Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 34

The Panama Papers

2018

The Panama Papers

2018
6.7
A documentary feature film about the biggest global corruption scandal in history, and the hundreds of journalists who risked their lives to break the story.
My Name Is Gulpilil

2021

My Name Is Gulpilil

2021
6.2
Diagnosed with lung cancer, legendary Australian actor David Gulpilil boldly explains the journey that is his extraordinary, culture-clashing life.
The People vs. Agent Orange

2020

The People vs. Agent Orange

2020
8.8
Two women fight to hold the manufacturers accountable for the Agent Orange catastrophe. Incriminating documents disappear. Activists are threatened. A helicopter technician secretly films the contamination exposing a massive cover-up.
The Last Tourist

2021

The Last Tourist

2021
6.2
Travel is at a tipping point. From Carribean beaches to remote villages in Kenya, forgotten voices reveal the real conditions and consequences of one of the largest industries in the world. The role of the modern tourist is on trial.
Secrets of the Tribe

2010

Secrets of the Tribe

2010
6.9
What happens when western anthropologists descend on the Amazon and make one of the last unacculturated tribes in existence, the Yanomami, the most exhaustively filmed and studied tribe on the planet? Despite their "do no harm" creed and scientific aims, the small army of anthropologists that has studied the Yanomami since the 1960s has wreaked havoc among the tribe – and sparked a war within the anthropology community itself.
NOVA: Bird Brain

2017

NOVA: Bird Brain

2017
10
Call somebody a “bird brain,” and you’re not delivering them a compliment. But as NOVA shows, birds turn out to have advanced problem-solving skills that we usually assume are unique to humans. Watch astonishing tests of avian aptitude: parrots that can plan for the future, jackdaws that can “read” human faces, and crows that can solve multi-step puzzles with tools like pebbles, sticks, and hooks. Could these just be clever tricks based on instinct or triggered by subtle cues from their human handlers? To rule out any doubts, NOVA puts feathered Einsteins through their paces and reveals skills that even three- or four-year-old children have a hard time mastering—such as putting off one reward now to get a bigger one later. From this revolution in thinking about our feathered friends, the conclusion seems irresistible that bird brains see the world in ways that aren’t so different from our own.
Fanny: The Right to Rock

2021

Fanny: The Right to Rock

2021
6.2
The untold story of a Filipina American founded, California garage band that morphed into the ferocious rock group Fanny, the first all female band to release an LP with a major label. Adored by David Bowie, the band's groundbreaking impact in music has been lost in the mists of time... until now. Fifty years later, bandmates reunite with a new record deal and a second chance to right the wrongs of history.
Breaking a Monster

2015

Breaking a Monster

2015
3.2
As seventh-graders, band members of Unlocking The Truth spend their weekends playing metal music in Times Square—often to substantial crowds. After signing with a 70-year-old manager, they are soon on their way to a $1.8 million record deal.
Food Fight

2008

Food Fight

2008
8
A fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement rebelled against big agribusiness to launch the local organic food movement.
Bad Axe

2022

Bad Axe

2022
6.2
A real-time portrait of 2020 unfolds as an Asian-American family in Trump’s rural America fights to keep their restaurant and American dream alive in the face of a pandemic, Neo-Nazis, and generational scars from the Cambodian Killing Fields.
Hard to Believe

2016

Hard to Believe

2016
7.5
A documentary that examines the issue of forced live organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners of conscience, and the response - or lack of it - around the world. It's happened before: governments killing their own citizens for their political or spiritual beliefs. But it’s never happened like this. It’s happened so often that the world doesn’t always pay attention.
Seven Wonders of the World

1956

Seven Wonders of the World

1956
5.2
Seven Wonders of the World is a 1956 film in Cinerama. Lowell Thomas searches the world for natural and man made wonders and invites the audience to try to update the ancient Greek list of "Seven Wonders of the World."
The Painter and the Thief

2020

The Painter and the Thief

2020
7.3
When two of artist Barbora Kysilkova’s most valuable paintings are stolen from a gallery at Frogner in Oslo, the police are able to find the thief after a few days, but the paintings are nowhere to be found. Barbora goes to the trial in hopes of finding clues, but instead she ends up asking the thief if she can paint a portrait of him. This will be the start of a very unusual friendship. Over three years, the cinematic documentary follows the incredible story of the artist looking for her stolen paintings, while at the same time turning the thief into art.
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

2017

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

2017
6.8
Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next thirty-five years, she captured the “surfaces” of those who visited her studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.
Dust to Dust

2024

Dust to Dust

2024
The future of fashion is here and it’s being ushered in by Yuima Nakazato, currently the only active haute couture designer in Japan. Embracing innovative scientific technologies and meshing them with older material techniques, Yuima is determined to move clothing away from mass production and toward respect for the individual and our environment. While designing sculptural haute couture for the runway, Yuima dreams up his visionary and socially-aware practice through research and experience of environmental and production issues happening all across the world — this time in Kenya, where the scale of textile waste is a harbinger of the urgent need for conservation and social change.
The Lovely Month of May

1963

The Lovely Month of May

1963
8
Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and fundamentally egalitarian ideals of self-betterment, prosperity, tolerance, economic opportunity, and freedom.
Bad Rap

2016

Bad Rap

2016
6.3
The lives and careers of four Asian-American rappers trying to break into a world that often treats them as outsiders. Sharing dynamic live performance footage and revealing interviews, these artists will make the most skeptical critics into believers.
Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger

2014

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger

2014
6.4
A documentary that captures the sensational trial of infamous gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, using the legal proceedings as a springboard to explore allegations of corruption within the highest levels of law enforcement. Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger examines Bulger's relationship with the FBI and Department of Justice that allowed him to reign over a criminal empire in Boston for decades.
Moonage Daydream

2022

Moonage Daydream

2022
7.5
A cinematic odyssey featuring never-before-seen footage exploring David Bowie's creative and musical journey.
Remote Area Medical

2013

Remote Area Medical

2013
6.8
Amid the nation’s ongoing debate over health care reform, this bracing new documentary examines the everyday realities of Americans who lack access to affordable medical treatment. Filmed during three days in the operation of a “no-cost” clinic set up annually at Bristol, Tennessee’s NASCAR speedway, Remote Area Medical documents the range of medical care the eponymous organization provides to low-income patients in the heart of Appalachia.