Documentary
Years

Popular Documentary Movies

Dreams of a Life
Dreams of a Life
A filmmaker sets out to discover the life of Joyce Vincent, who died in her bedsit in North London in 2003. Her body wasn't discovered for three years, and newspaper reports offered few details of her life - not even a photograph.
Dreams of a Life 2011
My Voyage to Italy
My Voyage to Italy
World-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.
My Voyage to Italy 1999
London
London
A psycho-geographic journey through London and its history, as undertaken by an unseen narrator and his companion, Robinson, at the time of the 1992 general election.
London 1994
Interior. Leather Bar.
Interior. Leather Bar.
Filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews re-imagine the lost 40 minutes from "Cruising" as a starting point to a broader exploration of sexual and creative freedom.
Interior. Leather Bar. 2013
Fata Morgana
Fata Morgana
Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.
Fata Morgana 1971
Arcadia
Arcadia
A provocative and poetic exploration of how the British people have seen their own land through more than a century of cinema. A hallucinated journey of immense beauty and brutality. A kaleidoscopic essay on how magic and madness have linked human beings to nature since the beginning of time.
Arcadia 2017
The Arbor
The Arbor
The lives of the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar and Lorraine, one of her daughters, and the community of Bradford, in the 30 years since the 18-year-old Andrea penned a play about growing up in the community titled "The Arbor".
The Arbor 2010
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema
As told through clips from 183 female directors, this epic history of the cinema focuses on women’s integral role in the development of film art. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Mark Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest filmmakers – all of them women.
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema 2019
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
A portrait of the lives of a disparate group of patrons and employees at an American watering hole today.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets 2020
Chemsex
Chemsex
In hidden basements, bedrooms and bars across London, "Chemsex" is a documentary that exposes frankly and intimately a dark side to modern gay life. Traversing an underworld of intravenous drug use and weekend-long sex parties, "Chemsex" tells the story of several men struggling to make it out of 'the scene' alive - and one health worker who has made it his mission to save them. While society looks the other way, this powerful and unflinching film uncovers a group of men battling with HIV, drug addiction and finding acceptance in a changing world.
Chemsex 2015
Of Time and the City
Of Time and the City
British director Terence Davies reflects on his birthplace of Liverpool - his memories of growing up there and how it has changed in the years since - in the process meditating on the internal struggles and conflicts that have wracked him throughout his life and the history of England during the second half of the 20th century.
Of Time and the City 2008
MLK/FBI
MLK/FBI
Based on newly declassified files, the film explores the US government’s surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.
MLK/FBI 2020
Rebel Dykes
Rebel Dykes
A heady, energised mash-up of animation, unseen archive footage and interviews, Rebel Dykes provides an intimate insight into the politically charged, artistically radical subculture in 1980s London, and the individuals who helped shape and change their world. Bringing together BDSM nightclubs, inclusive, sex-positive feminism, DIY zine culture, post-punk musicians and artists, squatters, activists and sex workers, these rebel dykes went out onto the streets to make their voices heard. [Feature length version of 2016 short of the same name.]
Rebel Dykes 2021
Edith Walks
Edith Walks
Edith Walks is a 60 minute 66 second feature film inspired by a walk from Waltham Abbey in Essex via Battle Abbey to St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex. The film documents a pilgrimage in memory of Edith Swan Neck. The 108 mile journey, as the crow flies, allows the audience to reflect upon all things Edith. A conversation in Northampton between Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and Edith Swan Neck is also a key element to the unfolding 'story'. With images shot using digital super 8 iPhone's and sound recorded using a specially constructed music box with a boom microphone the film unfolds chronologically but in a completely unpredictable way. The numerous encounters and impromptu performances en route are proof, as if needed, that the angels of happenstance were to looking down upon the troop, with EDITH as their hallucination
Edith Walks 2017
All These Sleepless Nights
All These Sleepless Nights
What does it mean to be awake in a world that seems satisfied to be asleep? Kris and Michal push their experiences of life and love to a breaking point as they restlessly roam the city streets in search of answers, adrift in the euphoria and uncertainty of youth.
