Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 125

Building a Bridge

2021

Building a Bridge

2021
1
Profiles Father James Martin, an outspoken New York-based priest and author who works to connect the Catholic Church with the LGBTQ+ community through compassion, inclusion, love, and acceptance.
Shouting Down Midnight

2022

Shouting Down Midnight

2022
1
Both cautionary tale and rallying cry, Shouting Down Midnight recounts how the Wendy Davis filibuster of 2013 galvanized a new generation of activists and reveals what is at stake for us all in the struggle for reproductive freedom.
Prescription Thugs

2016

Prescription Thugs

2016
6.4
Americans consume 75% of the world’s prescription drugs. After losing his own brother to the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse, documentarian Chris Bell sets out to demystify this insidious addiction. Bell’s examination into the motives of big pharma and doctors in this ever-growing market leads him to meet with experts on the nature of addiction, survivors with first-hand accounts of their struggle, and whistleblowers who testify to the dollar-driven aims of pharmaceutical corporations. Ultimately his investigation will point back to where it all began: his own front door.
Return of the River

2014

Return of the River

2014
7.2
A documentary on the world's largest dam removal project and its effects on the river ecosystem and surrounding communities.
Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote

2020

Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote

2020
Deeply personal accounts from voters of color across the state of Georgia reveal deliberate, widespread voter suppression in the 2018 midterm election where Stacey Abrams fought to become the first Black female governor in the U.S. Polling place closures, voter purges, missing absentee ballots, extreme wait times and voter ID issues were in full effect again during the 2020 primaries and are on-going across the country right now, all disproportionately affecting Black Americans and minorities from casting their ballots. Now, amidst a global health crisis, the cruel weaponization of vote-by-mail restrictions has turned the constitutional right to vote into a choice between life and death.
A Gesar Bard's Tale

2013

A Gesar Bard's Tale

2013
As a boy, Dawa was an illiterate Tibetan nomad whose life revolved around herding yaks. At 13, his life changed: through a series of visions, Dawa acquired the gift of telling the epic story of Tibet’s King Gesar. Now, at 35, Dawa receives a salary from the government as a guardian of national cultural heritage and is regarded as a holy man by his community. When an earthquake reduces his hometown to rubble, redevelopment of the region takes a giant leap forward. In the midst of such seismic shifts, Dawa seeks healing from King Gesar and other divine protectors of the land.
No Time for Quiet

2019

No Time for Quiet

2019
A group of young girls and gender-fluid youths discover the empowering strength of music through a GIRLS ROCK! camp in Melbourne.
Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded

2014

Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded

2014
7.2
In the 1980s, ruthless Colombian cocaine barons invaded Miami with a brand of violence unseen in this country since Prohibition-era Chicago. Cocaine Cowboys is the true story of how Miami became the drug, murder and cash capital of the United States. But it isn't the whole story - Pulling from hundreds of hours of additional interviews and recently uncovered archival news footage, Cocaine Cowboys has been RELOADED: packed with footage and stories that have never been told about Griselda Blanco, the Medellín Cartel, and Miami's Cocaine Wars, with firsthand accounts by hit man Jorge 'Rivi' Ayala, cocaine trafficker Jon Roberts, smuggler Mickey Munday, and others. Cocaine Cowboys: Reloaded recreates Miami's Cocaine Wars like you've never experienced it.
Birth on the border

2018

Birth on the border

2018
One million people legally cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day in both directions. Among them are women from Ciudad Juárez who cross to give birth in El Paso, Texas. Even with visas that allow them to cross, their journeys are uncertain. Gaby and Luisa, two women from Ciudad Juárez, cross legally into El Paso, Texas, in order to give birth. Two Chicana midwives in El Paso, Lina and Sandra, support the women who cross. After living through the extreme violence that engulfed Ciudad Juárez from 2008-2012 and with the looming threat of obstetrical violence in Mexican hospitals, Gaby and Luisa choose to cross, seeking a safer future for their children and the opportunity for natural childbirth with midwives. They risk losing their visas, getting turned back, and harassment at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol. Against the backdrop of oppressive U.S. border policy, these women's stories of risk and resilience reveal the complexities of life on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Martin und Hans

