights against it. Reagan wants to be loyal to her friend, but she struggles given the statue represents a man who killed her (fictional) Minishonka Nation. The series not only features a more joyous native character than we usually get to see, it also has a valid conversation to tell about reexamining the history of one’s ancestors. Sadly the show was cancelled back in 2022, but you can still check out both seasons of Rutherford Falls with a Peacock subscription.
Silas Crow (Ryan Black) - Dance Me Outside
Before Adam Beach starred in Smoke Signals, he was also in 1994’s Dance Me Outside, alongside Ryan Black’s Silas Crow. The story follows two friends living on the Kidiabanessee Reserve of Ontario, Canada who hope to attend a car mechanics school in Toronto, but they have to write a story about their lives in order to get into it. When a young girl from their reserve is murdered and the white man’s murderer's sentence is not severe enough, everything changes for the boys as their community rises up to demand justice.
Little Creek (Daniel Studi) - Spirit: The Stallion of Cimarron
When DreamWorks Animation portrayed Native American people in 2002 family film, Spirit: The Stallion of Cimarron, the movie broke boundaries for exposing wide audiences to the genocides of American indigenous people in a musical animated feature. Spirit also portrays the settlers for what they are, rather than rewrite history to make them look better. The movie enlisted Native American voice actor Daniel Studi as Little Creek, the best friend of the horse Spirit throughout the film. Spirit was a rare moment of native people getting a starring role in a major animated film and included native people in the production process, which I hope we see more of. Spirit: The Stallion of Cimarron is also a film that exposes the truths behind white settlers preying on indigenous people’s livelihood and land to younger generations.
Tekehentahkhwa (Kiawentiio) - Beans
2020 critically-acclaimed Canadian film, Beans, tells the story of Tekehentahkhwa, a preteen who goes by the name of “Beans” and lives in a Mohawk reserve. It’s a semi-autobiographical film by its writer/director Tracey Deer, who is also a Mohawk who grew up in the town depicted in Beans, Kahnawake, Quebec. The movie is set during the 1990 Oka crisis, where protests and violence occurred after the proposed expansion of a golf course and the development of townhouses that would be built on top of a Mohawk burial ground. Beans has a first-hand perspective on a historical moment for a group of indigenous people from the perspective of a young girl who is living through it. Kiawentiio recently played the live-action Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
John And Jashaun Winters (John Reddy And Jashaun St. John) - Songs My Brother Taught Me
Before Chloé Zhao became the director of Eternals or an Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, the filmmaker’s debut feature was 2015’s Songs My Brother Taught Me. The movie set in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, follows an older brother and younger sister named John and Jashaun and their bond. Through Zhao’s beautiful eye for filmmaking, Songs My Brother Taught Me honestly depicts the realities that can come with living on a reservation with memorable performances from young native actors.
Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) And Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) - Dark Winds
Over the summer, AMC premiered a new thriller TV show called Dark Winds, based on a mystery novel series called the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee books by Tony Hillerman. Dark Winds is about Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee living in the Southwest in the 1970s. The series stars Zahn McClarnon, who is the son of a Hunkpapa Lakota, and hails from Denver, Colorado as Leaphorn and Kiowa Gordan, who is a member of the Hualapai tribe of Northern Arizona, and plays Jim Chee. The series is composed almost entirely of Native Americans in front and behind the camera, per Variety, and has been renewed for a third season. The show so far can be streamed with a Netflix subscription.
Echo (Alaqua Cox) - Hawkeye & Echo
Indigenous representation has also reached the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Alaqua Cox’s Echo, who debuted her character as Maya Lopez / Echo in Hawkeye before getting her own series called Echo in early 2024. . In the series, Maya returns to her hometown of Oklahoma where she has to come to terms with her past and reconnect with her Native American roots. Echo’s cast featured a predominantly indigenous cast, too. Alaqua Cox was born and raised in the Menominee Indian Reservation in Keshena, Wisconsin and also represents the deaf and disabled community (she is also an amputee with a prosthetic leg) as well. It’s exciting to see such a badass hero get her own story fleshed out in the MCU. Hopefully she’ll also get to share the screen with more Marvel heroes in the future. She told us she wants to spend more time with Charlie Cox’s Daredevil.
Kahhori (Devery Jacobs) - What If…?
Also in the Marvel universe, an animated hero from the comics, Kahorri had an exciting debut in season 2 of What If…? One of the episodes is called “What If… Kahhori Reshaped The World?” and features a Mohawk woman as she ventures to the waters of the Forbidden Lake to help save her people. During the episode she comes across the likes of Doctor Strange and Captain Carter. The character is voiced by Reservation Dogs and Echo’s Devery Jacobs and has been confirmed to star in her own one-shot comic this November.
In the past few years alone, there’s certainly been an uptick of great characters from indigenous communities being featured on movies and television shows. To support more great representation such as these titles, seek them out, watch them and discuss them with friends and family.
