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Best Documentary Movies

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2,280 results

2,280 results

121. Deliver Us from Evil

Oct 13, 2006 • Rated Unrated

This controversial documentary is the story of Father Oliver O'Grady, the most notorious pedophile in the history of the modern Catholic Church.

122. Maidan

Maidan chronicles the civil uprising that toppled the government of Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovich and has since developed into an international crisis between Russia and the West. Filmed in stunning long takes, sans commentary, Maidan is a record of a momentous historical event and an extraordinary study of the popular uprising as a social, cultural and philosophical phenomenon. [Cinema Guild]

123. Black Mother

Mar 8, 2019 • Rated TV-MA

Part film, part baptism, in Black Mother director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, Black Mother channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica’s turbulent history but existing in the urgent present. [Grasshopper Film]

124. Our Daily Bread

Nov 24, 2006 • Rated Not Rated

This documentary aims to show the industrial production of food as a reflection of our society's values: plenty of everything, made as quickly and as efficiently as modern technology permits. (First Run/Icarus)

125. My Imaginary Country

One day, without warning, a revolution exploded. It was the event that master documentarian Patricio Guzmán had been waiting for all his life: a million and a half people in the streets of Santiago, Chile, demanding justice, education, health care, and a new constitution to replace the strident rules imposed on the country during the Pinochet military dictatorship. Urgent and inspired, My Imaginary Country features harrowing front-line protest footage and interviews with dynamic activist leaders and powerfully connects Chile's complex, bloody history to contemporary revolutionary social movements and the election of a new president. [Icarus Films]

126. Los Angeles Plays Itself

Jul 28, 2004 • Rated Not Rated

This documentary examines how Los Angeles has been portrayed by Hollywood and the impact of the movie industry on the city.

127. City of Ghosts

Jul 7, 2017 • Rated R

City of Ghosts follows the journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”— a handful of anonymous activists who banded together after their homeland was taken over by ISIS in 2014. With astonishing, deeply personal access, this is the story of a brave group of citizen journalists as they face the realities of life undercover, on the run, and in exile, risking their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

128. Strong Island

Sep 15, 2017 • Rated TV-MA

In April 1992, on Long Island NY, William Jr., the Ford's eldest child, a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19 year-old mechanic. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. Director Yance Ford chronicles the arc of his family across history, geography and tragedy - from the racial segregation of the Jim Crow South to the promise of New York City; from the presumed safety of middle class suburbs, to the maelstrom of an unexpected, violent death. It is the story of the Ford family: Barbara Dunmore, William Ford and their three children and how their lives were shaped by the enduring shadow of racism in America.

129. The Interrupters

Jul 29, 2011 • Rated Unrated

The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. Shot over the course of a year, The Interrupters captures a period in Chicago when it became a national symbol for the violence in our cities. During that period, the city was besieged by high-profile incidents, most notably the brutal beating of Derrion Albert, a Chicago High School student, whose death was caught on videotape. (Kartemquin Films)

130. American Factory

Aug 21, 2019 • Rated TV-14

In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.

131. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

Never-before-seen home movies and extraordinary personal archives reveal how Christopher Reeve went from unknown actor to iconic movie star as the ultimate screen superhero. He learned the true meaning of heroism as an activist after suffering a tragic accident that left him quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator to breathe.

132. Sabaya

Armed with just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and other volunteers from the Yazidi Home Center risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS members as sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous refugee camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria. Often accompanied by burka-clad female infiltrators and working mostly at night, they must act quickly to avoid potential violence. In this visceral, often edge-of-your-seat film, we experience both the tense situation in the camp and the comfort of daily life at home, where Mahmud’s wife, Siham, and his mother, Zahra, lovingly help the traumatized girls shed off the black garments of an ideology that tolerates nothing but itself.

