Watch the trailer for Sundance-winning doc ‘Knock Down the House’ featuring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
“For one of us to get through, a hundred of us have to try.”
In 2018, 529 women ran for Congress. Four exceptional women mount grassroots campaigns against powerful incumbents in Knock Down the House, an inspiring look at the 2018 midterm elections that tipped the balance of power. When tragedy struck her family in the middle of the financial crisis, Bronx-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to work double shifts as a bartender to save her home from foreclosure. After losing a loved one to a preventable medical condition, Amy Vilela didn’t know what to do with the anger she felt about America’s broken health care system. Cori Bush, a registered nurse and pastor, was drawn to the streets when the police shooting of an unarmed black man brought protests and tanks into her neighborhood. A coal miner’s daughter, Paula Jean Swearengin was fed up with watching her friends and family suffer from the environmental effects of the coal industry.
Winner of the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary and the Festival Favorite Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Knock Down the House joins these courageous women on the campaign trail as they mobilize their bases, engage voters, and fuel a movement during a historic time in American politics.
Netflix will release Knock Down the House globally and in select theaters on May 1st.
The film is directed by Rachel Lears (The Hand that Feeds); written by Lears and Robin Blotnick (The Hand that Feeds); and produced by Lears, Blotnick, and Sarah Olson (Fed Up) with a score by Ryan Blotnick (The Hand that Feeds).
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- FINAL Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions of the 2025/2026 Season - March 13, 2026
- FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR - March 13, 2026
- Satellite Awards Winners: ‘Hamnet, ‘Marty Supreme,’ ‘The White Lotus,’ Andor’ and More - March 10, 2026
FINAL Frontrunner Friday Oscar Predictions of the 2025/2026 Season 
FINAL 2026 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR 
‘I Love Boosters’ Review: Boots Riley’s Dressed to Excess Cartoon Revolution is Too Much and Not Enough [B-] SXSW 
‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Season One Review: Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer Momedy Hits the Mark [B+]