Documentary Collection

What makes a voice “gay”? A breakup with his boyfriend sets journalist David Thorpe on a quest to unravel a linguistic mystery.

A journalistic investigation, built not on rumors and assumptions, but on direct evidence, revealing the true mechanisms of podium coronations. Hidden camera footage of negotiations with the owners of the largest national beauty contests and an attempt to answer the question of why these people are not yet in prison. Famous people on the jury are not a guarantee of fair judging. Irrefutable evidence of the corruption of the so-called “stars” who elect the next Miss and Mrs. The collection and subsequent theft of funds for charity is a side business of the owners of fraudulent shows. What actually awaits the titled Misses after purchasing the prize? And what do children's beauty pageants turn out to be like for young participants?

A historical and scientific investigation telling the extraordinary story of how the ancient Greeks built a computer 2,000 years ago. Set against the glorious backdrop of classical Greece, this Grierson-nominated film follows the international research team who finally solved the puzzle of the ‘Antikythera Mechanism’. Scientific breakthroughs illustrated with stunning graphics and reenactments, reveal a trail of mysterious numbers that solved the conundrum of the gears – a real life Da Vinci code set in ancient Greece.

Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and more. His undeniable talent earned platinum records and accolades, but he struggled to break out beyond the R&B charts. Intensely driven, he overcame personal and professional challenges to secure his place amongst the greatest vocalists in history.

After losing his mother to obesity, a thirty-two year old chubby ginger comedian and vegan son-of-a-pig-farmer sets out to avoid the same fate by running one hundred miles through the mountains of Colorado in one of the world's most difficult ultra trail marathons...and lives to tell jokes about it.

A look at what happened when Denmark abolished censorship in the late 1960s.

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 figure who is plotting the anti-black rights movement.

This short was included on the recently released Harry Langdon: Lost and Found collection. This entertainment show features various Hollywood stars and this episode includes Langdon, Lola Lane, Harry Jolson, Lew Cody and Armida. There's really nothing too special here with the exception of it being of minor historic interest.

This winner of the 1993 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature details the case that the 1989 invasion of Panama by the US was motivated not by the need to protect American soldiers, restore democracy or even capture Noriega. It was to force Panama to submit the will of the United States after Noriega had exhausted his usefulness.

This is a promotional behind the scenes featurette that originally appeared on HBO. A lot of the usual interviews and behind-the-scenes clips, but enjoyably, there are a few shots that look at how the FX were filmed.

The DVD documents the making of the songs and albums by 50 Cent, especially his Get Rich or Die Tryin' album released that year. Some of the footage featured on The New Breed was from the Get Rich or Die Tryin' documentary that was in the limited release of his first album. The DVD charted at number two in the US and sold over 645,000 units as of December 2003

A biography of the Portuguese-born Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti-frutti hat. From her arrival in the US as the "Brazilian Bombshell" to her Broadway career and Hollywood stardom in the 1940s.

The decisive years of Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović, told through rare archive footage in which a young Zlatan speaks openly about his life and challenges. The film closely follows him, from his debut with the Malmö FF team in 1999 through his conflict-ridden years with Ajax Amsterdam, and up to his final breakthrough with Juventus in 2005.

Docudrama about the debate surrounding New York State's ratification of the United States Constitution. Historical figures wear modern dress and use familiar language to help today's audience understand firsthand the forces that shaped this country two hundred years ago. The argument, characters, passions and debating points are historically accurate, but the language and the medium of the debate is modern in form. Present day newscasters and commentators play themselves, reporting on the events of the 1780s as though they were occurring now.

Child abuse, mental illness, and forbidden love converge in this mystery involving a mother and daughter who were thought to be living a fairy tale life that turned out to be a living nightmare.

The Black Audio Film Collective’s seventh film envisioned the death and life of the African American revolutionary as a seven part study in iconography as narrated by novelist Toni Cade Bambara and actor Giancarlo Espesito. The stylized tableaux vivants that memorialise Malcolm’s life referenced the early 20th century funeral photography of James Van der Zee’s The Harlem Book of the Dead and the elemental static cinematography of Sergei Paradjanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates.

In 1952, Ernesto Guevara, then a medical student aged 23, and his friend Alberto Granado, a biologist of 29, began a long journey through the South American continent. During their tour, which began with an old motorcycle to continue after hitchhiking, they witnessed the harsh living conditions of the population of the countries they travelled. Guevara, soon to be known as Che, recorded his impressions in a diary. In 2002, the Brazilian director Walter Salles began shooting a film about that odyssey, "The Motorcycle Diaries". This documentary follows the making of that movie in detail, incorporating interviews with various participants.

Goes deep into the heart of Britain’s New Romantics scene, tracing how a group of outsiders transformed London's underground art and music communities and its enduring influence and impact across the globe. A decade in the making, this groundbreaking film follows how the New Romantics – AKA the Blitz Kids – became one of the most iconic cultural movements.