133. Let the Fire Burn

Oct 2, 2013 • Rated Not Rated

On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalatedâ

134. Last Train Home

Sep 3, 2010 • Rated Not Rated

Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year’s holiday. This mass exodus is the world’s largest human migration—an epic spectacle that reveals a country tragically caught between its rural past and industrial future. Working over several years in classic verité style Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan (with the producers of the award-winning hit documentary Up the Yangtze) travels with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like so many of China’s rural poor, Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs. Their daughter Qin—now a restless and rebellious teenager—both bitterly resents their absence and longs for her own freedom away from school, much to the utter devastation of her parents. Emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful, Last Train Home’s intimate observation of one fractured family sheds light on the human cost of China’s ascendance as an economic superpower. (Zeitgeist Films)

135. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

Mar 25, 2020 • Rated R

Down the road from Woodstock, a revolution blossomed at a ramshackle summer camp for teenagers with disabilities, transforming their lives and igniting a landmark movement.

136. Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film

Sep 1, 2006 • Rated TV-14

Ric Burns's 4-hour, epic Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film, is a portrait of one of the 20th century's most influential, controversial, and paradoxically mystifying artists. (FilmForum)

137. The Gleaners & I

Mar 7, 2001 • Rated Not Rated

An intimate, picaresque inquiry into French life, as lived by the country's poor and its provident, as well as by the film's own director, Agnès Varda. The aesthetic, political and finally moral point of departure for Varda are gleaners, those individuals who pick at already-reaped fields for the odd potato, the leftover turnip, and in previous generations were immortalized by the likes of Millet and Van Gogh. (Zeitgeist Films)

138. The First Wave

Nov 19, 2021 • Rated R

With exclusive access inside one of New York’s hardest hit hospital systems during the terrifying first four months of the pandemic, The First Wave spotlights the everyday heroes at the epicenter of COVID-19 as they come together to fight one of the greatest threats the world has ever encountered.

139. Athlete A

Jun 24, 2020 • Rated PG-13

In Athlete A, filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk delve into the unchecked abuse inside the world of elite competitive gymnastics. Equal parts devastating and inspiring, the film follows the IndyStar reporters as they reveal the extensive cover-up and culture of cruelty that was allowed to thrive within elite gymnastics, the attorney fighting the institutions, and most importantly, the brave whistle-blowers who refuse to be silenced. [Netflix]

140. Tea with the Dames

Sep 21, 2018 • Rated Unrated

What happens when four legends of British stage and screen get together? Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Dame Joan Plowright are among the most celebrated actresses of our time, with scores of iconic performances, decades of wisdom, and innumerable Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, and BAFTAs between them. They are also longtime friends who hereby invite you to join them for a weekend in the country as they catch up with one another, reminisce, and share their candid, delightfully irreverent thoughts on everything from art to aging to love to a life lived in the spotlight. Bursting with devilish wit and whip-smart insights, Tea With The Dames is a remarkable opportunity to spend time in the company of four all-time greats—up close and unfiltered. [Sundance Selects]

141. Children Underground

Sep 19, 2001 • Rated Not Rated

This political documentary focuses on homeless children living in the subway tunnels of Bucharest, Romania.

142. Amy

Jul 3, 2015 • Rated R

Amy tells the story of six-time Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse – in her own words. A once-in-a-generation talent, Amy Winehouse was a musician that captured the world’s attention. A pure jazz artist in the most authentic sense – she wrote and sung from the heart using her musical gifts to analyze her own problems. The combination of her raw honesty and supreme talent resulted in some of the most unique and adored songs of the modern era. Her huge success, however, resulted in relentless and invasive media attention which coupled with Amy’s troubled relationships and precarious lifestyle saw her life tragically begin to unravel. Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27. [A24]

143. Gimme Shelter

Dec 6, 1970 • Rated GP

Called the greatest rock film ever made, this landmark documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their notorious 1969 U.S. tour. When three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway, Direct Cinema pioneers David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin were there to immortalize on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment.

144. Night Will Fall

Nov 21, 2014 • Rated Not Rated

Researchers discover film footage from World War II that turns out to be a lost documentary shot by Alfred Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein in 1945 about German concentration camps.

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