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Best Documentary Movies

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2,279 results

2,279 results

289. In Jackson Heights

Nov 4, 2015 • Rated TV-MA

Jackson Heights, Queens is one of the most culturally diverse communities in the US where 167 languages are spoken. In Jackson Heights explores the conflict between maintaining ties to old traditions and adapting to American values.

290. Concert for George

Oct 3, 2003 • Rated PG-13

On the 29th of November 2002, one year to the day that George Harrison left us, his closest friends gathered at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate his life in the only way they knew how - by playing his music.

291. One Day in September

Nov 17, 2000 • Rated R

This documentary examines the events surrounding the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, where eleven Israeli athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Palestinian terrorists.

292. Dream of Light

A lovely portrait of celebrated Spanish painter Antonio Lopez Garcia as he paints the quince tree growing in his courtyard. The two and a half hour film offers perspectives on everything from artistic vision, realism, painting and film to life, mortality and possibility of eternal rebirth.

293. John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection

John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection revisits the rich bounty of 16-mm-shot footage of the left-handed tennis star John McEnroe, at the time the world’s top-ranked player, as he competes in the French Open at Paris’s Roland Garros Stadium in 1984. Close-ups and slow motion sequences of McEnroe competing, as well as instances of his notorious temper tantrums, highlight a ”man who played on the edge of his senses.” Far from a traditional documentary, Faraut probes the archival film to unpack both McEnroe’s attention to the sport and the footage itself, creating a lively and immersive look at a driven athlete, a study on the sport of tennis and the human body and movement, and finally how these all intersect with cinema itself.

294. Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life explores the life and work of the legendary neurologist and storyteller, as he shares intimate details of his battles with drug addiction, homophobia, and a medical establishment that accepted his work only decades after the fact. Sacks was a fearless explorer of unknown mental worlds who helped redefine our understanding of the brain and mind, the diversity of human experience, and our shared humanity.

295. The Filth and the Fury

Apr 7, 2000 • Rated R

An English documentary by Julien Temple which details the short but tempestuous life of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols from the perspective of the band members themselves, unlike the 20-year-old Temple film "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" which focuses instead on the perspective of Malcolm McLaren, the band's controversial manager.

296. Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist

Nov 7, 1997 • Rated Not Rated

Documentary about writer and performance artist Bob Flanagan who died at 43 of cystic fibrosis. His life was indicated by pain from the beginning and he started to develop sadomasochistic practices, which he developed finally into performances.

297. Copa 71

In August 1971, soccer teams from England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark, and Italy gathered at Mexico City’s sun-drenched Azteca Stadium. The scale of the tournament was monumental: lavish sponsorship, extensive TV coverage, merchandise on every street corner, and crowds of over 100,000 roaring fans turn this historic stadium into a cauldron of noise match after match. A fawning media treat the players like rock stars. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the greatest moments in international soccer history. However, this is a tournament unlike anything that’s happened before. The players on the pitch are all women, and you’ve likely never even heard of it. This is Copa 71, the pioneering and unofficial Women’s World Cup. Dismissed by both the leading governing body and domestic soccer associations around the world, this extraordinary event had been sidelined in history, until now.

298. Hold Your Fire

Brooklyn, 1973. When Shu’aib Raheem tried to steal guns for self-defense, it sparked the longest hostage siege in NYPD history. NYPD psychologist Harvey Schlossberg fought to reform police use of violence and save lives by using words, not guns.

299. Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains

Oct 22, 2008 • Rated Unrated

It is one of the most astonishing and inspiring survival tales of all time. On October 13, 1972, a young rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile—and then vanished into thin air. Two days before Christmas, 16 of the 45 passengers miraculously resurfaced. They had managed to survive for 72 days after their plane crashed on a remote Andean glacier. Thirty-five years later, the survivors returned to the crash site—known as the Valley of Tears—to recount their harrowing story of defiant endurance and indestructible friendship. Previously documented in the 1973 worldwide bestseller “Alive” (and the 1993 Ethan Hawke movie of the same name), this shocking true story finally gets the cinematic treatment it deserves. Visually breathtaking and crafted with riveting detail by documentary filmmaker (and childhood friend of the survivors) Gonzalo Arijon with a masterful combination of on-location interviews, archival footage and reenactments; Stranded is by turns hauntingly powerful and spiritually moving. (Zeigeist Films)

300. A Thousand Cuts

Nowhere is the worldwide erosion of democracy, fueled by social media disinformation campaigns, more starkly evident than in the authoritarian regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Journalist Maria Ressa places the tools of the free press—and her freedom—on the line in defense of truth and democracy.