Exploration of the podcasting medium via interviews with several big names in the field and their fans.

Follow four young women as they prepare to rush at the University of Alabama in 2022. Against the viral backdrop of #BamaRush on TikTok, and the long-held tradition of sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama, the film explores the emotional complexities and high-stakes of belonging in this crucial window into womanhood.

The story, told by the survivors, of a group of young men, members of a Uruguayan rugby team, who managed to survive for 72 days, at an altitude of almost 4,000 meters, in the heart of the Andes Mountains, after their plane, en route to Chile, crashed there on October 13, 1972.

The making of Masters of the Universe

A French documentary on Superman actor Christopher Reeve as told by his French voice dubbing actor, Pierre Arditi.

Black Eyed Peas, Derek Hough, Hayley Erbert, Fortune Feimster, Jason Biggs, Jenny Mollen, Julianne Hough, Kal Penn, The Muppets, NE-YO, Raven Symoné and Retta perform classic Schoolhouse Rock! hits.

Set against the backdrop of 1980s Britain, four young men – Boy George, Roy Hay, Mikey Craig, and Jon Moss – formed a multi-racial, ethnically diverse, and sexually liberated band with a style and sound that challenged the status quo during the era of New Romantics and Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.

Behind-the-scenes look during the filming of William Wyler's 1958 western, "The Big Country."

A documentary film about the work of stuntmen and camera operators in Soviet cinema, using the film "White Sun of the Desert" as an example.

1972 was a turning point in Ilie Nastase's career: he won his first US Open, while also reaching both Wimbledon and Davis Cup finals. Moving back and forth in time and featuring amazing archive footage and exclusive interviews with top athletes, the documentary explores Nastase's highs and lows, the controversies that surrounded him and the enduring impact he has had on the world of tennis. Lovable, charming and generous, yet temperamental, arrogant and obscene, Mr. Nice'n'Nasty disrupted the old-fashioned etiquette of the sport in the 70s thus becoming its first rebel rock star.

This documentary goes back to the turn of the century to show how women shaped the nation’s history.

An in-depth interview with José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, known as Josu Ternera, one of the most relevant leaders of the terrorist gang ETA.

As a 10-year-old “Mengele Twin,” Eva Kor suffered some of the worst of the Holocaust. At 50, she launched the biggest manhunt in history. Now in her 80s, she circles the globe to promote the lesson her journey has taught: Healing through forgiveness.

A documentary film about Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton. This is a portrait piece that includes interviews with family, friends, colleagues, critics, and fans.

Young Irish immigrant, Alan Cooke contemplates the great metropolis New York City, and the very meaning of home itself. A vivid moving and poetic portrayal of life in contemporary New York featuring a host of celebrities, native New Yorkers and immigrants via candid interviews.

An account of the brief life of the writer Albert Camus (1913-1960), a Frenchman born in Algeria: his Spanish origin on the isle of Menorca, his childhood in Algiers, his literary career and his constant struggle against the pomposity of French bourgeois intellectuals, his communist commitment, his love for Spain and his opposition to the independence of Algeria, since it would cause the loss of his true home, his definitive estrangement.

Academy Award® winning director Charles Ferguson's new film investigates global climate change villains and heroes, and reveals practical solutions to act on.

Albert Lin and National Geographic Channel unearth the terrible secrets that lie hidden in the tomb of China's first Emperor. The Terracotta Warriors are just the tip of the iceberg in this mausoleum the size of Manhattan, that has gone largely unexcavated…until now. These silent statues guard explosive, macabre findings that rewrite history and paint a very different picture of the ancient world from what we thought we knew.

The film chronicles the life and revolutionary times of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Explores the music scene in Greenwich Village, New York in the '60s and early '70s. The film highlights some of the finest singer/songwriters of the day.

In this made-for-TV production, Vincent Price and his hunchback sidekick (Billy Van) host a pun-filled salute to the horror film genre from its earliest beginnings all the way up to The Exorcist. Featuring clips from classic horror films and interviews with genre greats like Frank Gorshin, John Carradine, John Astin and SFX legend Bill Tuttle, among others.

The dynamic meeting of solid science and futuristic simulation culminates in a dramatic exploration to another inhabited planet seven light years away. Alien Planet creates a realistic depiction of creatures on another world, where life is possible, if not provable, according to scientists' theories. Take this fascinating journey created by state-of-the-art animation and photo-realistic effects.

Produced in 1993, this documentary depicts the development of Annie Leibovitz's career as a celebrity photographer.

