Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 191

TURA!

2024

TURA!

2024
6
The one and only Tura Satana. Best remembered for her role as the fierce Varla in Russ Meyer’s 1965 cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Tura’s real life was just as wild and unapologetic as her on-screen persona. And her post-film legacy was just as noteworthy, leaving a fist-shaped mark on pop culture and an indelible signature in burlesque stages, queer clubs, and comic conventions everywhere.
Manet: Portraying Life

2013

Manet: Portraying Life

2013
5
Manet’s portraits are rarely afforded such close attention as they are given in this exquisitely crafted and insightful film presented by art expert Tim Marlow. Manet’s portraiture comprised about half his work, giving life on canvas to family, friends and the literary, political and artistic figures of the day.
Roller Dreams

2017

Roller Dreams

2017
6
It’s 1984 and Venice Beach, CA, is at the epicenter of a pop culture explosion. Young people of color seeking refuge from the turmoil of inner city life flock to the eclectic ocean community to create a brand new phenomenon: roller dancing! The talent and vibrant personality of this multicultural roller ‘family’ draws massive crowds and influence Hollywood. But just as roller dancing flourishes, politics, money and gentrification conspire to take their dreams away.
The Jewish Journey: America

2015

The Jewish Journey: America

2015
1
Jewish-American history has been rooted in an ever-changing “Old Country”. Interviews with top scholars in Jewish history, notable Jewish-American writers, and many immigrants themselves detail the varied stories of migration through the last five centuries, with a rarely explored look at the actual journeys to get here.
East LA Interchange

2015

East LA Interchange

2015
2
East L.A. Interchange follows the evolution of working-class, immigrant Boyle Heights, the oldest neighborhood in East Los Angeles from multiethnic to predominately Latino and a cradle of Mexican-American culture in the U.S. The documentary tells the story of how one neighborhood managed to survive the construction of the largest and busiest freeway interchange in the nation and explores the shifting face of community in the United States today arguing why it should matter to us all.
By Blood

2014

By Blood

2014
5
American Indians of African descent, or Freedmen, battle their own tribes and the federal government to regain their tribal citizenship. Witness how indigenous American Indian tribes, their minority members, and surrounding communities are confronting racism and intolerance.
Final Offer

1985

Final Offer

1985
The filmmakers were given remarkable freedom to record the historic 1984 contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and General Motors Corporation. Bob White, labour leader of the Canadian branch of the UAW, must also confront his American counterpart from Detroit and succeeds in arriving at a contract that is significantly Canadian. His members had already given him a mandate to fight for independence from the American union. This is an invaluable document for anyone interested in the complexities of United States-Canada relations. It's an extraordinary film about revolutionary events.
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

2009

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

2009
7
Filmed over three years, the documentary is an unprecedented record of a major artist at work. It captures David Hockney's return to England after 25 years in California. As he approaches the age of 70, he decides to re-invent his painting from scratch, working through the seasons and in all weathers out in the Yorkshire countryside - ending up with the largest picture ever made outdoors. It is at once the story of a homecoming and an intimate portrait of what inspires and motivates today's greatest living British-born artist as time runs out. Winner of Best Essay award at the International Festival for Films on Art in Montreal and nominated Best Arts Documentary by the Grierson and International Emmy Awards. Premiered on BBC1, the documentary appears in a special extended 60' version.
The Talk: Race in America

2017

The Talk: Race in America

2017
8
Documentary about the increasingly necessary conversation taking place in homes and communities across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police.
Composed

2017

Composed

2017
10
Through the lens of professional classical musicians, Composed explores the many ways we experience and can address performance anxiety.
Divided States of America

2017

Divided States of America

2017
7
Review the partisanship that gridlocked Washington and charged the 2016 presidential campaign.
The 44th President: In His Own Words

2017

The 44th President: In His Own Words

2017
6
Comprised of two interviews with President Barack Obama conducted both before and after the 2016 Presidential election, The 44th President: In His Own Words is the President’s first-hand account of his time in office–his successes, his failures, his unfinished business–and what he hopes will be his legacy. Including additional interviews with members of his staff, Congress, and the press, The 44th President: In His Own Words is a unique examination of the Obama presidency from the inside out, and a profound and candid historical record that will stand for generations.
Dateline: Saigon

2017

Dateline: Saigon

2017
8
How does a nation slip into war? Dateline-Saigon profiles the controversial reporting of five Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists -The New York Times' David Halberstam, the Associated Press' Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, and legendary photojournalist Horst Faas, and UPI's Neil Sheehan -- during the early years of the Vietnam War as President John F. Kennedy is secretly committing US troops to what is initially dismissed by some as 'a nice little war in a land of tigers and elephants.' 'When the government is telling the truth, reporters become a relatively unimportant conduit to what is happening,' Halberstam tells us. 'But when the government doesn't tell the truth, begins to twist the truth, hide the truth, then the journalist becomes involuntarily infinitely more important.'
Passing

2015

Passing

2015
7
A short documentary profiling the lives of three transgender Black men, exploring what life is like living as a Black man when no one knows you are transgender, and their journeys with gender in the years since they transitioned.
Whose Country?

2016

Whose Country?

2016
9
A young Egyptian filmmaker recounts his interaction with a group of plainclothes policemen while grappling with issues of guilt and morality.
Special Blood

2016

Special Blood

2016
10
Failed by a healthcare system that is largely ignorant of their existence, four patients with a life-threatening, rare disease learn to find strength in each other and their small, but strong community.
Frantz Fanon: His Life, His Struggle, His Work

2001

Frantz Fanon: His Life, His Struggle, His Work

2001
10
It is the evocation of a life as brief as it is dense. An encounter with a dazzling thought, that of Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist of West Indian origin, who will reflect on the alienation of black people. It is the evocation of a man of reflection who refuses to close his eyes, of the man of action who devoted himself body and soul to the liberation struggle of the Algerian people and who will become, through his political commitment, his fight, and his writings, one of the figures of the anti-colonialist struggle. Before being killed at the age of 36 by leukemia, on December 6, 1961. His body was buried by Chadli Bendjedid, who later became Algerian president, in Algeria, at the Chouhadas cemetery (cemetery of war martyrs ). With him, three of his works are buried: “Black Skin, White Masks”, “L’An V De La Révolution Algérien” and “The Wretched of the Earth”.
Many Beautiful Things

2015

Many Beautiful Things

2015
6
In an age when women were incapable of joining the artistic dialogue, Lilias Trotter managed to win the favour of celebrated critics.
95 and 6 to Go

2016

95 and 6 to Go

2016
6
Filmmaker Kimi Takesue captures the cadence of daily life for Grandpa Tom, a retired postal worker born to Japanese immigrants to Hawai’i in the 1910s. Amidst the solitude of his home routines — coupon clipping, rigging an improvised barbecue, lighting firecrackers on the New Year — we glimpse an unexpectedly rich inner life.
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.