Popular Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 59

Hand Game

2000

Hand Game

2000
This documentary explores the mythic and historic roots of the most widely played Native gambling game in North America.
Hello Photo

1995

Hello Photo

1995
Documentarist Nina Davenport turns the conventions of the travelogue inside out. She takes us to India and abandons us there, leaving us to believe what we see through her eyes. Her movie replicates the experience of being a traveller and thus a voyeur, of taking in sights without necessarily understanding their meaning. Davenport seems less interested in cracking the enigma of India than in savoring it...Her hunger makes her unashamed, like the eager children who find the eye of her camera the next best thing to sweets.
Joan Crawford: Always the Star

1996

Joan Crawford: Always the Star

1996
7.5
Glamorous and hugely popular Joan Crawford raised herself from brutal poverty to Academy Award-winning stardom by guts, determination and hard work. During her 50-year career, she made over 80 films. But her obsessive perfectionism led to the later caricature of coat-hanger-wielding harridan that even the adoration of fans could not counter. Still, she has endured as one of the most popular icons of the movies, an early role model to a million young women who aspired to her image of stylish magnetic power and unquestioned independence.
Hooligan Sparrow

2016

Hooligan Sparrow

2016
7.2
The danger is palpable as intrepid young filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues to Hainan Province in southern China to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers’ rights, continues to champion girls’ and women’s rights and arms herself with the power and reach of social media.
Hey! Is Dee Dee Home?

2003

Hey! Is Dee Dee Home?

2003
5.6
Punk rock devotees will welcome director Lech Kowalski's reflective video portrait of late bassist Dee Dee Ramone and his life as a music industry icon -- including his self-destructive bouts with heroin. The centerpiece of the hourlong documentary -- which is peppered with vintage performance clips -- is a 1991 interview with a clean Dee Dee, who talks at length about his storied career and penchant for living on the edge.
American Tongues

1987

American Tongues

1987
7
Rich in humor and regional color, this sometimes hilarious film uses the prism of language to reveal our attitudes about the way other people speak. From Boston Brahmins to Black Louisiana teenagers, from Texas cowboys to New York professionals, American Tongues elicits funny, perceptive, sometimes shocking, and always telling comments on American English in all its diversity. (PBS)
Somm

2013

Somm

2013
7
Somm takes the viewer on a humorous, emotional and illuminating look into the mysterious world of the Court of Master Sommeliers and their massively intimidating Master Sommelier Exam.
Jack Lemmon: America's Everyman

1996

Jack Lemmon: America's Everyman

1996
7.5
Jack Lemmon made over 60 films and received numerous awards, including eight Academy Award Nominations and two Oscars. Later in life, his achievement was enriched by new challenges in which he exposed the vulnerability and emotion of the later years as few had dared. He reveled in his ongoing screen partnerships with directors like Billy Wilder and stars like Walter Matthau. Narrated on-camera by Jack Lemmon, this documentary includes interviews with Lemmon's son, the actor Chris Lemmon. Also appearing are such legends as Jack's life-long friend, the writer and director Billy Wilder, writer-director Garson Kanin, drama teacher Uta Hagen and actor Gregory Peck.
Coast Modern

2012

Coast Modern

2012
8
A core group of architects embraced the West Coast from Vancouver to LA with its particular geography and values and left behind a legacy of inspired dwellings. Today, architects celebrate the influence established by their predecessors.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

2010

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

2010
6.9
A documentary on the life and career of Joan Rivers, made as the comedienne turns 75 years old.
Castro's Spies

2020

Castro's Spies

2020
9.2
The thrilling story of an elite group of Cuban spies sent undercover to the US in the 1990s. From their recruitment, training and eventual capture on US soil; this film peers into a secret world of false identities, love affairs and betrayal. Using never seen before footage from the Cuban Film Institute’s archive and first-hand testimony from the people at the heart of this story, Castro’s Spies gives a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of a spy – where the stakes are life and death.
Everything Is Under Control

2015

Everything Is Under Control

2015
7.8
Facebook, Amazon and Google provide us with around the clock access to the convenient digital world! Surveillance cameras on the streets take care of our security. But who actually collects our fingerprints, iris scans, online shopping preferences, and social media postings? Don't we care about our privacy anymore? In his unique charming and curious way filmmaker Werner Boote travels around the world to explore the "brave new world" of total control. EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL by Werner Boote (Plastic Planet, Population Boom) - an evocative film about the self-evidence of surveillance. In cinemas 25th of December 2015.
Honor Diaries

2013

Honor Diaries

2013
8
Honor Diaries is the first film to break the silence on ‘honor violence’ against women and girls. Honor Diaries is more than a movie, it is a movement to save women and girls from human rights abuses – around the world and here in America.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

2018

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch

2018
6.9
Documentary on psychedelic potash mines, expansive concrete seawalls, mammoth industrial machines, and other examples of humanity’s massive, destructive reengineering of the planet.
Hondros

2018

Hondros

2018
7.2
HONDROS follows the life and career of famous war photographer Chris Hondros by exploring the poignant and often surprising stories behind this award-winning photojournalist's best-known photos. Driven by a commitment to bear witness to the wars of our time after the events of 9/11, Chris was among the first in a new generation of war photographers since Vietnam. HONDROS explores the complexities inherent in covering more than a decade of conflict, while trying to maintain a normal life. It also examines the unknowable calculus involved in making split-second life and death decisions -- before, during and after his photos were made. Chris was killed in Libya in 2011, but he left a lasting impact on his profession that is still felt today.
The Weather Underground

2002

The Weather Underground

2002
6.7
The remarkable story of The Weather Underground, radical activists of the 1970s, and of radical politics at its best and most disastrous.
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

2008

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

2008
6.9
Fueled by a raging libido, Wild Turkey, and superhuman doses of drugs, Thompson was a true "free lance, " goring sacred cows with impunity, hilarity, and a steel-eyed conviction for writing wrongs. Focusing on the good doctor's heyday, 1965 to 1975, the film includes clips of never-before-seen (nor heard) home movies, audiotapes, and passages from unpublished manuscripts.
For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close

2020

For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close

2020
6.7
Comedy guru Del Close, mentor to everyone from Bill Murray to Tina Fey, sets out to write his autobiography for D.C. Comics. As he leads us through sewers, mental wards, and his peculiar talent for making everyone famous but himself, Close emerges as a personification of the creative impulse itself. He's a muse with BO and dirty needles, offering transcendence despite (or because of) the trail of wreckage behind him.
Who Done It: The Clue Documentary

2022

Who Done It: The Clue Documentary

2022
5.3
Clue (1985) has become a cult classic film and is loved by multiple generations. Yet there has never been a documentary created to tell the behind the scenes stories...until now.
The Last Autumn

2020

The Last Autumn

2020
6
If the world has an edge, then it is almost certainly visible from Iceland. On the outermost cape, beyond which there is only the inhospitable Arctic Ocean, lies a farm belonging to Úlfar and his wife. This autumn will be the last time their grandchildren come from the city to drive the sheep back down from the hills. An almost tangible cinematic fabric that weaves a tale of an abandoned place where the mist clings to the steel-blue surface of the sea and where the occasional human visitor is sometimes welcome.