Best Documentaries
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- DirectorJoshua OppenheimerAnonymousChristine CynnStarsAnwar CongoHerman KotoSyamsul ArifinA documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorMaciej J. DrygasStarsRyszard SiwiecMaria SiwiecInnocenta SiwiecThe story of an ordinary accountant, Ryszard Siwiec, who set himself on fire during the large harvest festival at the Warsaw stadium in 1968. He did it to protest against the military invasion in Czechoslovakia.
- DirectorGodfrey ReggioStarsEdward AsnerPat BenatarJerry BrownA collection of expertly photographed phenomena with no conventional plot. The footage focuses on the relationship between nature, humanity, and technology.
- DirectorClaude LanzmannStarsSimon SrebnikMichael PodchlebnikMotke ZaïdlClaude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.
- DirectorBenjamin ChristensenStarsBenjamin ChristensenElisabeth ChristensenMaren PedersenFictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in Eastern Europe.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWerner HerzogScott RowlandStefan PashovFilm-maker Werner Herzog travels to the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, looking to capture the continent's beauty and investigate the characters living there.
- DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsDavid ByrneBernie WorrellAlex WeirConsidered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time, the live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.
- DirectorDusan HanákPictures of the Old World is an unquestioned masterpiece of European documentary cinema, with existential radicalism that offers a contrast to the shallowness of hundreds of other documentary films showing images from the outskirts of civilization. The outskirts here are a Slovakian town in the Tatra Mountains. Though censored for 17 years, Dusan Hanáks poetic visual essay is not a political or even social film. It goes to far deeper and more fundamental levels of human experience. Inspired by the photographs of Martin Martinek, the films power lies in its unusual portraits of people whose raw visual beauty radiates from their very souls. Some, like the village cosmos aficionado or the disabled old man who climbs stairs on his knees, are hard to forget.
- DirectorRon FrickeStarsPatrick DisantoA collection of expertly photographed scenes of human life and religion.
- DirectorMichael WadleighStarsJoan BaezRichie HavensRoger DaltreyOscar-winning musical chronicle that brilliantly captures the three-day rock concert and celebration of peace and love that became a capstone for the Sixties.
- DirectorAndrzej FidykStarsWojciech GassowskiIl-Sung KimJong-Il KimNorth Korea, late 1980s. The communist authorities hold enormous parades celebrating the 40th anniversary of Democratic People's Republic of Korea and worshipping its leader, Kim Ir Sen. But all this splendor, pomp and incredible lavishness is also to eclipse sports olympics taking part in South Korea.
- DirectorArtour Aristakisian"My little son, it's me, your father..." The narrator tries to communicate with his unborn son and takes off on a journey were you see faces of apparitions of those outcasts, who find their solace of living only in the shadows; outside, but beside, the political and economical system; system that kills the individual and creates masses instead. These outcasts are bums, cripples, madmen, lunatics. They, in the eyes of the narrator, are the only ones, that know what it means to be human. They are not corrupt by the masses or the system; they are so overwhelmed by their madness or dreams, that they have lost the relationship with the world. They live in a world of their own, thus enabling freedom from the system. What they do, is wait. They quietly wait for the day the kingdom of God will descend upon earth.
- DirectorJuliano Ribeiro SalgadoWim WendersStarsSebastião SalgadoWim WendersLélia Wanick SalgadoThe life and work of photographer Sebastião Salgado, who has spent forty years documenting societies in hidden corners of the world.
- DirectorLeni RiefenstahlStarsDavid AlbrittonArvo AskolaJack BeresfordThe document of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin.
- DirectorLeni RiefenstahlStarsSheigo AraiJack BeresfordRalf BerzsenyiThe document of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin, orchestrated as Nazi propaganda.
- DirectorPawel LozinskiStarsHenryk GrynbergAfter almost 50 years, Holocaust survivor Henryk Grynberg visits the village he grew up in. He was also hiding there during the Nazi occupation. Grynberg wants to know what happened to his father and younger brother during the war.
- DirectorTerry ZwigoffStarsRobert CrumbAline Kominsky-CrumbCharles CrumbAn intimate portrait of controversial cartoonist Robert Crumb and his traumatized family.
- DirectorErrol MorrisStarsRandall AdamsDavid HarrisGus RoseA film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.
- DirectorDean DeBloisStarsAmiinaHildur ArsaelsdottirJon Thor BirgissonIn the summer of 2006, Sigur Rós returned home to play a series of free, unannounced concerts for the people of Iceland.
- DirectorAri FolmanStarsAri FolmanRon Ben-YishaiRonny DayagAn Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
- DirectorD.A. PennebakerStarsOtis ReddingJimi HendrixRavi ShankarA film about the greatest pre-Woodstock rock music festival.
- DirectorMichael GlawoggerA documentary on the extremes to which workers will go to earn a living.
- DirectorThierry FrémauxStarsThierry FrémauxMartin ScorsesePierre BellingardA collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsTimothy TreadwellAmie HuguenardWerner HerzogA devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.