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Best Documentary Movies

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2,279 results

2,279 results

985. Belushi

Nov 22, 2020 • Rated TV-MA

Using previously unheard audiotapes recorded shortly after John Belushi's death, director R.J. Cutler's documentary examines the too-short life of once-in-a-generation talent who captured the hearts and funny bones of devoted audiences.

986. God Grew Tired of Us

Jan 12, 2007 • Rated PG

This documentary explores the indomitable spirit of three "Lost Boys" from the Sudan who leave their homeland, triumph over seemingly insurmountable adversities and move to America, where they build active and fulfilling new lives but remain deeply committed to helping the friends and family they have left behind. (Newmarket Films)

987. No Ordinary Man

American jazz musician Billy Tipton developed a reputable touring and recording career in the mid-twentieth century, along with his band The Billy Tipton Trio. After his death in the late 80s, it was revealed that Tipton was assigned female at birth, and his life was swiftly reframed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career. The genre-defying documentary No Ordinary Man seeks to correct that misrepresentation by collaborating with trans artists. As they collectively celebrate Tipton’s story as a musician living his life according to his own terms, they paint a portrait of a trans culture icon.

988. Earth

Apr 22, 2009 • Rated G

The first film in the Disneynature series, Earth, narrated by James Earl Jones, tells the remarkable story of three animal families and their amazing journey across the planet we all call home. Earth combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet's wildest and most elusive creatures. (Disneynature)

989. Burden

May 5, 2017 • Rated Not Rated

Chris Burdern guaranteed his place in art history in 1971 with a period of often dangerous and at times stomach-churning performances. After having himself shot, locked up in a locker for five days, electrocuted, and crucified on the back of a VW bug, Burden reinvented himself as the creator of truly mesmerizing installations and sculptures, from a suspended gigantic flywheel that seemingly spins on its own, to an assemblage of antique streetlights rewired for solar energy and illuminated outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In BURDEN, Timothy Marrinan and Richard Dewey look at the artist’s works and private life with an innovative mix of still-potent videos of his 70s performances, personal videos and audio recordings, friends fellow students and colleagues, critics’ comments and latter day footage at his Topanga Canyon studio, all peppered with his thoughts and musings through the years. [Magnolia Pictures]

990. Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine

Sep 4, 2015 • Rated R

In his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans, shrouded in shadows below a milky apple, Steve Jobs’ image was ubiquitous. But who was the man on the stage? What accounted for the grief of so many across the world when he died? Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine is a critical examination of Jobs who was at once revered as an iconoclastic genius and a barbed-tongued tyrant. A candid look at Jobs' legacy featuring interviews with a handful of those close to him at different stages in his life, the film is evocative and nuanced in capturing the essence of the Apple legend and his values which shape the culture of Silicon Valley to this day. [Magnolia Pictures]

991. Ibelin

Rated Not Rated

Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer, died of a degenerative muscular disease at the age of 25. His parents mourned what they thought had been a lonely and isolated life, when they started receiving messages from online friends around the world.

992. Risk

May 5, 2017 • Rated TV-MA

Laura Poitras, Academy Award winning director of Citizenfour, returns with her most personal and intimate film to date. Filmed over six years, Risk is a complex and volatile character study that collides with a high stakes election year and its controversial aftermath. Cornered in a tiny building for half a decade, Julian Assange is undeterred even as the legal jeopardy he faces threatens to undermine the organization he leads and fracture the movement he inspired. Capturing this story with unprecedented access, Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle. In a new world order where a single keystroke can alter history, Risk is a portrait of power, betrayal, truth, and sacrifice.

993. Farewell, Herr Schwarz

Jan 9, 2015 • Rated Not Rated

Siblings Michla and Feiv'ke Schwarz survived the Holocaust but never reunited after the war. Michla moved to the soon-to-be-founded Jewish state in the Middle East and started a family there. Her brother Feiv'ke, presumed dead, returned to East Germany, married a German woman and inexplicably lived amidst the concentration camp ruins where he was once a prisoner. The Israeli and German sides to the family lived unaware of each other for half a century until first time filmmaker Yael Reuveny probed exactly what happened to her family in 1945. [Kino Lorber]

994. Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride

Aug 9, 2013 • Rated Not Rated

A film about greed, politics, land use and public policy, Zipper tells the story behind the battle over an American cultural icon. Small-time ride operator, Eddie Miranda, proudly runs a 38-year-old carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district. When his rented lot is snatched up by an opportunistic real estate mogul, Eddie and his ride become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York. Be it an affront to history or just the path of progress, the spirit of Coney Island is at stake. In a market-driven world where growth often trumps preservation, the Zipper may be only the beginning of what is lost.

995. Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower

May 26, 2017 • Rated TV-14

Unstable times can create the unlikeliest of heroes. When the promise of Hong Kong’s autonomy was at risk, 14 year old Joshua Wong decided to speak up. Amid the glistening cityscape, filmmaker Joe Piscatella introduces viewers to a teenaged activist who inspired tens of thousands to stand up for their beliefs.

996. Gaucho Gaucho

A celebration of a community of Argentine cowboys and cowgirls, known as Gauchos, living beyond the boundaries of the modern world.

