Top Rated Documentary Movies on Free Services - Page 70

Unlocking the Cage

2016

Unlocking the Cage

2016
6.8
Renowned filmmakers D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus follow determined animal rights activist Steven Wise into the courtroom for an unprecedented battle that seeks to utilize the writ of habeas corpus to expand legal “personhood” to include certain animals. Wise’s unusual plaintiffs—chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko, once famed showbiz stars—are now living in filth, struggling to survive. Wise and his impassioned legal team take us into the field, revealing gripping evidence of such abuse and plunging us into the intricacies of their case as they probe preconceived notions of what it means to be a non-human animal.
Boom Bust Boom

2015

Boom Bust Boom

2015
7
Terry Jones presents Boom Bust Boom. The result of a meeting between writer, director, historian and Python Terry Jones and economics professor and entrepreneur Theo Kocken. Co-written by Jones and Kocken and featuring John Cusack, Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman, Robert J Shiller and Paul Krugman, the film is part of a global movement to change the economic system through education to protect the world from boom and bust. A unique look at why economic crashes happen, Boom Bust Boom is a multimedia documentary combining live action with animation and puppetry to explain economics to everyone.
Don't Blink - Robert Frank

2015

Don't Blink - Robert Frank

2015
7
The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they're one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he's covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early '90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don't Blink is Israel's like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael

2019

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael

2019
6.6
Pauline Kael (1919–2001) was undoubtedly one of the greatest names in film criticism. A Californian native, she wrote her first review in 1953 and joined ‘The New Yorker’ in 1968. Praised for her highly opinionated and feisty writing style and criticised for her subjective and sometimes ruthless reviews, Kael’s writing was refreshingly and intensely rooted in her experience of watching a film as a member of the audience. Loved and hated in equal measure – loved by other critics for whom she was immensely influential, and hated by filmmakers whose films she trashed - Kael destroyed films that have since become classics such as The Sound of Music and raved about others such as Bonnie and Clyde. She was also aware of the perennial difficulties for women working in the movies and in film criticism, and fiercely fought sexism, both in her reviews and in her media appearances.
The Fidel Castro Tapes

2014

The Fidel Castro Tapes

2014
6.7
In 1959, Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba. He has been one of the most controversial figures in the world ever since. This is the story of the Cuban dictator's turbulent career, told in part through media reports, rare images and recordings.
Sex and Broadcasting

2014

Sex and Broadcasting

2014
6.4
SEX AND BROADCASTING is a feature length documentary about New Jersey's WFMU, the world's strangest and most unique radio station, and one man's attempt to keep it alive in the face of recession, the persistent threat of commercial media, and the challenges that come with keeping a rebellious group of outsiders together.
Gameplay: The Story of the Videogame Revolution

2015

Gameplay: The Story of the Videogame Revolution

2015
6.7
A feature documentary on the history of video games. From 'Pong', 'Pac Man' and 'Mario' to 'Call of Duty', 'Grand Theft Auto' and everything in between it tells the story of how this industry was created, by whom and where it is headed.
Seve

2014

Seve

2014
6.9
Despite being blocked at almost every turn in pursuit of the sport he loved, Seve Ballesteros fought against adversity to become the most spectacular and charismatic golfer to ever play the game.
A Year in Champagne

2014

A Year in Champagne

2014
6.2
The exploding cork. Endless tiny bubbles floating up and up in the glass. An indulgence. A celebration. A seduction. A triumph. This is the essence of Champagne, isn’t it? But it’s not just bubbles in a glass that makes the wine, or the mystique. Only sparkling wine produced within the boundaries of the Champagne region is truly “Champagne.” At first glance, the region is not an obvious source of romance. Champagne’s history is grim and bloody, swept by war and destruction from Attila the Hun to the filthy trenches of WWI and the Nazi depredations of WWII. The environment for winemaking is desperately hard — northerly latitude, chalky soil, copious rain, frost, rot. Yet it’s these difficulties that help make the wine unique.
Europe in 8 Bits

2013

Europe in 8 Bits

2013
6.1
The stars of Europe's ascendant chip music movement demonstrate the repurposing of old videogame and home computer hardware like Nintendo's GameBoy and NES, Atari's ST, and Commodore's Amiga and C64 into tools by which they have created a new sound, a modern tempo and an innovative musical style.
TWA Flight 800

2013

TWA Flight 800

2013
6.7
A thought-provoking documentary about the ill-fated Trans World Airline Flight 800 to Paris, France, which exploded on July 17, 1996 just 12 minutes after takeoff from JFK International Airport, killing all 230 people on board. The special features six former members of the official crash investigation breaking their silence to refute the officially proposed cause of the jetliner's demise and reveal how the investigation was systematically undermined.
South

1999

South

1999
6.2
Chantal Akerman investigates the American Deep South through the story of a lynching and grisly murder of an African-American man that took place in Texas in 1998.
Stride, Soviet!

1926

Stride, Soviet!

1926
6.2
Commissioned by the Moscow Soviet as a documentary and information film for the citizens of Moscow prior to municipal elections, film is a tableau of Soviet life and achievements in the period of reconstruction following the Civil War of 1917-1921.
Bloody Daughter

2012

Bloody Daughter

2012
7.2
An atypical family portrait, directed by 34-year old Stéphanie Argerich, the daughter of pianists Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich. The filmmaker follows her mother in particular, during concerts and in moments of greater intimacy, searching for answers that might shed light on the private spaces of a family that has always lived in the limelight of the international stage, where gaiety and madness rub shoulders with an absolute and overwhelming passion: music.
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon

2008

Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon

2008
5.6
The outrageous story of 1970s porn icon Jack Wrangler, and how he rose to the top of the gay, and then straight, adult film industry.
Human Remains

1998

Human Remains

1998
7.3
Human Remains is a haunting documentary which illustrates the banality of evil by creating intimate portraits of five of the 20th century's most reviled dictators. The film unveils the personal lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco and Mao Tse Tung. We learn the private and mundane details of their everyday lives -- their favorite foods, films, habits and sexual preferences. There is no mention of their public lives or of their place in history. The intentional omission of the horrors for which these men were responsible hovers over the film.
Fengming: A Chinese Memoir

2007

Fengming: A Chinese Memoir

2007
7.7
The film consists almost entirely of an interview with the elderly He Fengming, recounting her experiences in post-1949 China.
Ethnic Notions

1986

Ethnic Notions

1986
7.1
This documentary traces the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice.
Alien Autopsy: (fact or fiction?)

1995

Alien Autopsy: (fact or fiction?)

1995
5.8
This provacative FOX Network "prime time" television special investigates the purported "Alien Autopsy" footage that was allegedly filmed by the United States military after the legendary UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance

2011

Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance

2011
6.6
The true story of lifelong criminal and serial killer, Carl Panzram who wrote his autobiography for a jail guard in 1928. Carl Panzram was a lifelong prisoner and a hate-filled serial killer. Brutalized in and out of various U.S. state prisons during 20th century America, Panzram unleashed a rampage of revenge that resulted in over 20 murders and countless acts of violent sodomy. A single act of kindness, by prison guard Henry Lesser, sparked a friendship that eventually influenced Panzram to write his autobiography. In 1930, Panzram was hanged for killing a laundry foreman at Leavenworth prison.