Documentary Movies

In this classic 1969 documentary, the Man in Black is captured at his peak, the first of many in a looming roller-coaster career. Fresh on the heels of his Folsom…

A fictional documentary that portrays the city of Dakar, Senegal, as we hear the conversation between a Senegalese man (the director, Djibril Diop Mambéty) and a French woman, Inge Hirschnitz….

Filmed at the October 1968 meeting in Hawaii of several hundred police chiefs of the International Association of Chiefs of Police as they watch demonstrations of gruesome anti-riot weapons, sing…

Les Blank’s portrait of the great Texas bluesman, ‘Lightnin’ Hopkins. The film includes interviews and a performance by Hopkins. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2002.

A film shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organised by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their leaders, and to…

In Manhattan’s Central Park, a film crew directed by William Greaves is shooting a screen test with various pairs of actors. It’s a confrontation between a couple: he demands to…

This colorful documentary chronicles the events of the 1968 Winter Olympics in France. The events made international celebrities of skater Peggy Fleming and skier Jean-Claude Killy for their gold-medal performances….

In 1967, New York City is host to the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant. This documentary takes a look behind the scenes, transporting the viewer into rehearsals and dressing rooms…

When a camera crew are sent to document hippie protests in Yorkville, Canada’s counter-culture capital, they are charmed by a group of misunderstood kids with their own ideas about what…

Jayne takes us on a review of her last world tour. She takes us through Rome, shares a fantasy about Roman athletes, and then is off to Cannes. She takes…

Part one of a two-part portrait of the great Jazz composer and pianist. In 1968, we had the opportunity to spend time with Thelonious Monk and his musicians, following him…

Presents Gordon Parks’ photo-essay “A Harlem Family”, framed by a filmed segment featuring Parks and the Fontanelle family and narrated by Parks.

Part two of a two-part portrait of the great Jazz composer and pianist. On his European tour his quartet was joined by Ray Copeland, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, and Johnny…

This is a montage of different images from the JFK, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy triumphs and assassinations, all three events being observed by Lyndon Johnson as the dark…

Documentary about the potentially dangerous and unpredictable drug LSD. Various experts discuss how LSD is made and the hazards involved in using it while avid users explain why they enjoy…

Black and white footage of performances, interviews, and conversations at the Newport Folk Festival, from 1963 to 1966. The headliners are Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and…

A stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and documents the various ways the inmates are treated…

Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne. House-boy, would-be cabaret performer, and self-proclaimed hustler giving one man’s gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it was like to be black and gay…

A rare archival short, Queens at Heart follows four shockingly courageous pre-Stonewall trans women, Misty, Vicky, Sonja, and Simone. They go out as women at night, but live as men…

A Man Vanishes examines the concept of Johatsu, tackling the phenomenon of people missing in Japan over the years. It picks one such person from the list, someone who had…

In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back…

In 1966, German film critic Theodor Kotulla — who would go on to become one of the New German Cinema’s most uncompromising filmmakers — visited the set of Robert Bresson’s…

Documentary about a mountain range and surrounding area.

The dangers of LSD are driven home to teenagers in this classroom training film, which is “narrated” by an LSD tab. The “tab” tells kids that he is “a depth…

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never…

An obituary of Che Guevara, made in forty-eight hours to be shown at the mass meeting on the 18th October 1967 in the Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana, where…

A documentary covering the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. It consists primarily of footage edited from the documentary TOKYO OLYMPIAD, directed by Kon Ichikawa.

Images and poems of the celebrated couple Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet. Elsa’s youth as recalled by Aragon, with commentary by Elsa.

An oblique documentary about the LSD group experiments of Timothy Leary, with off screen commentary of a participant and shots of Leary’s house and the surroundings.

A faux travelogue that mixes documentary and mockumentary footage. The camera looks through a one-way glass into the women’s dressing room at a lingerie shop, visits a Kyoto massage parlor,…

Lionel Rogosin’s plea for humanity and against war and fascism. For two years, Rogosin traveled to twelve countries to collect footage of war atrocities from their archives. He interspersed these…

Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they…

A “hidden camera” takes the viewer on a worldwide tour of sexual practices and rituals, including Tijuana strippers, Asian sex shows, British prostitutes, New York devil worshipers and a Mexican…

BBC television program exploring Visconti’s mastery of cinema, theater, and opera direction.

Following an introduction by Bing Crosby, the Cinerama screen widens for scenes of landscapes, cities, peoples, and entertainments of the Soviet Union. Highlights include the historic buildings and churches of…

Documentary examining the work of sculptor Richard Lippold, particular his sculpture of the sun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A view from a helicopter of the ten Canadian provinces in 1966. The result is a big, beautiful and engrossing bird’s-eye portrait of the country. Nothing here is quite the…

A ship of athletes training on the rough seas becomes a symbol of Castro’s Cuba, the games projected on the backdrop of political struggle. This is the story of a…

“I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or…

An Englishman has just got off the train at St. Enoch Station and is asking a cab driver to show him around Glasgow. Naturally, the cab driver is happy to…