Documentary Movies

A short story narrated by an unknown British soldier who reveals his hopes, fears, and disillusionment while heading into battle against the German army.

Jan Schmidt and Pavel Juráček turn their attention to the problem of Czechoslovakia’s unloved cars in this whimsical documentary short.

A 10-minute portrait of modernist poet and de Andrade’s godfather, Manuel Bandeira, is clear in its affection for it subject, though like many New-Waveish films of the time, depicts the…

Documentary about influential Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre, made in his country house in Apipucos, Pernambuco (Northeast Brazil).

Tongue-in-cheek look at the French Riviera, especially in summer when it overflows with tourists. Reviews its history and famous visitors; displays its faux-exotic buildings, its crowded beaches, its trees and…

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On October 13, 1957, cash was exchanged in the GDR (old bills 1:1 for new bills). The film reports on this event.

A short documentary on the chateaux of the Loire in France was commissioned by the French Tourist Bureau.

Impressions of the rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, through the eyes of a pregnant woman.

A documentary about the life of Jewish children forced to live in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Adaptation of Martin Armstrong’s poem about an elderly lady who becomes perturbed by something we can’t see. It becomes apparent that she is looking for her past, lost in a…

A filmed version of Aaron Copland’s most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.

A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Will Rogers, Laurel and Hardy, and the Keystone Cops.

Le chant du Styrène is a 1958 French documentary film directed by Alain Resnais. The film was an order by French industrial group Pechiney to highlight the merits of plastics.

Lowell Thomas travels across Europe and the Middle East on his way to attend the coronation of King Mahendra in Nepal.

A faceless traveller takes a journey through the barren reaches of a Siberia caught between tradition and modernity, imparting his philosophical musings on its people and places, wildlife and culture.

This classic short film depicts the Klondike gold rush at its peak, when would-be prospectors struggled through harsh conditions to reach the fabled gold fields over 3000 km north of…

A mix of documentary and scripted footage on the Bowery, New York City’s skid row. Against a backdrop of men (and a few women) drinking in bars, talking and arguing,…

A look at the transport system in the South Wales Valleys and how it effects peoples livelihoods and everyday lives.

Toute la mémoire du monde is a documentary about the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It presents the building, with its processes of cataloguing and preserving all sorts of printed material,…

Using a specially designed transparent ‘canvas’ to provide an unobstructed view, Picasso creates as the camera rolls. He begins with simple works that take shape after only a single brush…

This Warner Bros. vignette features short snippets about well known people. It includes presidential candidate Warren Harding and his front porch campaign in his home town of Marion, Ohio where…

A portrait of artist, actress, poet and occultist Marjorie Cameron, it shows images of her paintings and recitations of her poems. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

The minutiae of daily life on Edinburgh’s Rose Street in the fifties is presented in this impressionistic documentary piece.

Part of Disney’s True-Life Adventures series, this film focuses on the lives of lions in Africa.

With the grand opening of Disneyland just a matter of days away, Walt Disney brings us an update on the construction of the new magic kingdom. Winston Hibler narrates scenes…

With a combination of documentary footage and animation, the science and history of rockets, and the effects of space travel on man are illustrated.

A film interpretation of the poem ‘The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Margaret Tait speaks the poem throughout the film.

Story of the American Prairie as it was when vast herds of bison and elk grazed.

Won the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short of 1954. The subject deals with the children at The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent. The hearing-handicapped children…

Originally intended as an advertising short, this film follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London to Edinburgh along the East Coast Main Line. A nostalgic record of…

A celebration of the culture and the ancient traditions in Badacsony.

A documentary of the first successful expedition to the summit of Mount Everest. New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay climb Mount Everest in 1953.

A sometimes uncomfortable marriage between fact and fiction, this film is part documentary and part drama, mixing actual war footage with reenactments in which real veterans of the Korean War…

Although first glance reveals little more than stones and sand, the desert is alive. Witness moving rocks, spitting mud pots, gorgeous flowers and the never-ending battle for survival between desert…

Part of the “True-Life Adventure Series”; Disney filmmakers take their cameras to Florida, not to document the swamps that would become Walt Disney World, but to capture the lives of…

A lavish documentary film of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953.

Cocteau takes the viewer on a tour of a friend’s villa on the French coast (a major location used in Testament of Orpheus). The house itself is heavily decorated, mostly…

A documentary covering the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.