Top Rated Documentary Movies on Fandor - Page 6

The Stairs

2016

The Stairs

2016
5.7
THE STAIRS tells the story of Marty, Greg and Roxanne, each of whom survived decades of street-involvement in Toronto's Regent Park. Using their experiences to ease the paths of others, each works in public health in their old neighbourhood while struggling to maintain their newly-found stability. Told over five years, The Stairs defies stereotypes about drug use, sex work and homelessness through an intimate portrait that is by turns funny, surprising and moving.
Unseen: The Lives of Looking

2016

Unseen: The Lives of Looking

2016
5.2
Artist Dryden Goodwin's first feature-length essay film, focuses on four individuals with extraordinary relationships to looking: an international eye surgeon, a NASA planetary explorer, a leading human rights lawyer and the artist/filmmaker himself. Mixing Goodwin's closely observed drawings, live action and intricately woven soundtrack, the film explores different scales, forms and reasons for looking, in a poetic and metaphysically charged journey.
Roaring Abyss

2016

Roaring Abyss

2016
7
A sound journey accros the mountains, deserts and forests of Ethiopia and its cultural universe. Roaring Abyss will take you through an inedit collection of music recordings of unvaluable importance for the transmission and preservation of the African heritage.
Records Collecting Dust

2015

Records Collecting Dust

2015
5.3
Written and directed by San Diego based musician and filmmaker Jason Blackmore, Records Collecting Dust documents the vinyl record collections, origins, and holy grails of alternative music icons Jello Biafra, Chuck Dukowski, Keith Morris, John Reis, and over thirty other underground music comrades.
Palestine Is Still the Issue

2003

Palestine Is Still the Issue

2003
7.3
A documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years. Contains some interviews with the children in this conflict.
Glastonbury: The Movie in Flashback

1995

Glastonbury: The Movie in Flashback

1995
6.7
A comprehensive re-edit of the source footage shot in 1993 for the original 1995 film, charting three days at the Glastonbury music festival.
Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes

2021

Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes

2021
7
From iconic guitar player to construction worker, Chris Holmes has lived a life of highs and lows. After losing publishing rights of his own songs and dealing with addictions, the ex-W.A.S.P. member has had to start from scratch living in his mother in law's basement in Cannes, France. He is now ready to take on Europe with his new band. As we follow him along, he meets many fans and proves that he still is the showman he was as a young and famous rockstar. This musical journey draws parallel stories of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Chris Holmes with archives, live performances, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage.
Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago

2020

Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago

2020
6
Author Barry Gifford's gritty autobiographical stories of growing up in 1950s Chicago provide the backdrop for an impressionistic documentary portrait of a vanished time and place.
Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Film Maker's Life

1971

Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Film Maker's Life

1971
4.5
Documentary about Italian movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini, with interviews with some of his actors and friends.
Affluenza

1997

Affluenza

1997
6.5
A look at the modern-day problem of "affluenza," an epidemic of stress, overwork, shopping and debt caused by the pursuit of the American Dream. The history of the condition is explored, as well as the advertising and marketing ploys used to sustain it. Men and women from around the country share their stories of personal debt and suggestions for financial recovery.
Saxophone Colossus

1998

Saxophone Colossus

1998
8
Tenor saxophone master Sonny Rollins has long been hailed as one of the most important artists in jazz history, and still, today, he is viewed as the greatest living jazz improviser. In 1986, filmmaker Robert Mugge produced Saxophone Colossus, a feature-length portrait of Rollins, named after one of his most celebrated albums.
From Straight to Bizarre

2012

From Straight to Bizarre

2012
3.8
Documentary about the rise and fall of Frank Zappa's record labels, Bizarre and Straight which featured a collection of acts that included: Alice Cooper, The GTOs, and Wild Man Fischer.
The Camden 28

2007

The Camden 28

2007
7
The Camden 28 explores how and why 28 individuals intentionally placed themselves at risk of arrest and imprisonment while protesting the war in Vietnam. Featuring a treasure of archival materials and current interviews with former FBI agents involved in the case and scholars such as Howard Zinn, The Camden 28 is a story about a potent form of dissent that has special relevance to our current political climate.
Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me To Be?

2020

Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me To Be?

2020
2
The son of a junkie aristocrat and a schizophrenic showgirl becomes a master of reinvention on a 50+ year journey through rock and roll, TV, and movies.
Queen of Lapa

2019

Queen of Lapa

2019
10
Larger-than-life actress, cabaret performer, activist, and proud sex professional since the age of eleven, Luana Muniz - arguably one of Brazil’s most recognizable transgender personalities, shapes a new reality for a new generation of transgender sex workers in her hostel by providing a safe working environment in the dangerous neighborhood of Lapa in Rio de Janeiro. Queen of Lapa explores the day-to-day lives, quests for love, housemate rivalries in a turbulent political climate under matriarch Muniz’s watchful and guiding eye.
Love Express. The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk

2018

Love Express. The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk

2018
4
A documentary celebrating the work of Walerian Borowczyk, a director of unparalleled sensitivity, revered in the 1970s, who was later labeled as a maker of erotic movies.
Descent Into the Maelstrom: The Untold Story of Radio Birdman

2017

Descent Into the Maelstrom: The Untold Story of Radio Birdman

2017
6
Documentary that chronicles the career of the legendary Australian punk band Radio Birdman.
The Last Happy Day

2009

The Last Happy Day

2009
5
THE LAST HAPPY DAY is an experimental documentary portrait of Sandor (Alexander) Lenard, a Hungarian medical doctor and a distant cousin of filmmaker Lynne Sachs. In 1938 Lenard, a writer with a Jewish background, fled the Nazis to a safe haven in Rome. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Army Graves Registration Service hired Lenard to reconstruct the bones, small and large, of dead American soldiers. Eventually he found himself in remotest Brazil where he embarked on the translation of “Winnie the Pooh” into Latin, an eccentric task that catapulted him to brief world-wide fame. Sachs’ essay film uses personal letters, abstracted war imagery, home movies, interviews and a children’s performance to create an intimate meditation on the destructive power of war.
It Happened Here

2014

It Happened Here

2014
7
Through the intimate portraits of five student survivors, IT HAPPENED HERE exposes the alarming pervasiveness of sexual assault on college campuses, the institutional cover-ups and the failure to protect students, and follows their fight for accountability and change on campus and in federal court.
Which Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam

1994

Which Way Is East: Notebooks from Vietnam

1994
6
In this illuminating study of cultural contrasts, American filmmaker Lynne Sachs and her sister, Dana, travel north from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, recording conversations with Vietnamese strangers and friends. The sisters' expansive travel diary covers tourism, insights into city life, pervasive culture clashes and a bracing historic inquiry. What begins as a picaresque road trip soon blossoms into a richer social and political discourse.