Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 169

The Grace Lee Project

2005

The Grace Lee Project

2005
1
Filmmaker Grace Lee leaves her Missouri home to travel the country and talk with an array of women who share her name.
White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books

2010

White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books

2010
8
Documentary looking at the introduction of the some of the first black superheroes.
Drawing Dead: The Highs and Lows of Online Poker

2013

Drawing Dead: The Highs and Lows of Online Poker

2013
Drawing Dead is a documentary film about the highs and lows of online poker from two very different perspectives: a professional poker player worth millions, and a gambling addict.
Mighty Uke

2011

Mighty Uke

2011
8
Mighty Uke travels the world to discover why so many people of different nations, cultures, ages and musical tastes are turning to the ukulele to express themselves, connect with the past, and with each other.
William and the Windmill

2013

William and the Windmill

2013
6
William Kamkwamba builds a windmill from scrap to rescue his family from famine, transforming his life and launching him onto the world stage. His success leads to new opportunities and complex choices, distancing him from the life he once knew.
Elusive Justice

2011

Elusive Justice

2011
9
Narrated by Candice Bergen, Elusive Justice is an unprecedented examination of the more than six-decade global hunt for the 20th century's most notorious war criminals, thousands of whom are still presumed to be alive. Featuring intimate portraits of the Nazi hunters, the film also examines the nations and institutions that helped bring war criminals to justice or, in too many cases, helped them to escape.
Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same

2009

Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same

2009
7.5
Brock Enright, and his girlfriend Kirsten Deirup drive from Brooklyn, NY to her family's cabin in Mendocino, CA to prepare his solo show at a prominent New York gallery. As Enright struggles to produce what could be his most significant work, his relationship with Kirsten, her family, and the gallery is strained by his violent, sexually-explicit, and psychologically challenging creation.
Underground

1976

Underground

1976
6
Underground is a 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen, founded as a militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who fought to overthrow the U.S. government during the 1960s and 1970s. The film consists of interviews with members of the group after they went underground and footage of the anti-war and civil rights protests of the time. It was directed by Emile de Antonio, Haskell Wexler and Mary Lampson, later subpoenaed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to confiscate the film footage in order to gain information that would help them arrest the Weathermen. (Wikipedia)
Breath of the Gods

2012

Breath of the Gods

2012
7
A Journey to the Origins of Modern Yoga. Yoga is known to go back to God Shiva, who perfected 8,4 million postures, according to Indian tradition. Far less known is the fact that yoga is at the same time an early 20th century-creation of Indian savant T. Krishnamacharya, which is what this film is about. Krishnamacharya's life and teachings are seen through the eyes of the director on his search for authentic yoga. His journey leads him from students and relatives of Krishnamacharya's such as the legendary teachers Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois to the source of modern yoga: the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore, where Krishnamacharya founded the first ever yoga school. A feature-length documentary including rare historical footage as well as lavish reenactments.
Slumdog Children of Mumbai

2010

Slumdog Children of Mumbai

2010
10
Shot over 3 months through the Monsoon, Nick Read's film captures the unvarnished reality of life for four children living in the slums and on the streets of Mumbai: seven-year-old Deepa, who lives next to an open rubbish dump and runs barefoot through Mumbai traffic selling flowers to help support her family; 11-year-old Salaam, who, a few weeks after running away from his abusive stepmother lives rough outside the main railway station; and twins Hussan and Hussein, also 11, who risk cholera and infection fishing for scraps in a filthy canal so they can earn money to eat.
Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal

2013

Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal

2013
10
The film chronicles the life and revolutionary times of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Strip

1966

Strip

1966
1
The work of strippers in the Phoenix Club of Old Compton Street, Soho. Includes interviews with the girls, the stage show and backstage scenes.
The Slanted Screen

2006

The Slanted Screen

2006
10
From silent film star Sessue Hayakawa to Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle, the Slanted Screen examines the portrayal Asian men in film and television, and how new filmmakers are now re-defining age-old stereotypes.
Thomas Jefferson: A View from the Mountain

1995

Thomas Jefferson: A View from the Mountain

1995
5
In this documentary, historians, politicians and actors (including Danny Glover and Sissy Spacek) try to illuminate the quixotic nature of founding father Thomas Jefferson, focusing on his views about slavery and rumored affair with his slave Sally Hemmings. Though many consider Jefferson America's most influential political logician, his life was a series of paradoxes. Edward Herrmann is featured as the voice of the conflicted aristocrat. [netflix]
Uprising

2012

Uprising

2012
6
The leaders of Egypt's 2011 revolution discuss the fire, courage and resiliency behind their movement to remove President Hosni Mubarak from office.
Poetry in Motion

1982

Poetry in Motion

1982
7
More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.
The Cola Conquest

1998

The Cola Conquest

1998
7
The Cola Conquest tells the story of Coca-Cola - the 'sublimated essence' of all that American stands for - and the century-long competition with its rival, Pepsi-Cola. Challenging, fast-paced, irreverent, serious and funny by turns, it explores the delicious paradox at the heart of Coke: How did an innocuous soft drink come to wield such enormous power and assume such significance in so many people's lives? What does it tell us about who we are and what we are becoming?
Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II

1992

Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II

1992
5
An account of Black American soldiers in World War II who combated racism in the segregated military and on the home front.
The Memories of Angels

2008

The Memories of Angels

2008
8
Montreal of another time is reborn into screen through images from a hundred of movies and shorts produced by the National Film Board of Canada while at its first four decades of existence. Port activities, musical shows, presence of Church, labors life, hockey fever and the best years of "Red Light" are few of the chapters of this collective family album.
You Got to Move

1985

You Got to Move

1985
7
A documentary that follows people from communities in the Southern United States in their various processes of becoming involved in social change, with special emphasis on the work the