The United States vs. Billie Holiday

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021) is a biographical drama directed by Lee Daniels — watch it online on iFILM. The premise sounds like a legal case, and it was: throughout the 1940s, federal narcotics agents pursued Holiday not simply because of her drug use, but because she kept singing "Strange Fruit," a ballad about the lynching of Black Americans that the government considered a threat.

Andra Day takes on the role with raw physical commitment — her Golden Globe win here wasn't for mimicry, but for inhabiting the weight of a woman who knew exactly what the attention meant. Trevante Rhodes plays federal agent Jimmy Fletcher, sent to break her and increasingly unsure he can. Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, and Leslie Jordan fill out the supporting cast in a film that never tidies up the contradictions.

Lee Daniels shoots it with the rhythm of jazz — emotionally blunt in one moment, elliptical the next. The film is less a biopic than a case study in how surveillance becomes a weapon. Stream The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021) on iFILM.