Maori astrobiologist Xuê Noon (Victoria Hunt) finds solace in Mars in 2051 as a leader from the Aotearoa Space Agency on an international scientific mission, following the discovery of dormant microorganisms by the NASA Mars Sample Return Mission in 2039. Xuê wanders across this sentient planet and reflects on the newly found lifeforms as she grows plants in a glasshouse. Through the spirit of an ancient taniwha, she slipstreams in spacetime to the Atacama Desert in 2023 where she lived as an Indigenous scientist years earlier. In Atacama the film engages with numerous ongoing life-and-death struggles for land and water justice led by Indigenous communities, activists, and scientists in this old, vital yet scarred desert. Through interviews and conversations, the film depicts centuries old and ongoing forms of social injustice and ecological degradation to weave a critical allegory against the renewed commercial impulse of a new space age rampaging in the 2020's.

Oasis Knebworth 1996 - the eagerly anticipated feature length documentary telling the story of the special relationship between Oasis and their fans that made the largest concert of the 90's possible, directed by Grammy Award-winner Jake Scott. It is told entirely in the moment through the eyes of the fans who were there, built around extensive and never before seen archive concert and backstage footage from the event, with additional interviews with the band and concert organisers. Also included are the full concerts from both nights, edited by Dick Carruthers with audio mixed by Will Shapland in 5.1 surround sound.

A music driven tribute to the late indie filmmaker Lynn Shelton.

An hour-long conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki which took place in Kurosawa's home near Mt. Fuji.

A strippers' convention and a major contest. The movie focuses on a few strippers, each with her own strong motive to win.

A retrospective of the films of Britain's Hammer Studios, renowned for making stylish horror films in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Included are clips from Hammer productions and interviews with actors, actresses, directors and producers who worked on these films.

Martin Scorsese reflects on the profound influence of director Elia Kazan, tracing his artistic journey from the Group Theatre to Hollywood success and the controversies of the blacklist era. Co-directed with Kent Jones, the film combines interviews and clips from Kazan’s classics—On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, and America, America—to portray him as a deeply personal filmmaker within an often impersonal industry.

The brilliant Czech writer Milan Kundera has not given an interview in thirty years; nor does he appear in public. How did he become a legendary author? What is so unique about his books?

It was eleven years ago when Trine, then 34-year-old, set fire to her house, an act that would land her in long-term psychiatric confinement. Despite countless suicide attempts, and without having fully quelled her (self-)destructive impulses, this woman now appears resolved to make an extremely ambitious fresh start: to portray her inner world in theatrical form. As she prepares the project with the help of filmmaker Alexander Lind, he is shooting what one might call the epitome of a meta-documentary. At the periphery of this recording, and in the front row opposite the theater stage, Trine's parents are waiting, with whom she yearns to reconcile.

"Origins" takes a journey through the biological roots of where we have come from and where we have gone. Using fire as a metaphor for technology, the film looks at the advances of our civilization and how the recklessness of unchecked technology is now choking out the environment and poisoning our bodies. Interviews with the biggest names in the health and green space create compelling context and arguments for how we can better coexist with nature. "Origins" shows how man, technology, and nature can walk together in balance.

Discover how Sony entered the video game market and created a console that took the world by storm, forever transforming the gaming landscape.

YOSHIKI produced and collaborated with artists from various countries such as the United States, Europe, China, and Japan with songs he arranged himself. "Yoshiki Under the Sky" will be released ahead of the world in Japan on Friday September 8th. This project started with YOSHIKI's message to the whole world that we can overcome any difficulties, even in a time of global crisis.

Kheifets - this is the name given in Gitis slang to those who graduated from the workshop of Leonid Efimovich Kheifets. The last of the Mohicans, one of the most significant Russian directors of the late twentieth - early twenty-first centuries, master, teacher. A student of Knebel and Goncharov herself. Arbuzov and Zorin called him "the young man". Ravenskikh and Andrei Popov were friends with him. Oleg Borisov, Sergey Shakurov, Alina Pokrovskaya worked with him. Today we can confidently say that the Heifetz school exists. And how many of today's stars proudly say: I am a student of Leonid Efimovich! Derevianko, Petrov, Pal, Ardova, Tolstoganova. What did he teach them?

Arguably the most influential creator, writer, and producer in the history of television, Norman Lear brought primetime into step with the times. Using comedy and indelible characters, his legendary 1970s shows such as All In the Family, Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons, boldly cracked open dialogue and shifted the national consciousness, injecting enlightened humanism into sociopolitical debates on race, class, creed, and feminism.

The American Film Institute celebrates 100 years of film by recognizing the top 50 film heroes and top 50 film villains of all time.

What makes European cinema so special? Find out in Paul Joyce’s feature-length documentary, Pictures of Europe, which examines the differences between American independent and Hollywood movies and films from European directors. Featuring luminary iconoclasts from European cinema such as Agnes Varda, Bernardo Bertolucci and Pedro Almodovar, as well as American counterpoints from Paul Schrader, and those who have crossed back and forth, such as Paul Verhoeven