Documentary films
by fletchlynd | created - 24 May 2018 | updated - 01 Nov 2020 | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. The Act of Killing (2012)
Not Rated | 117 min | Documentary, Biography, Crime
A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
Directors: Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn | Stars: Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, Syamsul Arifin, Ibrahim Sinik
Votes: 40,796 | Gross: $0.49M
2. Chambre 666 (1982 TV Movie)
45 min | Documentary
During the '35th Cannes International Film Festival' (14th-26th May 1982), German director Wim Wenders asked a sample of 15 other international film directors to get, each one at a time, ... See full summary »
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Wim Wenders, Michelangelo Antonioni, Maroun Bagdadi, Ana Carolina
Votes: 1,488
3. Rembrandt's J'Accuse...! (2008)
Not Rated | 86 min | Documentary, Mystery
An 'essayistic' documentary in which Greenaway's fierce criticism of today's visual illiteracy is argued by means of a forensic search of Rembrandt's Nightwatch. Greenaway explains the ... See full summary »
Director: Peter Greenaway | Stars: Martin Freeman, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May, Emily Holmes
Votes: 984
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
R | 87 min | Documentary, Comedy, Crime
Following the style of some of the world's most prolific street artists, an amateur filmmaker makes a foray into the art world.
Director: Banksy | Stars: Banksy, Mr. Brainwash, Space Invader, Debora Guetta
Votes: 68,808 | Gross: $3.29M
5. The Salt of the Earth (2014)
PG-13 | 110 min | Documentary, Biography, History
The life and work of photographer Sebastião Salgado, who has spent forty years documenting societies in hidden corners of the world.
Directors: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders | Stars: Sebastião Salgado, Wim Wenders, Lélia Wanick Salgado, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Votes: 23,437 | Gross: $1.34M
6. Under the Sun (2015)
Not Rated | 106 min | Documentary
A propaganda documentary about North Korea that reveals a few hidden facts because the director continues filming between the scripted scenes.
Director: Vitaliy Manskiy | Stars: Lee Zin-Mi, Yu-Yong, Hye-Yong, Oh-Gyong
Votes: 5,049 | Gross: $0.07M
7. Fire at Sea (2016)
114 min | Documentary
Capturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a frontline in the European migrant crisis.
Director: Gianfranco Rosi | Stars: Samuele Pucillo, Mattias Cucina, Samuele Caruana, Pietro Bartolo
Votes: 6,053 | Gross: $0.12M
8. Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)
PG-13 | 79 min | Documentary
Filmmakers discuss how Francois Truffaut's 1966 book "Cinema According to Hitchcock" influenced their work.
Director: Kent Jones | Stars: Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, David Fincher, Bob Balaban
Votes: 7,178 | Gross: $0.30M
9. D'autres mondes (2004)
90 min | Documentary
The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism.
Director: Jan Kounen | Stars: Pablo Amaringo, Guillermo Arévalo, Michel Boccara, J.C. Callaway
Votes: 378
10. Anton's Right Here (2012)
110 min | Documentary
The film tells about Anton Kharitonov, a young man with autism whose mother, Rinata, dies of cancer, after which he has to live in social shelters, where he is not provided with adequate assistance.
Director: Lyubov Arkus
Votes: 306
11. Putin's Kiss (2011)
Not Rated | 85 min | Documentary, Drama
Masha Drokova joins Nashi, a Russian ultra nationalist youth group, at the age of 16 and rapidly ascends its ranks, famously garnering a medal and the opportunity to kiss Vladimir Putin. The film details her growing disillusion with the group's leaders and her falling in with the anti-Putin opposition, especially a journalist and blogger named Oleg Kashin, who gets brutally attacked.
Director: Lise Birk Pedersen | Stars: Masha Drokova, Oleg Kashin, Viktoria Drokova, Garry Kasparov
Votes: 760 | Gross: $0.01M
12. Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion (2002)
Unrated | 104 min | Documentary, History
A film about the state of Chinese occupied Tibet and its history of oppression and resistance.
Director: Tom Piozet | Stars: Edward Edwards, Ed Harris, Shirley Knight, Tim Robbins
Votes: 688 | Gross: $0.58M
13. Pered sudom istorii (1965)
99 min | Documentary
This Soviet movie consists of a long interview between historian Sergei Svistunov and Vasily Vitalyevich Shulgin. Shulgin was one of the organizers of the reactionary White Army, the leader... See full summary »
Director: Fridrikh Ermler | Stars: Vasili Shulgin, Fyodor Nikolayevich Petrov, Sergey Svistunov
Votes: 105
14. Triumph Over Violence (1965)
R | 82 min | Documentary, History, War
A documentary about the rise and fall of fascism and the effects of Nazism on German society.
Director: Mikhail Romm | Stars: Mikhail Romm, Martin Bormann, Willy Brandt, Aristide Briand
Votes: 2,065
16. Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Not Rated | 68 min | Documentary
A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
Director: Dziga Vertov | Stars: Mikhail Kaufman, Elizaveta Svilova
Votes: 27,962
17. From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses (2014)
119 min | Documentary, Biography, History
Focuses on the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and its 'collective spirit' in cinema. The purpose of film as a cultural tool is examined. Based on celebrated sociologist Siegfried Kracauer's seminal book 'From Caligari to Hitler' (1947).