301. No Home Movie

Apr 1, 2016 • Rated Not Rated

Chantal Akerman films her mother, an old woman of Polish origin who is short lifetime, in her apartment in Brussels. For two hours, we will see them eating, chatting and sharing memories, sometimes accompanied by Sylvaine, Chantal's sister. Also, and to show how small the world has become, Chantal remains in contact with her mother at other times of the year via Skype from lands as far away from Belgium as Oklahoma or New York.

302. At Berkeley

The University of California at Berkeley, the oldest and most prestigious member of a ten campus public education system, is also one of the finest research and teaching facilities in the world. The film, At Berkeley, shows the major aspects of university life, its intellectual and social mission, its obligation to the state and to larger ideas of higher education, as well as illustrates how decisions are made and implemented by the administration in collaboration with its various constituencies.

303. Step

Aug 4, 2017 • Rated PG

Step documents the senior year of a girls’ high-school step dance team against the background of inner-city Baltimore. As each one tries to become the first in their families to attend college, the girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in the troubled city.

304. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Nov 5, 2003 • Rated Unrated

On April 12th 2002 the world awoke to the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been removed from office and had been replaced by a new interim government. What had in fact taken place was the first Latin American coup of the 21st century, and the world's first media coup. (Vitagraph Films)

305. 13th

Oct 7, 2016 • Rated TV-MA

The title of Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis.

306. Sobibór, 14 Octobre 1943, 16 heures

Oct 12, 2001 • Rated Not Rated

The full title of this film (Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m.) refers to the place, month, day, year and hour of the only successful uprising in a Nazi extermination camp.

307. This Much I Know to Be True

Explores the creative relationship and songs from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' last two studio albums, "Ghosteen" and "Carnage".

308. Elena

Elena, a young Brazilian woman, travels to New York with dreams of becoming an actress. She leaves behind a childhood spent in hiding during the military dictatorship, and she leaves behind Petra, her seven-year-old sister. Two decades later, Petra goes to New York to pursue acting and in search of Elena. But the film (and the filmmaker) cannot escape the similarities between Petra and Elena’s stories, and as they overlap, they begin to blur.

309. State Funeral

Moscow, March 1953: in the days following the death of Joseph Stalin, countless citizens flooded the Red Square to mourn their leader’s loss and witness his burial. Though the procession was captured in detail by hundreds of cameramen, their footage has remained largely unseen until now.

310. The Dissident

Dec 25, 2020 • Rated PG-13

When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappears in Istanbul, his fiancée and dissidents around the world piece together the clues to a murder and expose a global cover up.

311. Pete Seeger: The Power of Song

Sep 14, 2007 • Rated PG

Pete Seeger was the architect of the folk revival, writing some of its best known songs including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” "Turn, Turn, Turn” and "If I Had A Hammer." Largely misunderstood by his critics, including the US government, for his views on peace, unionism, civil rights and ecology, Seeger was targeted by the communist witch hunt of the Fifties. He was picketed, protested, blacklisted, and, in spite of his enormous popularity, banned from American television for more than 17 years. With a combination of never-before-seen archival footage and personal films made by Seeger and his wife, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song chronicles the life of this legendary artist and political activist. (Jim Brown Productions)

312. Little Richard: I Am Everything

Apr 21, 2023 • Rated TV-MA

Little Richard: I Am Everything tells the story of the Black queer origins of rock n’ roll, exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music to reveal the innovator – the originator – Richard Penniman. Through a wealth of archive and performance that brings us into Richard’s complicated inner world, the film unspools the icon’s life story with all its switchbacks and contradictions. In interviews with family, musicians, and cutting-edge Black and queer scholars, the film reveals how Richard created an art form for ultimate self-expression, yet what he gave to the world he was never able to give to himself. Throughout his life, Richard careened like a shiny cracked pinball between God, sex and rock n’ roll. The world tried to put him in a box, but Richard was an omni being who contained multitudes – he was unabashedly everything.

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