All These Sleepless Nights 2016
Two in the Wave
Two in the Wave
An in-depth analysis of the relationship between New Wave pioneers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, as seen through rare archival footage, interviews, and film excerpts — written and narrated by former Cahiers du Cinéma editor Antoine de Baecque.
Two in the Wave 2010
100 Years of Japanese Cinema
100 Years of Japanese Cinema
The story of the first century of Japanese cinema from the point of view of the controversial Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Ōshima.
100 Years of Japanese Cinema 1995
Gallant Indies
Gallant Indies
Stéphane Lissner, director of the Paris Opera, entrusts the staging of the opera-ballet Les Indes galantes to the visual artist Clément Cogitore. Based on the experience of his short film Les Indes galantes, the artist updates Jean-Philippe Rameau's baroque masterpiece (1735) by bringing together lyric song and urban dance. The choreography is entrusted to Bintou Dembélé who supervises dancers from krump, popping, voguing or even experimental hip hop. From rehearsals to the Premiere, Philippe Béziat films the meeting of urban dancers with the lyric institution and invites the spectator to share a human and artistic experience.
Gallant Indies 2021
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy
Can you imagine what it means to grow up as the child of a mass murderer? Hans Frank and Otto von Wächter were indicted as war criminals for their roles in WWII. Nazi Governors and consultants to Hitler himself, the two are collectively responsible for thousands of deaths. But what stood out to Philippe Sands were the impressions they left on their sons. While researching the Nuremberg trials, the human rights lawyer came across two men who re-focused his studies: Niklas Frank and Horst von Wächter. The men hold polar opposite views on the men who raised them.
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy 2015
Before Stonewall
Before Stonewall
New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.
Before Stonewall 1984
Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story
Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story
The hilarious and bizarre story of Frank Sidebottom, the cult British comedian in a papier mâché head, and the secretive life of Chris Sievey, the artist trapped inside.
Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story 2019
Godard Cinema
Godard Cinema
Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era's progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.
Godard Cinema 2023
Island of the Hungry Ghosts
Island of the Hungry Ghosts
Christmas Island, Australia is home to one of the largest land migrations on earth—that of forty million crabs journeying from jungle to sea. But the jungle holds another secret: a high-security facility that indefinitely detains individuals seeking asylum.
Island of the Hungry Ghosts 2019
Our New President
Our New President
The story of Donald Trump's election told entirely through Russian propaganda. By turns horrifying and hilarious, the film is a satirical portrait of Russian meddling in the 2016 election that reveals an empire of fake news and the tactics of modern day information warfare.
Our New President 2018
Ultraviolence
Ultraviolence
15 years after Ken Fero’s ground-breaking film Injustice, which examined deaths in police custody, comes a compelling follow-up that feels as timely as ever.
Ultraviolence 2020
Strip Jack Naked
Strip Jack Naked
Ron Peck talks about his experiences of growing up as a gay man, the attitudes to homosexuality in Britain, and his journey towards making his film "Nighthawks" (1978).
Strip Jack Naked 1991
Gallivant
Gallivant
Part home movie, part road movie, Kötting's riveting and eccentric film stars his 85-year-old grandmother Gladys - opinionated, bursting with anecdotes and contradictory reminiscences – and Eden, his eight-year-old daughter with Joubert syndrome, as they take a zig-zagging 6,000 mile trip in their campervan around Britain's coastline.
Gallivant 1997
The Great Hip Hop Hoax
The Great Hip Hop Hoax
Scottish rappers Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain reinvent themselves as West Coast Homeboys after they were signed by Sony.
The Great Hip Hop Hoax 2013
Love Child
Love Child
A poignant portrait of a family of asylum seekers desperate to start a new life, but stalled in bureaucratic limbo.
