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Documentary
see all genres ›Truth is rarely stranger than fiction. Cinematic storytelling centered on actuality, facts and unrehearsed life events has offered a century’s worth of strange and illuminating fascination. Spanning newsreel, performance, travelogue, diary, propaganda, investigation and ethnography, documentaries are centered on that slippery state of "reality."
Discover Documentary Films
Genres / Documentary
SUB-GENRES · Art · Biography · Cinéma-vérité · Commerce · Conspiracy · Crime · Cuisine · Design · Disaster · Environment · Espionage · Health · History · Literature · Media · Mythology · Philosophy · Political · Propaganda · Pseudoscience · Religion · Science · Seafaring · Social Issues · Sport · Transportation · Travelogue · War
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Commute
A key figure at the inception of San Francisco avant-garde film in the 1960s, Bruce Baillie finds beauty in the everyday, even challenging the notion that there is anything "avant-garde" about recording the world as it is. Baillie, in cartoonish drag, badly lipsynchs an overture to COMMUTE, mocking the viewer with the Cole...Start your free trial to watch
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Congolaise
This fascinating documentary was made in conjunction with a group of French scientists who spent fourteen months traveling along the Ogowe (aka Ogooue) River in central Africa, recording and studying timeless tribal lifestyles en route that were likely to confront modernity all too soon. The U.S. version starts out in typical...Start your free trial to watch
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Corbett and Courtney Before the Kinetograph
Although prize fighting was illegal in every state in the Union, boxing was a national obsession. James J. Corbett, the heavyweight champion who had defeated the great John L. Sullivan, was not only a sports hero but a stage star (and, for women, a matinee idol). The Corbett-Courtney fight was far and away...Start your free trial to watch
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Cornell, 1965
"I worked as Joseph Cornell's assistant during the summer and fall of 1965, during which time I shot four rolls of Kodachrome 16mm film in and around Cornell's house. The scenes included a brief biographical glimpse of Cornell and his work, as well as his working environment, which is perhaps the more valuable record now...Start your free trial to watch
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The Corporal's Diary
Twenty-two year old Corporal Jonathan Santos had documented his 37 days of military service in Iraq in a personal diary before a roadside bomb took his life and the lives of several of his friends and servicemen on October 15, 2004. Jonathan's mother, Doris, wasn't aware that her son had kept a diary until...Start your free trial to watch
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Count Basie: Then as Now, Count's the King
Jazz great William "Count" Basie comes back to life in this rich documentary, which traces the history of the pianist, composer and bandleader over several decades. Filmmaker Gary Keys juxtaposes a roundtable discussion among old cats from the Count Basie Orchestra with recorded performances, including a...Start your free trial to watch
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Crime and Punishment
On the North Korean border, Chinese military police enforce the law with a heavy hand, leading to moments of harrowing abuse and surreal satire. Amidst the barren wintry landscape of Northeast China, Chinese military police officers rigidly enforce law and order in an impoverished mountain town. They raid...Start your free trial to watch
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Crips: Strapped 'n Strong
Main C is fresh out of jail and fighting to get out of the gang to be a father. Santos is lying low and wants to "become somebody" again but leader Keylow holds the cards to both their fates. STRAPPED 'N STRONG is a jaw-dropping insight into the Dutch branch of the Crips as well as into the workings of the...Start your free trial to watch
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Crossing the American Crises
On September 15, 2008, the United States fell into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The same day, we set out on a trip around the country to ask the American people what they had to say about it. In 2010, we went back to see how things had changed. Their voices reveal desperation,...Start your free trial to watch
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Crossing the Line
Taking full advantage of access granted by the government of North Korea, the mysterious and feared rogue state of the so-called "axis of evil," director Daniel Gordon (A STATE OF MIND) combines historical footage with contemporary interviews to both uncover the Kim-Jong Il regime and end 44 years of...Start your free trial to watch
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Cut
A peculiar homage to the things that go wrong, this film is purportedly about rugby. The self-explanatory title for this jumpy “documentary” is less concerned with the filmed subject (the game, the field, the players) than an abrupt editing style and the complete acknowledgement given to the technical aspect of gathering and...Start your free trial to watch
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D.W. Griffith: Father of Film
In this acclaimed three-part documentary, celebrated film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill (UNKNOWN CHAPLIN; BUSTER KEATON: A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW) tell the proud, sad story of D.W. Griffith (1875-1948): the man who first brought artistry and ambition to the movies, and then, having dragged 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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Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance
Presumably, this is one in a series of four short dance performances devoted to the seasons. WINTER, SNOW DANCE appears to be the only one of these films to survive (although it isn't clear if Alice Guy made the other three or not). Note the unusual copyright notice that appears momentarily in the lower...Start your free trial to watch