Director: Rüdiger Suchsland | Stars: Rüdiger Suchsland, Hans Henrik Wöhler, Fritz Lang, Volker Schlöndorff
Votes: 897
18. Putin's Witnesses (2018)
102 min | Documentary
A rare glimpse at the young Putin and the vast political machine that brought him to power.
Director: Vitaliy Manskiy | Stars: Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair, Anatoliy Chubays, Mikhail Gorbachev
Votes: 1,505
19. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
R | 122 min | Documentary, Drama, War
Michael Moore's view on what happened to the United States after September 11 and how the Bush Administration allegedly used the tragic event to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Director: Michael Moore | Stars: Michael Moore, George W. Bush, Ben Affleck, Stevie Wonder
Votes: 132,369 | Gross: $119.19M
20. The Making of Fanny and Alexander (1984)
Not Rated | 110 min | Documentary
A chronicle of the making of Ingmar Bergman's Oscar winning film.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Daniel Bergman, Ingmar Bergman, Gunnar Björnstrand, Allan Edwall
Votes: 1,025
21. Life Is Ours (1936)
66 min | Drama, History
A propaganda film of the communist party of France, showing who the comrades help the proletarian people against the capitalists. It also features propagandistic speeches of leading members of the party.
Directors: Jacques Becker, Jacques B. Brunius, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jean-Paul Le Chanois, Maurice Lime, Pierre Unik, André Zwobada, Jean Renoir | Stars: Jean Dasté, Jacques B. Brunius, Simone Guisin, Teddy Michaud
Votes: 317
24. Germany in Autumn (1978)
123 min | Documentary, Drama
Germany in Autumn has no typical plot; it mixes documentary footage with standard movie scenes to present the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The film covers 2 months in 1977 when a ... See full summary »
Directors: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alf Brustellin, Hans Peter Cloos, Alexander Kluge, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Schubert, Bernhard Sinkel | Stars: Wolfgang Bächler, Heinz Bennent, Wolf Biermann, Joachim Bißmeier
Votes: 1,413
25. Bread Day (1998)
55 min | Documentary
The story of old people living in a forgotten village. Once a week they need to push the carriage with bread for several kilometers towards their gloomy settlement.
Director: Sergei Dvortsevoy
Votes: 197
26. Arirang (2011)
100 min | Documentary, Drama
Documentary on director Kim Ki-Duk looking back at his film career.
Director: Kim Ki-duk | Star: Kim Ki-duk
Votes: 1,337
27. The Great Hack (2019)
TV-MA | 114 min | Documentary, Biography, History
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is examined through the roles of several affected persons.
Directors: Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaim | Stars: Brittany Kaiser, David Carroll, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, Ravi Naik
Votes: 25,015
28. White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007)
Not Rated | 86 min | Documentary, History
Using extensive interviews with survivors and archival footage, an examination reveals the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Director: Steven Okazaki | Stars: Harold Agnew, Shuntaro Hida, Kiyoko Imori, Morris Jeppson
Votes: 2,323
29.
Frontline (1983– )
Episode:
The Suicide Tourist
(2007)
TV-PG | 56 min | Documentary, News
Frontline investigates suicide tourism by following a Chicago native as he travels to Switzerland in order to take his life with help of a nonprofit organization that legally assists suicides.
Director: John Zaritsky | Stars: Arthur Bernard, Craig Ewert, Ivan Ewert, Katrina Ewert
Votes: 187
30. Lumière! (2016)
Not Rated | 90 min | Documentary, History
A collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.
Director: Thierry Frémaux | Stars: Thierry Frémaux, Martin Scorsese, Pierre Bellingard, Ernestina Bossi
Votes: 1,606
31. The Trial (IV) (2018)
125 min | Documentary, History
In 1930 in Moscow, USSR. the Soviet government puts a group of top rank economists and engineers on trial, accusing them of plotting a coup d'état. The charges are fabricated and the punishment, if convicted, is death.
Director: Sergey Loznitsa | Stars: Aleksandr Aleksandrovitch Fedotov, Ivan Andreevitch Kalinnikow, Nikolai Krylenko, Sergey Viktorovitch Kupriyanov
Votes: 401
32. Las Hurdes (1933)
30 min | Documentary, Short
A surrealist film, a pseudo-documentary portrait of Las Hurdes, a remote region of Spain where civilisation has barely developed, showing how the local peasants try to survive without even the most basic utilities and skills.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Abel Jacquin, Alexandre O'Neill
Votes: 6,258
33. The Look of Silence (2014)
PG-13 | 103 min | Documentary, Biography, History
A family that survived the genocide in Indonesia confronts the men who killed one of their brothers.
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer | Stars: Adi Rukun, M.Y. Basrun, Volker Hanisch, Amir Hasan
Votes: 13,872 | Gross: $0.11M
34. A Night at the Opera (2020)
19 min | Documentary, Short, History
Digging once again into the deep archives of 20th century audiovisual history, Sergei Loznitsa crafts this elegant, ironic mini-portrait of the galas of Paris's Palais Garnier in the 1950s ... See full summary »
Director: Sergey Loznitsa | Stars: Marcel Achard, Brigitte Bardot, Bourvil, Jean-Claude Brialy
Votes: 262
35. Aquarela (I) (2018)
PG | 90 min | Documentary
Water and ice are shown around the world, in all of their many powerful forms.
Director: Victor Kossakovsky
Votes: 1,629 | Gross: $0.19M
Tell Your Friends