2022

Martin und Hans

2022
1
A fictional biography of Hollywood actors Martin Kosleck and Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, both of whom fled Hitler-era Germany to live a long-lasting relationship.
Vince Giordano: There's a Future in the Past

2017

Vince Giordano: There's a Future in the Past

2017
Bandleader Vince Giordano keeps the Jazz Age alive with his 11-member band The Nighthawks, vintage musical instruments, and a collection of more than 60,000 original arrangements from the 1920s and '30s.
Dateline: Saigon

2017

Dateline: Saigon

2017
8
How does a nation slip into war? Dateline-Saigon profiles the controversial reporting of five Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists -The New York Times' David Halberstam, the Associated Press' Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, and legendary photojournalist Horst Faas, and UPI's Neil Sheehan -- during the early years of the Vietnam War as President John F. Kennedy is secretly committing US troops to what is initially dismissed by some as 'a nice little war in a land of tigers and elephants.' 'When the government is telling the truth, reporters become a relatively unimportant conduit to what is happening,' Halberstam tells us. 'But when the government doesn't tell the truth, begins to twist the truth, hide the truth, then the journalist becomes involuntarily infinitely more important.'
Meet the Mormons

2014

Meet the Mormons

2014
Follow a young Mormon as he gives up 2 years of his life and goes off to convert the people. For 20-year-old Josh Field, it's an emotional journey full of sacrifice.
Ryan

2004

Ryan

2004
6.6
Centres on Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who in later years lived on skid row in Montreal following a history of drug and alcohol abuse.
The Darkness of Day

2009

The Darkness of Day

2009
6.7
The Darkness of Day is a haunting meditation on suicide. It is comprised entirely of found 16mm footage that had been discarded. The sadness, the isolation, and the desire to escape are recorded on film in various contexts. Voice-over readings from the journal kept by a brother of the filmmaker’s friend who committed suicide in 1990 intermix with a range of compelling stories, from the poignant double suicide of an elderly American couple to a Japanese teenager who jumped into a volcano, spawning over a thousand imitations. While this is a serious exploration of a cultural taboo, its lyrical qualities invite the viewer to approach the subject with understanding and compassion.
A Space Program

2015

A Space Program

2015
6.2
The artist Tom Sachs and his team of bricoleurs build a handmade space program and send two female astronauts to Mars
Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day

2025

Arcades & Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day

2025
A musical documentary following 74-year-old Walter Day - the father of esports and star of "The King of Kong" - as he battles a lawsuit threatening his legacy while fulfilling his dream of recording and performing the rock-opera style love songs he has been hearing in his head since having his heart broken at the height of the arcade era.
Central Asia: The Call of ISIS

2020

Central Asia: The Call of ISIS

2020
7
In the footsteps of a top Tajik officer who rallied to the Islamic State, an investigation into the jihadist temptation in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
The Notorious Mr. Bout

2014

The Notorious Mr. Bout

2014
5.5
Viktor Bout was a war profiteer, an entrepreneur, an aviation tycoon, an arms dealer, and—strangest of all—a documentary filmmaker. The Notorious Mr. Bout is the ultimate rags-to-riches-to-prison memoir, documented by the last man you'd expect to be holding the camera.
Eames: The Architect and the Painter

2011

Eames: The Architect and the Painter

2011
7.1
Interviews with the junior designers swept into the 24-7 world of "The Eamery" are the heart of this complex picture of a husband-and-wife creative team that define the era of Mid-Century Modernism. Narrated by James Franco, the film draws from a trove of archival material, primarily the stunning films and photographs produced in mind-boggling volume by Charles, Ray, and their staff during the hyper-creative forty years of the Eames Office.