Today in history… May 5th, 1981, IRA (Irish Republican Army) member Bobby Sands died in a Northern Ireland prison, during the 66th day of his hunger strike.

Fast-forward to 2008… Black British filmmaker Steve McQueen’s debut feature film, Hunger, laconically, dramatically and harrowingly reconstructs the imprisonment of Bobby Sands and multi-week long hunger strike. Michael Fassbender stars in the film, which, by the way, is now available in Netflix’s Instant Watch streaming library. So, you can watch the critically acclaimed and award-winning film this very minute (with a basic Netflix account), within 2 or 3 clicks of your mouse or touch-pad.

So, do it!!

The film also received the Criterion Collection treatment on DVD and Blu-ray.

And looking ahead, as we all already know, McQueen is currently in post-production on his second feature film, Shame, which also stars Fassbender, as well as Nicole Beharie, and should be in theaters later this year. McQueen has also long been prepping his highly anticipated Fela biopic.

A trailer for Hunger follows below: