Discover Movies

Rare black and white footage of Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones auditioning for the 60s hit NBC television program The Monkees.

Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.

Presents a story told by a young boy to his younger sister about various zoo animals. Records the spontaneous tale with all the interruptions, comments and reactions of the sister. The film was made by their father Homer Groening and features Matt, Lisa and little Maggie.

Comments on the background and popularity of disc jockey "Emperor" Bob Hudson, who bases his shows on the idea that radio is a fantasy.

George Lucas's senior project at the University of Southern California in 1966. It was named for the lap time of the Lotus 23 race car that was the subject of the film. It is a nonstory visual tone poem depicting the imagery of a car going at full speed, and featuring the car's engine as the primary sound element. Shot on 16mm color film with a 14 man student crew, it was filmed at Willow Springs Raceway, north of Los Angeles, CA. The Lotus 23 was driven by Pete Brock.

A behind-the-scenes documentary by George Lucas about 29-year-old Francis Ford Coppola and his crew creating the 1969 film "The Rain People."

Party, enterianment, and Behind the scenes

Between the French La Nouvelle Vague and the Italian Neorealismo, Europe had been undergoing a continuous cinema transformation since the 1950s, while the ailing American studio system groaned under its own weight and inertia. New Hollywood had arrived with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, and already by 1968 it was changing how Hollywood thought and acted. The student film scene was getting ready to explode, and it knew it.

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 by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.

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 with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.

Hello London is a 1958 documentary film starring Sonja Henie and Michael Wilding.

A documentary analyzing the social, political and cultural climate of Hollywood in the mid-1960s.

This film is a factual and chronological account of the events preceding the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II and the significant effect of the atomic bomb on peacetime projects and events of the atomic age.

An ethnographic documentary documenting the ritual warfare cycle, social life, and belief systems of the Dani people of the Baliem Valley in western New Guinea.

Polar Life’s novelty was its theatre, with the audience seated on a central rotating turntable in the middle of eleven fixed screens. Viewers have described the intricate juxtaposition of screen images and narration and the complex relationship created between moving spectators and multiple screens. Documentation images and scripts of the bilingual narration by Lise Payette and Patrick Watson show elaborate temporal and spatial representations of the Arctic and Antarctic regions: the Inuit in daily activities in the Canadian North; other northern peoples of Alaska, Lapland, and Siberia; and settlers from the South, scientists, explorers, and other inhabitants of the landscape, including reindeer, bears, and birds. Archival film footage of early northern explorers, combined with newly shot documentary footage, was edited across the various screens to create spatial relationships that are sometimes coherent, sometimes fragmented.

‘Superboy’ drinks from a bottle of Coca-Cola.

The Harlem Cultural Festival, also known as "Black Woodstock", was a series of music concerts held in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City during the summer of 1969 to celebrate African American music and culture and to promote the continued politics of black pride. The concerts took place in Harlem's Mount Morris Park on Sundays at 3PM from June 29, 1969 to August 24, 1969. The manifestation came soon after the Watts Riots, and the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

A promotional two-part short for John Boorman's "Point Blank" shot on and around Alcatraz. Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson and former inmate Joe Giles share their thoughts on the former prison.

The film made at New York University in 1962, " Flamenco: The Art of Inesita" was lost. Martin Scorsese was the cameraman and it was directed by Robert J. Siegel. Both students at the time were in film school. This silent clip is a work print and served to show movements in the dance used in the completed work. The soundtrack technology was obsolete, and could not be restored. No music was used.

This final True-Life Adventure would also appear to be one of the best, as we go into the South American jungle to observe the jaguar. Jungle Cat is more intimate than its kin, allowing individual animal characters to be developed. Central to the cast is a pair of jaguars (one ebony), whose fighting leads to love and, not long after, two babies (one resembling each parent).

This film details the techniques used by amateur and professional shoplifters to steal over $6 billion in merchandise annually. Emphasizing how much of this stealing could be prevented ... A convicted shoplifter displays stealing methods under actual conditions and explains how employees could have prevented the thefts.

"Lionpower from MGM" (1967) is an exciting 60's promotional short subject, which showcases MGM's releases for the 1967-68 film season under a "five seasons" theme--fall, winter, spring, summer--plus a "fabulous fifth season". The main music is set to the rousing theme from "The Magnificent Yankee" composed by David Raksin in 1950. The promo is narrated by some of the best voice-over actors of the time, and is an excellent time capsule of a by-gone era.

This public service short for U.S. Savings Bonds starts out with Rowan and Martin arriving at a TV studio, ostensibly to host a show. It turns out that trumpet player Herb Alpert is the only other performer listed in the credits who is actually there in person. The others appear in clips, some from their own U.S. Savings Bonds spots, others from unidentified movie or TV appearances. Singer Barbara McNair is shown entertaining U.S. troops in Viet Nam, and the youth group The Young Americans also sings.

A documentary portrait shot in Positano, Italy in 1965 about Australian artist and occultist Vali Myers.

Featuring performances by popular artists of the 1960s, this concert film highlights the music of the 1967 California festival. Although not all musicians who performed at the Monterey Pop Festival are on film, some of the notable acts include the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Otis Redding, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix's post-performance antics -- lighting a guitar on fire, breaking it and tossing a part into the audience -- are captured.

A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy.

An interview with film director Roman Polanski, recorded for BBC TV in 1967.

Orson Welles talks fantasy and magic in this short Vienna travelogue.

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 travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Actor Robert Culp narrates this special examining the use of boycotts by African-Americans as a way of obtaining jobs.

In Asamblea general (1960), the documentary about Fidel's address of the First Declaration of Havana in the Plaza of the Revolution, Alea practises what becomes a sustaining Cuban contribution to documentary. Engaging with Free Cinema and cinema-vérité, his camera seems to touch the faces of the new citizen one by one rather than as a single mass before a leader.

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside Northeast High School as a fly on the wall to observe the teachers and how they interact with the students.

Examines the lily to identify the parts of a flower and show how it functions in the production of seeds. Pictures a variety of other flowers and compares the flowering plants to some non-flowering plants.

A behind-the-scenes look on the making of the movie "The Illustrated Man" featuring scenes from the movie and the design and application process of tattooing lead actor Rod Steiger by make-up artists.

On March 7, 1967, 40 million Americans tuned in to watch CBS Reports: The Homosexuals, network television’s first documentary on homosexuality. Near the top of the program, host and interviewer Mike Wallace calls homosexuals “the most despised minority in the United States.” The hour that follows is filled with salacious location footage, sermonizing therapists, and shadowed interviews with distraught homosexuals.

Look at Life is a short student film by George Lucas, produced for a course in animation while Lucas was a film student at USC Film School. The film's running time of exactly one minute was required by the course. This was the first film made by George Lucas and was heavily influenced by Canadian filmmaker Arthur Lipsett.

This documentary from Albert and David Maysles follows the bitter rivalry of four door-to-door salesmen working for the Mid-American Bible Company: Paul "The Badger" Brennan, Charles "The Gipper" McDevitt, James "The Rabbit" Baker and Raymond "The Bull" Martos. Times are tough for this hard-living quartet, who spend their days traveling through small-town America, trying their best to peddle gold-leaf Bibles to an apathetic crowd of lower-middle-class housewives and elderly couples.

A collection of television celebrities pitch United States Savings bonds.

Behind the scenes look at the D-Day special effects created in filming The Americanization of Emily (1964).

Documentary showcasing various strange practices around the world, including tribal circumcision ceremonies, male Japanese geishas and headhunting Indian tribes in the Brazilian jungles.

In this CBS News production broadcast on Thanksgiving 1960, Edward R. Murrow points out the plight of migrant farm workers in America. Topics range from the harsh living conditions, endless travel, low wages, and poor opportunities for their children.

Les Blank's first documentary cinematography job shooting Drag Racers in Long Beach, CA, driving everything from hopped up "Mercs" to Supercharged "Rail Dragsters". These cars could accelerate to over 220 miles/hour in a mile. The film follows the life of Rick "The Iceman" Stewart as he attempts to grab the world's record. Original score by Canned Heat Blues Band.

