Search form

Search form

Scroll To Top
Film

The Librarians Sundance review: Some heroes carry books

​A scene from Kim A. Snyder's The Librarians
Amy Bench, Sundance Institute

A scene from Kim A. Snyder's The Librarians

The documentary, which just premiered at Sundance, tells the story of the brave librarians fighting book bans across the country.


This review contains spoilers for the documentary The Librarians, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

In the last eight years, it's become increasingly common to hear that a politically charged movie is "even more relevant now" than when they began making it. That's once again the painful truth about Kim A. Snyder's excellent new documentary The Librarians.

Focusing mainly on school and public librarians in Texas, but also looking at other states like Florida, The Librarians tells the story of the brave and caring librarians who have now become targets of the far right due to the new wave of book bans in the United States.

Featuring interviews with many of the librarians who have been fired, threatened, attacked, and stalked, The Librarians is a portrait of true American Heroes.

While the film exposes the horrors of our country's descent into fascism, it is a movie about hope, not despair. Even when angry extremists show up to school board meetings with guns and say they know the addresses of librarians (which one does in the doc), these librarians are not afraid to show their faces, speak out, and stand up for what is right.

They know the importance of books, of exposure to new ideas, and of the freedom to access those ideas. They know that without those things, children cannot grow up to be healthy, happy, and productive members of society. And they're willing to put their livelihoods, and even their lives, on the line to make sure that doesn't go away.

Trending stories

I was the confused, lonely, and depressed child they are talking about in this movie. I am a trans woman who grew up in Pocatello, Idaho, a small city in a very red state. All through middle and high school, I would sneak away to the library to surreptitiously read every queer and trans book I could find.

I couldn't even bring myself to check these books out. I read them in the serene safety of the stacks, and without those books, I would have never made it out of Idaho — or to adulthood.

The library gave me words for who I was and who I wanted to be. It gave me a place to go and feel like I wasn't alone. That's what these heroes are fighting to keep safe.

The film doesn't just tell the stories of the courageous librarians. It also looks into the origin of these widespread book bans, and what it finds is deeply sinister.

At first, the book challenges were presented as a grassroots campaign led by concerned parents. However, when investigators started doing some digging, they found out that it all led back to the political organization Moms for Liberty and its deep-pocketed donors.

This isn't about parents with real concerns, it's not about the safety of children, it's about government control and trying to make it so that there are fewer out queer and trans people and fewer people who know about racism, history, and what is morally right.

The Librarians is a powerful and vital documentary at this point in history. This point has been beaten to death at this point, but one of the first steps in the Nazi's rise to power was banning and burning books, and this film exposes the far right's goal to make America an ultra-conservative Christian and white nationalist nation by taking a page from this incendiary playbook.

Five out of five stars.

Recommended Stories for You

The Advocates with Sonia BaghdadyOut / Advocate Magazine - Alan Cumming and Jake Shears

From our Sponsors

Most Popular

Latest Stories