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Classic Documentary
see all genres ›There's no truth like old truth. These globe-trotting slices of verite cinematic life offer windows onto the past more piercingly insightful and real than fictional narrative could ever afford.
Discover Classic Documentary Films
Genres / Classic / Classic Documentary
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The Angry Brigade
This documentary, produced by Gordon Carr for the BBC (and first broadcast in January 1973, shortly after the trial), covers the roots of the "Angry Brigade" in the revolutionary ferment of the 1960s and follows their campaign and the police investigation to its culmination in the "Stoke Newington 8"...Start your free trial to watch
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Bakhtiari Migration
BAKHTIARI MIGRATION documents (in visually splendid detail) the semi-annual journey, taking roughy five weeks and covering two-hundred torturous miles. Half a million people and millions of sheep and goats cross the rugged Zagros mountains in southern Iran twice yearly to move between summer and winter...Start your free trial to watch
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The Battle of Midway
The stars and director of THE GRAPES OF WRATH re-united under very different circumstances two years later for this undeniably hyperbolic yet stirring portrait of U.S. Naval forces rallying to defeat Axis conquerors. "Tom Joad" (Henry Fonda) and "Ma Joad" (Jane Darwell) were among the voice actors...Start your free trial to watch
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The Battle of San Pietro
Starting with an unusually romantic depiction of the region that became key to the Allies' capture of Italian territory from German forces, this was director/narrator John Huston's government-produced chronicle of the late 1943 battle. His film crew shot right alongside U.S. Army troops and (partly as a...Start your free trial to watch
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Daguerréotypes
A classic documentary from Agnes Varda, DAGUERREOTYPES is a wonderfully intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers on a short stretch of the Rue Daguerre, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker's home for more than 50 years. As in her films THE BEACHES OF AGNES and THE GLEANERS AND I, Varda opens up a...Start your free trial to watch
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Double-Headed Eagle
Rather than offering a contemporary interpretation of history through narration and interviews, filmmaker Lutz Becker allows the disturbing saga of German fascism to unfold on its own terms. The rise of the National Socialist Party is depicted almost exclusively in newsreel footage and clips of features...Start your free trial to watch
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The Eleanor Roosevelt Story
Richard Kaplan’s lively documentary reveals the human face behind the American icon, beginning with the emotional deprivation suffered by this plain, awkward little girl born into a socially prominent and powerful family. Though she would eventually marry a man who would look beyond her awkwardness,...Start your free trial to watch
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Here I Am
Bruce Baillie’s lyrical portrait of an Oakland school for emotionally disturbed children regards the world of the classroom with open curiosity. His camera thrives on the unpredictable movement of students and fog; every new composition is a new window unto the school space. This impressionistic style realizes many small...Start your free trial to watch
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Know Your Enemy: Japan
This U.S. War Department propaganda film was little seen for decades, its production so dogged by conflict that by the time of its completion World War II had ended. Famed Hollywood director Frank Capra (IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) assigned Dutch-born documentarian Joris Ivens in early 1943 to assemble a...Start your free trial to watch
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The Memphis Belle
Shot in 1943, THE MEMPHIS BELLE was helmed by Academy Award® winning director William Wyler. It chronicles the twenty-fifth and final combat mission of a B-17 crew. A moving and real portrait of courage, it was endorsed by President Franklin Roosevelt and shown throughout the United States on his order....Start your free trial to watch
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Mission Accomplished
Produced by the U.S. Office of War Information Bureau of Motion Pictures in 1943, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED covers the creation of the B-17 in the 1930s and its extensive use throughout World War II. While the success of the Flying Fortress in the Pacific theatre was relatively well known at the time, the...Start your free trial to watch
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My Girlfriend's Wedding
Jim McBride followed his wildly inventive debut, DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY, with this thought-provoking documentary about his then-girlfriend, Clarissa Ainley, and her 'marriage of convenience' to another man. "In many respects," states critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, MY GIRLFRIEND'S WEDDING is "the best 'critique'...Start your free trial to watch
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The Ossuary
Though best known for his surreal animated films, this live action short is one of Jan Svankmajer’s most disquieting visions of death and decay. The film explores the elaborate ossuary at Sedlec Monastery. On the soundtrack (unlike the alternate version with a remarkable score by Zdeněk Liška), a tour guide explains that the...Start your free trial to watch
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Pictures from Life's Other Side
Loosely taking its name from a song by Hank Williams, PICTURES FROM LIFE'S OTHER SIDE extends the tale that was shrewdly introduced in MY GIRLFRIEND'S WEDDING. In this sequel-of-a-sort, director Jim McBride and his then-girlfriend Clarissa venture across the United States by automobile, documenting their...Start your free trial to watch
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Promised Lands
PROMISED LANDS is famed writer and critic Susan Sontag’s sole documentary project (and her third directorial effort), shot in Israel on the fly in the final days and immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Not only does the film scrutinize the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, but it also brilliantly underscores the...Start your free trial to watch
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Réponse de femmes
1975: the "Year of the Woman." A television station gives seven female filmmakers seven minutes to answer the question "What does it mean to be a woman?" Agnès Varda answers with the cine-tract, ("Our Body – Our Sex"). Women talking about sex, desire, commercials and children (whether to have them or not.)...Start your free trial to watch
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Report from the Aleutians
Still stirring, this U.S. Army-produced propagandistic featurette chronicles the Allied campaign against Japanese occupying forces in the Aleutian Islands that stretched across the Northern Pacific from Alaska. Directed and narrated by John Huston (post-MALTESE FALCON, pre-TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE), it...Start your free trial to watch