Documentary Movies
The Endless Summer (1966)
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…
Mondo Freudo (1966)
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…
Man of Three Worlds: Luchino Visconti (1966)
BBC television program exploring Visconti’s mastery of cinema, theater, and opera direction.
Cinerama’s Russian Adventure (1966)
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…
Isadora Duncan the Biggest Dancer in the World (1966)
The outrageous life of the American dancer of the 1920s, Isadora Duncan, whom Ken Russell described as “part genius and part charlatan”.
The Four Elements (1966)
An educational film about power sources that’s rendered as a lyrical meditation on heat and vapor, The Four Elements is a poetic and avant-garde documentary Curtis Harrington made for the…
The Office (1966)
The insane government bureaucracy at a state pension window.
The Sun and Richard Lippold (1966)
Documentary examining the work of sculptor Richard Lippold, particular his sculpture of the sun at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A Modern Coed (1966)
Eric Rohmer directs this short documentary that narrates the presence of women in French universities as of the time of its release — 1966. During the film’s short run, the…
Cassis (1966)
“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…
Cerro Pelado (1966)
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…
Helicopter Canada (1966)
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…
Glasgow Belongs to Me (1966)
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…
Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965)
In the fall of 1964, just over a year before his death, Buster Keaton traveled to Canada to make The Railrodder, a short subject that now enjoys a small cult…
Love Meetings (1965)
Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where babies come from;…
Always on Sunday (1965)
Always On Sunday is a bio-pic on Le (Henri) Douanier Rousseau, a French naive painter.
Tokyo Olympiad (1965)
This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive events. Highlights include an epic…
The Love Goddesses (1965)
This insightful documentary features some of the major and most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen. It shows how the movie industry changed its depiction of sex and actresses’…
Psalm (1965)
A synagogue service in Bohemia, where the Torah scrolls are ceremoniously taken out and read, intercut with images of a Jewish cemetery.
The Presence (1965)
Two old men enter an abandoned synagogue, look at the decay around them, and pray.
On Pascal (1965)
An episode of the educational TV series “En profil dans le texte” directed by Rohmer, on the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, the subject of debate in Rohmer’s film “My Night…
Now! (1965)
Using morgue photos, newsreel footage, and a recording by Lena Horne, Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez fired off ‘Now!’, one of the most powerful bursts of propaganda rendered in the 1960s.
The Child of the Future: How Might He Learn? (1964)
Education is increasingly affected by technological advance. How the changes affect the child are shown in this far-ranging study of what is new in educational theory and practice. Appearing in…
The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)
Hailed by one music reviewer as “the grooviest, wildest, slickest hit ever to pound the screen,” “The T.A.M.I. Show” is an unrelenting rock spectacular starring some of the greatest pop…
The Finest Hours (1964)
A biography of Winston Churchill, shown through re-creations and actual film footage and told by Orson Welles.
London in the Raw (1964)
Influenced by the worldwide success of Italian ‘Mondo’ movies, British low-budget movie mogul Arnold Louis Miller concocted this exploitation-style documentary. Peering behind the grimy net curtains of London life into…
Seven Up! (1964)
A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track…
The Searching Eye (1964)
The simple actions of a young boy on the beach provide visual metaphors for the normally unseen world. The camera adds a profound dimension to what the boy has seen,…
Changing Landscapes (1964)
A sophisticated and beautifully constructed account of landscape change in and around Paris in the early 1960s. The film raises complex issues about the meaning and experience of modern landscapes…
Nadja in Paris (1964)
Nadja is a guest student, who stays at Cité Universitaire and visits the Sorbonne, while preparing a thesis on Proust; she also likes to stroll about Paris.
A Fool’s World (1964)
Documentary showing perverse and aberrant behavior from around the globe, including such things as sex slavery, dwarf love, Asian brothels and lesbians.
Mondo Cane 2 (1963)
The official sequel to the original shockumentary, presenting new and bizarre behavior from around the world, including cruelty, graphic gore, and strange rituals.
Ecco (1963)
A documentary highlighting some of the oddest, strangest and more grotesque examples of human behavior. Included are a tour of the Grand Guignol theater in Paris, a man who sticks…
The Wild Weird Wonderful Italians (1963)
Mondo film about Italians, presumably.
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)
During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy,…
Dead Birds (1963)
The film’s title is borrowed from a Dani fable that Gardner recounts in voice-over. The Dani people, whom Gardner identifies mysteriously as “a mountain people,” believe that there was once…
Hitler – Never Heard of Him (1963)
In 1963, 22-year-old Bertrand Blier invited 11 of his peers to come to a film studio and talk about their lives. The record of what was said is a discussion…
Tisza: Autumn Sketches (1963)
The first signs of autumn are seen in a landscape along a river. Some villagers are stacking a bed of stone blocks on the river-bank to avoid more eroding. Others…
Garrincha: Joy of the People (1962)
Documentary about the most famous dribbler in Brazilian Soccer (some say in Soccer’s history!) at the zenith of his career, showing classic scenes of 1958 and 1962 World Cup. Garrincha…
Sculptures by Sofu – Vita (1962)
A short documentary by Hiroshi Teshigahara about his father, the sculptor Sofu Teshigahara, preparing an exhibition.