Produced by 20th Century Fox, this Maysles Brothers short was intended to help promote the release of Disney's Fantastic Voyage (1966) for which Salvador Dali was artistic consultant. Shot in and around New York, the film features a cameo by a bikini clad Raquel Welch, star of Fantastic Voyage and Dali's muse for a series of portraits of Hollywood starlets.

This promotional short film for the feature Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) takes us to the many locations in Dorset County, England, where the movie was filmed. It was here that 'Thomas Hardy' lived and was inspired to write the novel upon which the film is based. Only the film's star, Julie Christie, makes comments on the production.

This promotional film was aired on American television on 26 November 1965, one month before the release of Thunderball (1965). Narrated by Alexander Scourby, the 48 minute documentary aired as a one hour special. It included footage of the filming at Silverstone Racetrack, Northamptonshire and of the fight aboard the Disco Volante at Pinewood Studios; media coverage of Martine Beswick, Luciana Paluzzi and Claudine Auger; and archive footage of Ian Fleming at 'Goldeneye', Jamaica.

When David Lean made his film Doctor Zhivago (1965), he realized that it would be impossible to do location shooting in Moscow. Instead, he found a location on the plains outside Madrid, Spain and built a set to look like the Russian capital. This promotional film gives viewers a short look at the set under construction.

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 know what's wrong, she challenges his sexual orientation. Cameras shoot the exchange, and another camera records Greaves and his crew. Sometimes we watch the crew discussing this scene, its language, and the process of making a movie. Is there such a thing as natural language? Are all things related to sex? The camera records distractions - a woman rides horseback past them; a garrulous homeless vet who sleeps in the park chats them up. What's the nature of making a movie?

A study of Antoni Gaudí's architecture (especially the Church of the Holy Trinity in Barcelona), his sources of inspiration and his influence on Picasso. (BFI)

Shot in four days during the 1968 National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City, this lyrical documentary takes you inside the arena atop a 2800 lb bull. Watch Freckles Brown, a legendary cowboy, conferring with a young Larry Mahan, the previous year's champion and see crowd favorite Myrtis Dightman trying to hold his own in a dramatic ride. "Rodeo" shows the classic struggle of man against beast, a matter of life and death. Dick Rosmini's hypnotizing folk-fusion soundtrack and an intricate sound mix add to the climatic result.

A film by Fred Engelberg narrated by Robert Vaughn about world peace.

A documentary of Delhi, it scans the city's historic past that includes successive Afghan, Moghul, and English invasions, while it reveals its variegated life of the present.

Moneypenny and Q discuss the rumors that James Bond is getting married. Promotional clip show to coincide with the release of the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice (1967) featuring clips from the earlier 007 movies.

Rowlf the Dog presents the concept of the revolutionary educational children's show, Sesame Street (1969), to Kermit the Frog.

Using still pictures and newsreel footage, this short film tells the life story of Russian author Boris Pasternak, who was forced by the Russian government to refuse the 1958 Nobel Prize in literature for his novel Dr. Zhivago.

A King's Story is a 1965 British documentary film directed by Harry Booth about the life of King Edward VIII, from his birth until abdication in 1936. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Charmian Carr, who played Liesl in The Sound of Music, takes a tour of the Austrian town of Salzburg, where the location shots of the movie were made. Includes behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the movie.

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

Bruce Conner’s most celebrated film for a reason: it takes historical moments that were replayed over and over on television—chilling repetition of Kennedy assassination coverage—and repurposes them into a meditation on how the media tries to exert authority and apply a sense of order to the anarchic. And though it may sound perverse to say so, the film is also—not incidentally—a thrill to watch. -- The A.V. Club

The notorious political campaign film produced for the 1964 United States presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater.

The Wolf Men [also known as Wolves and the Wolf Men) is a 1969 documentary film produced by Irwin Rosten. It was produced for the GE Monogram documentary series on NBC. The film follows naturalists as they fight to save rapidly vanishing species of wolves. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.