Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 14

Dolores

2017

Dolores

2017
6
Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by starting the country's first farm worker's union with fellow organizer Cesar Chavez. What starts out as a struggle for racial and labor justice, soon becomes a fight for gender equality within the same union she is eventually forced to leave. As she wrestles with raising 11 children, three marriages, and is nearly beaten to death by a San Francisco tactical police squad, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her new found feminism with racial and class justice.
Sunset Strip

2012

Sunset Strip

2012
7.3
A documentary on the famous Los Angeles street.
Death Dive to Saturn

2017

Death Dive to Saturn

2017
8
After decades of amazing discoveries, spacecraft Cassini embarks on its final - and most daring - mission: a dive below Saturn's rings.
Surviving Progress

2011

Surviving Progress

2011
7.3
Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
Banned Together

2025

Banned Together

2025
A diverse cast of visionary teenagers, stirring public protests, private threats, criminal charges, and drama-filled school board meetings: this is the explosive world of BANNED TOGETHER. The film pulls back the curtain on two of the most controversial issues in America today: book bans and curriculum censorship in public schools.
Casino Jack and the United States of Money

2010

Casino Jack and the United States of Money

2010
7.1
A probing investigation into the lies, greed and corruption surrounding D.C. super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his cronies.
Dior and I

2015

Dior and I

2015
7.3
Behind-the-scenes documentary revealing what goes on inside the colourful, privileged, and sometimes stressful Christian Dior fashion house.
COINTELPRO 101

2010

COINTELPRO 101

2010
COINTELPRO 101 exposes illegal surveillance, disruption, and outright murder committed by the US government in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. “COINTELPRO” refers to the official FBI COunter INTELigence PROgram carried out to surveil, imprison, and eliminate leaders of social justice movements and to disrupt, divide, and destroy the movements as well. Many of the government's crimes are still unknown. Through interviews with activists who experienced these abuses first-hand, with rare historical footage, the film provides an educational introduction to a period of intense repression and draws relevant lessons for the present and future.
Boulevard! A Hollywood Story

2021

Boulevard! A Hollywood Story

2021
6.2
In the mid-1950s, Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, young composers and romantic partners, are hired by legendary silent film star Gloria Swanson to write a musical based on her film Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder in 1950.
Shine a Light

2008

Shine a Light

2008
6.9
Martin Scorsese’s electrifying concert documentary captures The Rolling Stones live at New York’s Beacon Theatre during their A Bigger Bang tour. Filmed over two nights in 2006 with an all-star team of cinematographers, the film combines dynamic performances with archival footage and rare glimpses behind the scenes, offering a vibrant portrait of the band’s enduring energy and legacy.
For the Love of Spock

2016

For the Love of Spock

2016
7.4
The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.
Almost Holy

2015

Almost Holy

2015
6.9
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's social and political institutions faced massive change, including an increasingly corrupt government and crippled infrastructure. A number of the nation's youth wound up homeless and addicted to a lethal cocktail of injected cold medicine and alcohol. In the early 2000s a pastor from Mariupol named Gennadiy Mokhnenko took up the fight against child homelessness by forcibly abducting street kids and bringing them to his Pilgrim Republic rehabilitation center—the largest organization of its kind in the former Soviet Union. Gennadiy's ongoing efforts and unabashedly tough love approach to his city's problems has made him a folk hero for some, and a lawless vigilante to others. Despite criticism, Gennadiy is determined to continue his work.
Some Kind of Heaven

2021

Some Kind of Heaven

2021
7
Behind the gates of a palm-tree-lined fantasyland, three residents and one interloper at America’s largest retirement community strive to find happiness.
Heartworn Highways

1976

Heartworn Highways

1976
7.9
The music speaks for itself in this performance documentary that highlights some of the biggest names within the country-folk scene in Texas and Tennessee during the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976, eschewing narration and staged interviews.
Southern Rites

2015

Southern Rites

2015
5.4
Southern Rites visits Montgomery County, Ga., one year after the town merged its racially segregated proms, and during a historic election campaign that may lead to its first African-American sheriff. Acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub, whose photos first brought the area unwanted notoriety, documents the repercussions when a white town resident is charged with the murder of a young black man. The case divides locals along well-worn racial lines, and the ensuing plea bargain and sentencing uncover complex truths and produce emotional revelations.
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

2021

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

2021
7.5
In 1971, due to the world premiere of Death in Venice, Italian director Lucino Visconti proclaimed his Tadzio as the world’s most beautiful boy. A shadow that today, 50 years later, weighs Björn Andrésen’s life.
500 Years

2017

500 Years

2017
5.9
From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, the sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history is told through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.
Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

2017

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City

2017
6.8
Writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs fights to save historic New York City during the ruthless redevelopment era of urban planner Robert Moses in the 1960s.
Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap

2012

Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap

2012
6.7
SOMETHING FROM NOTHING: THE ART OF RAP is a feature length performance documentary about the runaway juggernaut that is Rap music. At the wheel of this unstoppable beast is the film's director and interviewer Ice-T. Taking us on a deeply personal journey Ice-T uncovers how this music of the street has grown to dominate the world. Along the way Ice-T meets a whole spectrum of Hip-Hop talent, from founders, to new faces, to the global superstars like Eminem, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West. He exposes the roots and history of Rap and then, through meeting many of its most famous protagonists, studies the living mechanism of the music to reveal 'The Art Of Rap'. This extraordinary film features unique performances from the entire cast, without resorting to archive material, to build a fresh and surprising take on the phenomenon that is Rap.
The Mask You Live In

2015

The Mask You Live In

2015
7.7
Compared to girls, research shows that boys in the United States are more likely to be diagnosed with a behaviour disorder, prescribed stimulant medications, fail out of school, binge drink, commit a violent crime, and/or take their own lives. The Mask You Live In asks: as a society, how are we failing our boys?