In Amazing Grace, Ioan Gruffudd (Black Hawk Down, Fantastic Four) plays political idealist William Wilberforce, a man born into the age of the Great British Empire when the country’s influence around the globe was at its most powerful. It was, however, an age when the rumblings of social discontent were emerging, and a time when reformers faced an uphill struggle to be heard.

Beginning in 1797, the film first finds Wilberforce taking a vacation for his health, although he is far sicker at heart for his frustrated cause. Meeting the charming Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai), however, he finds a soulmate to share the story of his struggle. Over the course of two long decades, Wilberforce maneuvers his way through the British Parliament, endeavoring to end his country’s transatlantic slave trade.

With a few allies, including his mentor, John Newton (Albert Finney), a slave ship captain turned repentant priest, Prime Minister William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Olaudah Equiano (Youssou N’Dour), the erudite former slave turned author, Wilberforce fruitlessly fights both public indifference and moneyed detractors.

Through illness and self-doubt, and faced by the staunch opposition of those benefiting from the slave trade, Wilberforce finds the inspiration in newfound love to rejuvenate the fight with new ideas with the potential to achieve a great victory for social justice. (2006, Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Michael Gambon, Benedict Cumberbatch)