Film Documentaries

Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) was possibly the most important filmmaker of the avant-garde, and one of the greatest artists of our time. From 1952, at the age of nineteen, until his death, Brakhage...  More

BLANK CITY is an "absorbing snapshot of a daring time" (LA Times) when a disparate crew of renegade filmmakers emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history.  More

Written and narrated by Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton, this documentary blends vintage clips from Jarman's groundbreaking experimental works, never-before-seen footage from his films, and candid...  More

In this mesmerizing collage of silent Italian melodrama, found-footage filmmaker Peter Delpeut (Lyrical Nitrate) affectionately captures the spirit of the World War One-era cinema diva. In...  More

After starring as Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon, Leon Vitali gave up his acting career to toil in obscurity as Stanley Kubrick’s devoted aide-de-camp. This candid, often funny, and sometimes...  More

AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE explores the history of exploitation films. From the early “Nudie Cuties” to the Blaxploitation boom in the 70s,AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE boasts interviews with film critics...  More

This follow-up to From Caligari to Hitler traces the rise and fall of Nazi Germany through the cinema of the Third Reich: an explosion of lavish, escapist films celebrating a German utopia and subtly...  More

An Oscar nominee for Best Documentary and winner of the 1986 New York Film Critic's Circle non-fiction film prize, Marlene is a "portrait of a remarkably strong-willed woman, stage-managing her caree...  More

Raphaël Nadjari’s extraordinary two-part documentary weaves together clips from more than 70 years of Israeli film with commentary from filmmakers, scholars and critics  More

The international success of Iranian cinema over the past decades may have veiled the fact that Iranian filmmakers work under extremely harsh circumstances rarely seen in other national cinemas....  More

Acclaimed three-part documentary tells the proud, sad story of D.W. Griffith: the man who first brought artistry and ambition to the movies, and then, having dragged a reluctant American film...  More

“Friendly Persuasion” examines the critical issues of Iranian cinema by framing several key questions and providing informed responses through commentary, scene analysis, and...  More

MUTANTES is a documentary about pro-sex feminism, a movement that seeks to redefine how we understand pornography and its role in media. Through interviews with sex workers, porn actresses, and other...  More

This documentary provides a vivid introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: Avant-garde cinema. In its exploration of this expansive domain, FREE...  More

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction is a personal documentary about the iconic actor in his intimate moments, with clips from some of his 250 films and his own heart-breaking renditions of American...  More

Johan Grimonprez's ingenious documentary/ fiction hybrid - a meditation on identity, filmmaking, power and paranoia - looks at Alfred Hitchcock's 50s-60s films against the climate of Cold War anxiety...  More

Tribute is paid to the screen's first special effects wizard in this special collection of marvelously restored prints. In addition to more than a dozen of his early trompes l'oeil - such as Untamabl...  More

DREW: THE MAN BEHIND THE POSTER is a feature-length documentary film highlighting the career of poster artist Drew Struzan, whose most popular works include the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and...  More

A chronicle of the iconoclastic life of gay poet, filmmaker, and spiritual visionary James Broughton, one of the defining voices of the sexual revolution, whose groundbreaking artistic celebrations o...  More

Weaving interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy Lamarr speaking on the record about her incredible life—from her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish emigre to her...  More

The Lost Cinema is a film essay on the Iranian New Wave, a film movement which blossomed in the 70s as a protest against a local film industry dominated by shallow, socially uninformed domestic...  More

Celebrates the man who cultivated cinema's future by protecting its past. "A MOVIEGOER'S TREAT AND A CINEPHILE'S DELIGHT!"- CHICAGO TRIBUNE  More

An unprecedented collaboration of Kino International and the Museum of Modern Art, together with the Library of Congress. EDISON: THE INVENTION OF THE MOVIES is a four-disc box set featuring 140...  More

THE LOOK features Charlotte Rampling in a series of reflective conversations with artists, friends, and one-time collaborators such as novelist Paul Auster and photographers Peter Lindbergh and...  More

Noted film historian Charles Musser co-wrote and directed this definitive tribute to Edwin S. Porter, the mechanic and cameraman for Thomas Edison, now recognized as a major contributor to the...  More

This meditation on cinema’s past from Decasia director Bill Morrison pieces together the bizarre true history of a long-lost collection of 533 nitrate film prints from the early 1900s....  More

This unique documentary recounts the history of the shock-value driver's education films that haunted American teens. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, these grisly movies used unflinching color footage...  More

A visually rich documentary that analyzes German Weimar cinema and its relation to the Fascist regime that followed.  More

Dr. Jamsheed Akrami is a scholar of Iranian cinema. A former editor of Iranian film magazines, he has published extensively, presented numerous lectures, curated film series, and produced a number of...  More

Alice Guy-Blaché was a true pioneer who got into the movie business at the very beginning—in 1894, at the age of 21. Two years later, she was made head of production at Gaumont and...  More