997. Meeting Gorbachev

May 3, 2019 • Rated Not Rated

Rising from a farm boy to become President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev brought about changes that helped end the Cold War, toppled the USSR, enabled the reunification of Germany and transformed the world forever.

998. Mike Wallace Is Here

Jul 26, 2019 • Rated PG-13

Mike Wallace Is Here offers an unflinching look at the legendary reporter, who interrogated the 20th century’s biggest figures in his over fifty years on air, and his aggressive reporting style and showmanship that redefined what America came to expect from broadcasters. Unearthing decades of never-before-seen footage from the 60 Minutes vault, the film explores what drove and plagued Wallace, whose storied career was entwined with the evolution of journalism itself. [Magnolia Pictures]

999. Blindsight

Mar 5, 2008 • Rated PG

A dangerous journey soon becomes a seemingly impossible challenge made all the more remarkable by the fact that the teenagers are blind. Believed by many Tibetans to be possessed by demons, the children are shunned by their parents, scorned by their villages, and rejected by society. Rescued by Sabriye Tenberken, a blind educator and adventurer who established the first school for the blind in Lhasa, the students invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer to visit their school after learning about his conquest of Everest. Erik arrives in Lhasa and inspires Sabriye and her students Kyila, Sonam Bhumtso, Tashi, Gyenshen, Dachung, and Tenzin to let him lead them higher than they have ever been before. The resulting three-week journey is beyond anything any of them could have predicted. (Robson Entertainment)

1,000. Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy

Mar 31, 2006 • Rated Not Rated

Originally presented during the Dalai Lama's first visit to the US in 1979, this is an epic documentary of spirituality in exile.

1,001. Good Hair

Oct 9, 2009 • Rated PG-13

An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, Good Hair visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore how hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks and self-esteem of the black community. (Roadside Attractions)

1,002. Czech Dream

Jun 15, 2007 • Rated Not Rated

A mockmentary about a Czech mega-store.

1,003. Screwball

Recounting the high-profile doping scandal that rocked Major League Baseball, director Billy Corben (Cocaine Cowboys) takes us into the surreal Miami underworld that provided performance-enhancing drugs to Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and other star players. They say South Florida is a sunny place for shady people and this is certainly true of steroid peddler Anthony Bosch and his most notorious client, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. While Bosch's medical credentials may be lacking, his storytelling skills are first rate as he hilariously details the rise and fall of his “health clinic”, including mob connections, financial chicanery, his cocaine habit, and Rodriguez's eccentric behavior. The documentary plays like a madcap Floridian crime comedy in the vein of Elmore Leonard or the Coen Brothers while it raises serious questions about the ethics of professional sports. Powerful interests would be happy to let this story slip from memory, but Screwball makes it unforgettable. [Greenwich Entertainment]

1,004. Sign 'o' the Times

Nov 20, 1987 • Rated PG-13

A concert film with theatrical staging, featuring live performances by Prince and his band.

1,005. Being Evel

Aug 21, 2015 • Rated TV-MA

A generation of Americans grew up worshipping self-styled hero Evel Knievel – watching him every Saturday on Wide World of Sports and buying his Ideal toys. For producer/subject Johnny Knoxville and so many others, he was the ultimate antidote to the disenchantment of the 70′s. But few knew the incredible and often complex aspects of his epic life, which, like his jumps, was sometimes glorious and sometimes disastrous. With an entire genre of sports ascending from his daring inventiveness, now is the time to look at this extreme man and his complicated legacy. [Gravitas Ventures]

1,006. Paul Williams Still Alive

Jun 8, 2012 • Rated PG-13

He won Grammys and an Academy Award; wrote many #1 songs from Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen" to the Carpenter's "We've Only Just Begun" as well as Kermit the Frog's biggest hit, "The Rainbow Connection"; starred in a Brian DePalma movie; put out his own hit records and albums; was a guest on The Tonight Show fifty times; and is the president of ASCAP... and you might not have heard of him. In the 1970's, Paul Williams was the singer / actor / songwriter that emotional, alienated teenage boys all over the world wanted to be, a sex symbol before MTV, when sex symbols could be 5"2 and sing songs about loneliness with the Muppets. One of those boys was Steve Kessler, a chubby kid from Queens. Thirty years later, Kessler discovered something amazing: Paul Williams didn't die. And no one had ever tried to make a documentary about him. A wistful musical journey that will re-introduce a new generation to Williams' soulful classics, "Paul Williams: Still Alive" is the self-narrated story of Stephen Kessler's lifelong obsession with the former superstar-and what happens when the nostalgic filmmaker finally catches up with him. (Abramorama Films)

1,007. The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Jun 27, 2014 • Rated Not Rated

The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

1,008. The Search for General Tso

Jan 2, 2015 • Rated Not Rated

This mouthwateringly entertaining film travels the globe to unravel a captivating culinary mystery. General Tso's chicken is a staple of Chinese-American cooking, and a ubiquitous presence on restaurant menus across the country. But just who was General Tso? And how did his chicken become emblematic of an entire national cuisine? Director Ian Cheney (King Corn) journeys from Shanghai to New York to the American Midwest and beyond to uncover the origins of this iconic dish, turning up surprising revelations and a host of humorous characters along the way. [Sundance Selects]

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