Love Child 2019
Dance Craze
Dance Craze
Rocksteady to both a visual and musical documentary of the big shots of the English 2-Tone movement of the late 1970s that has the exhaustive, high-energy performances exploding onto stage. Jump, shout, twist and crawl and dance to the tunes of Ska and its anthems of its rough riders and three-minute heroes captivated in the moment of a generation of England's concrete jungles and razor blade alleys. No longer on your radio but now on stage, together, with the likes of Madness, The Specials and The Beat et al, this concert footage of an era is a must-see, rare and fascinating look into a once vibrant youth culture of working-class England and its musical dance craze.
Dance Craze 1981
Sound It Out
Sound It Out
Over the last five years an independent record shop has closed in the UK every three days. SOUND IT OUT is a documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England. A cultural haven in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, SOUND IT OUT documents a place that is thriving against the odds and the local community that keeps it alive. Directed by Jeanie Finlay who grew up three miles from the shop. A distinctive, funny and intimate film about men, the North and the irreplaceable role music plays in our lives. High Fidelity with a Northern Accent.
Sound It Out 2011
Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande
Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande
In the racially turbulent UK of the early 70s, a group of black musicians came together in South London with a common love of rhythms and a message of peace. Cymande – with the dove as their symbol – combined jazz, funk, soul and Caribbean grooves to form a unique sound. Despite success in the USA they faced indifference in their native Britain, becoming disillusioned and disbanding. But the music lived on, as new generations of artists imbibed and reworked their pioneering sounds in fresh ways. From Soul II Soul to De La Soul, MC Solaar to The Fugees, the Dove had spread Cymande's message far and wide, prompting their return after forty years. This is their story.
Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande 2024
Talking About Trees
Talking About Trees
Filmmakers Ibrahim, Suliman, Eltayeb and Manar, close friends for many years, left their motherland in the sixties and seventies to study film abroad and founded the Sudanese Film Group in 1989. After years of distance and exile, they are reunited, hoping to finally make their old dream come true: to bring back cinema to Sudan by reopening the Halfaia Cinema, a dilapidated theater in Khartoum.
Talking About Trees 2019
Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains
Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains
Two decades after its unprecedented television broadcast, the cast, crew and fans of the notorious BBC 'Halloween Hoax' Ghostwatch look back at the show's unique production and legendary aftermath in this brand-new retrospective documentary. Includes never-before-seen material and interviews!
Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains 2012
Pride & Protest
Pride & Protest
In the wake of the Birmingham protests against LGBTQ+ relationship education in primary schools, a team of queer community reporters of colour challenge homophobia and call out racism in LGBTQ+ spaces.
Pride & Protest 2020
Stanislavski: Lust for Life
Stanislavski: Lust for Life
A story about Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski, a twentieth-century theatre genius. Owing to his powerful extraordinary talent he managed to stay a true artist and a free spirit within the harsh Soviet system. In the film contemporary theater and film directors (Kirill Serebrennikov, Katie Mitchell, Lev Dodin and others) show how Stanislavski's method affects their everyday work. Each of the directors finds his or her own reflection in the mirror of his genius. In search of an answer to the question whether modern theatre really needs Stanislavski they discover that art lacks its most essential part – the human being.
Stanislavski: Lust for Life 2021
New Town Utopia
New Town Utopia
What happened when we built Utopia? New Town Utopia is feature documentary about the power of art, architecture, the state of the nation – and some rather angry puppets.
New Town Utopia 2018
South
South
The story of the 1914-1916 Antarctic exploration mission of Sir Ernest Shackleton.
South 1919
Silent Love
Silent Love
At the death of her mother, Aga decides to leave her life in Germany with her partner Maja to look after her younger brother in Poland. To do this, she has to hide her love for another woman from the authorities. Closely following its protagonists, Silent Love delicately narrates their discreet struggle against a prying and viscerally homophobic society.
Silent Love 2022
The Hard Stop
The Hard Stop
Delves into the shooting death of Mark Duggan, a young black British man, by London Metropolitan Police in 2011.
The Hard Stop 2015