Necropolitics

The cinematic art of deciding who gets to live and who must die.

Necropolitics in cinema examines how sovereign forces, institutions, and systemic structures actively designate certain populations as disposable. Rather than merely exercising the power to govern, these cinematic systems operate by managing death, carving out zones where human life is systematically devalued or outright hunted. By analyzing these narrative structures, we see how films expose the machinery that decides whose survival is deemed a luxury.

In modern cinema, the most terrifying antagonist is often not a single villain, but the systemic machinery that decides who is allowed to thrive and who is marked for disposal. This is the essence of necropolitics on screen: the transformation of sovereign power into a bureaucratic or physical death sentence for the marginalized. Consider the tense Juarez border crossing sequence in Sicario (2015). Here, the border is not just a geographical line, but a highly militarized zone of exception where legal rights evaporate, and violence is meted out with clinical, state-sanctioned precision. It is a space where human lives are reduced to collateral damage in a perpetual war. A similar, if more literal, commodification of death occurs in Bacurau (2019), where foreign antagonists engage in a "human safari," hunting the residents of a marginalized Brazilian village for sport. In this satirical thriller, the ultimate expression of privilege is the unilateral right to decide who lives and dies, turning a forgotten community into a playground of sovereign violence. Yet, this violence does not always require a gun; sometimes, it is enacted through the quiet violence of austerity. In Joker (2019), Arthur's descent into madness is accelerated when funding cuts abruptly terminate his state-funded therapy sessions. The system effectively decides that his mental health—and by extension, his life—is not worth the investment, abandoning him to the margins. This systemic neglect mirrors the historical scars found in Black Panther (2018), where Erik Killmonger's ideology is forged directly in the crucible of colonial violence and systemic anti-Blackness. His radical desire to arm the oppressed is a desperate, mirror-image response to a global order that has long treated his people as disposable. Finally, in Logan (2017), the mutants' flight to the Canadian border for a sanctuary named "Eden" represents a desperate escape from a corporate-state apparatus that has engineered their extinction, proving that under a necropolitical regime, the simple act of survival becomes the ultimate form of rebellion.

Examples

• Bacurau (2019) — The foreign antagonists' "human safari" where they hunt and kill the residents of Bacurau for sport.
  The foreign antagonists' "human safari" where they hunt and kill the residents of Bacurau for sport serves as an allegory for necropolitics. This violent hunt represents contemporary state power, particularly in Bolsonaro's Brazil, where political and economic forces decide who is disposable. It reduces marginalized communities to bare life, highlighting systemic violence against vulnerable populations.
• Joker (2019) — Arthur's forced therapy sessions and subsequent funding cuts.
  Arthur's forced therapy sessions and subsequent funding cuts exemplify necropolitics, illustrating the state's abandonment of its vulnerable citizens. The cessation of his state-funded therapy marks him for social and literal death under neoliberal austerity, directly contributing to his descent into violence. This act of withdrawal by the state highlights a systemic disregard for the well-being of marginalized individuals.
• Sicario (2015) — The Juarez border crossing sequence
  The Juarez border crossing sequence functions as a cinematic depiction of a necropolitical space. Here, state power, embodied by the US task force, exercises the right to kill non-state actors with impunity. Cartel bodies are rendered disposable and exist outside the protection of law, illustrating a stark landscape where life can be forfeited without legal consequence. This sequence powerfully conveys the brutal realities of border control and the dehumanization of those caught within its violent mechanisms.
• Black Panther (2018) — Erik Killmonger's ideology
  Erik Killmonger's ideology is a direct product of the death-worlds created by historical colonial violence and systemic anti-Blackness. Rooted in necropolitics, his desire to arm the oppressed functions as a radical strategy to invert global power dynamics. By seizing the authority to dictate who lives and who dies, his revolutionary stance exposes the violent foundations of the existing world order.
• Batman Begins (2005) — The Wayne Enterprises Microwave Emitter
  The Wayne Enterprises Microwave Emitter is a tool of necropolitical power. This technology allows a sovereign entity, Ra's al Ghul, to decide who must die for a perceived greater good. Its ability to target a water supply and kill vast populations deemed 'corrupt' or disposable literalizes the power to manage death on a mass scale, embodying a chilling authority over life and demise.

• Logan (2017) — The mutants' flight to the Canadian border for a sanctuary named "Eden."
  The mutants' flight to the Canadian border for a sanctuary named "Eden" functions as an allegory for contemporary anti-immigrant politics. This narrative of extinction and desperate escape reveals how a sovereign power dictates who may live and who must die. The fleeing children are branded as a disposable population, subject to elimination by forces that control their very right to exist. This struggle for sanctuary underscores the brutal exercise of power over marginalized lives.
• Forrest Gump (1994) — Use of "Fortunate Son" during Vietnam War scenes
  John Fogerty howls about not being a senator's son while the camera focuses on Forrest and Bubba, two young men from rural, working-class backgrounds. The soundtrack explicitly points out the class divide in the draft system, highlighting how the state selects specific, marginalized bodies to be fed into the war machine. The song forces the viewer to recognize that the boys sitting in that helicopter are there precisely because they lack the wealth to buy their way out.