Free Leonard Peltier documentary now streaming on Netflix

Free Leonard Peltier, a documentary that premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, is now available on Netflix.

The film became available October 12, Indigenous Peoples' Day, according to a Democracy Now! interview broadcast that day with Peltier and co-director David France. Netflix lists the documentary on its streaming service; it runs 108 minutes, according to Cinetic Media, which handles the film's publicity.

Jesse Short Bull, an Oglala Lakota filmmaker, and France co-directed the project. Sundance's festival program describes it as a film about Peltier and the campaign for his release. The producers include Jhane Myers and Bird Runningwater, according to Sundance.

Peltier, a longtime American Indian Movement activist who has described himself as a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe, was convicted in 1977 of the murders of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, who were killed during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation, according to the FBI and Associated Press. Peltier has always maintained his innocence, the AP reported.

On January 20, 2025, President Joe Biden commuted the remainder of Peltier's sentence to home confinement, according to a White House statement. Peltier was released from a federal prison in February 2025 and returned to the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota, the AP reported. The commutation was not a pardon.