Top 100 Documentaries
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- DirectorChris MarkerStarsCatherine BelkhodjaKenji TokitsuNagisa ÔshimaThe French computer programmer Laura inherits the task of making a computer game of the Battle of Okinawa during World War II. She searches the internet for information on the battle, and interviews Japanese experts and witnesses. The extraordinary circumstances of the Battle of Okinawa lead Laura to reflect deeply on her own life and humanity in general, particularly the influence of history and memories.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanShot in Frederick Wiseman's trademark blank style - no narration, no music, and minimal editing - this four hour documentary follows a cross-section of the small Maine city's workers, from lobstermen and tugboat operators working the picturesque coast to teachers, hospital workers and shopkeepers in the sleepy downtown center.
- DirectorStan BrakhageAt a morgue, forensic pathologists conduct autopsies of the corpses assigned.
- DirectorForugh FarrokhzadStarsForugh FarrokhzadEbrahim GolestanHossein MansouriSet in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness", of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.
- DirectorYervant GianikianAngela Ricci LucchiArchive footage documents the World War One wartime displacement of ethnically diverse prisoners of war, civilian refugees and orphans. Placed in a labor camp, they are stripped, showered and shaved as they become forced labor. Many die, and their bodies are piled up in mass graves.
- DirectorJonas MekasStarsJonas MekasStan BrakhageRobert BreerDirector Jonas Mekas provides an intimate glimpse of his personal life by constructing a feature length narrative from over 30 years of private home movie footage.
- DirectorNaomi KawaseStarsNaomi KawaseUno KawaseKiyonobu YamashiroKawase tries to come to terms with her late father, whom she never knew when growing up, and contemplates getting a tattoo like his.
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaThe city of Leningrad and the blockade during the Second World War. No words. No music. Only sounds and black and white images of a dying city.
- DirectorWang BingThe impact of the decline of heavy industry on workers and their families in the Tiexi district of Shenyang, China, at the turn of the 21st century, documented unflinchingly by a fly-on-the-wall camera.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianA man paves his own way to his own soul through an intellectual quest, tragedies of nations and personal drama. The road moving through the cosmic distances is a flight into one's internal world. This flight and this drama are revealed in this philosophical film-poem.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWerner HerzogAnna HitchVissarionWhat is faith and religion to Russians after the fall of communism? We get the insight into the Russian Orthodox church as well as different folk and shamanic beliefs.
- DirectorSharunas BartasThe film is a day in the life that passes by, even if it seems neverending.
- DirectorVincent MonnikendamIn a span of ninety minutes the film aims to show how the Netherlands administered its colony as a colonial enterprise and what the relations were like at the time. The usual commentary has been omitted and in its place poems and songs in Bahasa Indonesia have been included in a digital sound composition. In Mother Dao the Turtlelike, the viewer sees how the colonial machinery in the 1920s was implanted in a world so different from Western Europe.
- DirectorStephen DwoskinStarsAstley HarveyStephen Dwoskin tells the double story on memory, bringing together the beauty of its documents and the sadness of its elusiveness. Extracts from the filmmaker's own films are collaged with photographs and bits of home movies, stills, etc.
- 1989– 1h 44m7.6 (436)TV EpisodeDirectorPedro CostaThierry LounasStarsDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubTwo directors struggle to survive in the movie industry.
- 1995– 5 eps7.4 (215)TV SeriesStarsAleksandr SokurovIn 1994, Alexander Sokurov accompanied Russian troops assigned to a frontier military post at the Tajikistan/Afghanistan border to film their experiences. While unnamed tribal forces occasionally engaged the troops in skirmishes, Sokurov's haunting documentary chronicles the downtime between activity.
- DirectorJames BenningStarsWillem Dafoe
- DirectorDavid PerlovStarsDavid PerlovMira PerlovYael PerlovShot over a ten-year period, Diary is not only the political, professional, and personal diary of a man, but is a testimony on the turbulent reality of a war-torn country, Israel. In six chapters, Perlov travels to Tel Aviv, Paris, London, and finally to Brazil, where he was born. The film is also a family diary in which Perlov records the coming of age of his two daughters, Yael and Naomi.
- DirectorMichel BraultPierre PerraultStarsLéopold TremblayAlexis TremblayAbel HarveyAt the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.
- DirectorLeo HurwitzStarsPeggy LawsonLeo HurwitzA documentary about the film-maker's wife and co-worker, Peggy Lawson, who died in 1971.
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsJoris IvensHenxiang HanZhuang LiuAn elderly, asthmatic filmmaker travels to China, hoping to film the wind.
- DirectorJean-Pierre GorinStarsJean-Pierre GorinIdentical young twin girls in the USA have invented their own shared language. Scientists are wanting to study the language but social workers are trying to get the twins to leave their secret language world and enter the mainstream. This means forcing them to speak normal English and lose their secret language. The filmmaker's own questions about this process run across as text at the bottom of the screen, a first use of that technique in documentary.
- DirectorJohan van der KeukenA poetic depiction of life and ritual in the south Indian state of Kerala. We see how knowledge is passed down from generation to generation: within the family, through the village economy, and especially from teachers to students. Performance footage shows how song, dance, martial arts, and religion constitute the building blocks of a culture.
- DirectorBen RiversStarsJake WilliamsAfter working at sea, a man realizes his dream of moving to the middle of the forest.
- DirectorChantal AkermanStarsNatalia ChakhovskaiaA look at life in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.