Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 22

Bottled Life: Nestle's Business with Water

2012

Bottled Life: Nestle's Business with Water

2012
6.5
Do you know how to turn ordinary water into a billion-dollar business? In Switzerland there's a company which has developed the art to perfection - Nestlé. This company dominates the global business in bottled water. Swiss journalist Res Gehringer has investigated this money-making phenomena. Nestlé refused to cooperate, on the pretext that it was "the wrong film at the wrong time". So Gehringer went on a journey of exploration, researching the story in the USA, Nigeria and Pakistan. His journey into the world of bottled water reveals the schemes and strategies of the most powerful food and beverage company on our planet.
Eames: The Architect and the Painter

2011

Eames: The Architect and the Painter

2011
7
Interviews with the junior designers swept into the 24-7 world of "The Eamery" are the heart of this complex picture of a husband-and-wife creative team that define the era of Mid-Century Modernism. Narrated by James Franco, the film draws from a trove of archival material, primarily the stunning films and photographs produced in mind-boggling volume by Charles, Ray, and their staff during the hyper-creative forty years of the Eames Office.
Paragraph 175

2000

Paragraph 175

2000
6.5
During the Nazi regime, there was widespread persecution of homosexual men, which started in 1871 with the Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. Thousands were murdered in concentration camps. This powerful and disturbing documentary, narrated by Rupert Everett, presents for the first time the largely untold testimonies of some of those who survived.
Chariots of the Gods

1970

Chariots of the Gods

1970
6.5
Documentary based on the book by Erich Von Daniken concerning the ancient mysteries of the world, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, ancient cave drawings, the monuments of Easter Island, etc. and the fact that these things and modern civilization could have been influenced by extra-terrestrial visitations hundreds(or perhaps thousands) of years ago.
Žižek!

2005

Žižek!

2005
6.7
ŽIŽEK! trails the thinker as he crisscrosses the globe, racing from New York City lecture halls, through the streets of Buenos Aires, and even stopping at home in Ljubljana, Slovenia. All the while Žižek obsessively reveals the invisible workings of ideology through his unique blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Marxism, and critique of pop culture.
The Booksellers

2020

The Booksellers

2020
6.9
What once seemed like an esoteric world now seems essential to our culture: the community of rare book dealers and collectors who, in their love of the delicacy and tactility of books, are helping to keep the printed word alive. D.W. Young’s elegant and entertaining documentary, executive produced by Parker Posey, is a lively tour of New York’s book world, past and present, from the Park Avenue Armory’s annual Antiquarian Book Fair, where original editions can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars; to the Strand and Argosy book stores, still standing against all odds; to the beautifully crammed apartments of collectors and buyers. The film features a litany of special guests, including Fran Lebowitz, Susan Orlean, Gay Talese, and a community of dedicated book dealers who strongly believe in the wonder of the object and the everlasting importance of what’s inside.
Rewind

2019

Rewind

2019
6.9
Digging through the vast collection of his father's home videos, a young man reconstructs the unthinkable story of his boyhood and exposes vile abuse passed through generations.
Hitler's Hollywood

2017

Hitler's Hollywood

2017
6.4
Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)
24×36

2016

24×36

2016
7
A documentary exploring the birth, death and resurrection of illustrated movie poster art. Through interviews with a number of key art personalities from the 70s and 80s, as well as many modern, alternative poster artists, “Twenty-Four by Thirty-Six” aims to answer the question: What happened to the illustrated movie poster? Where did it disappear to, and why? In the mid 2000s, filling the void left behind by Hollywood’s abandonment of illustrated movie posters, independent artists and galleries began selling limited edition, screenprinted posters — a movement that has quickly exploded into a booming industry with prints selling out online in seconds, inspiring Hollywood studios to take notice of illustration in movie posters once more.
Being Evel

2015

Being Evel

2015
6.9
In the history of sports, few names are more recognizable than that of Evel Knievel. Long after the man hung up his famous white leather jumpsuit and rode his Harley into the sunset, his name is still synonymous with the death-defying lifestyle he led. Notoriously brash, bold, and daring, Knievel stared death in the face from the seat of his motorcycle, but few know the larger-than-life story of the boy from Butte, Montana.
Point and Shoot

2014

Point and Shoot

2014
6.5
At first glance, Matthew VanDyke—a shy Baltimore native with a sheltered upbringing and a tormenting OCD diagnosis—is the last person you’d imagine on the front lines of the 2011 Libyan revolution. But after finishing grad school and escaping the U.S. for "a crash course in manhood," a winding path leads him just there. Motorcycling across North Africa and the Middle East and spending time as an embedded journalist in Iraq, Matthew lands in Libya, forming an unexpected kinship with a group of young men who transform his life. Matthew joins his friends in the rebel army against Gaddafi, taking up arms (and a camera). Along the way, he is captured and held in solitary confinement for six terrifying months.
Mademoiselle C

2013

Mademoiselle C

2013
5.8
A documentary focused on former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief and fashion stylist Carine Roitfeld.
Meditation on Violence

1949

Meditation on Violence

1949
5.5
Chao-Li Chi shadow boxes indoors and practices with a sword outdoors. Theoretically, the film describes in a single continuous movement three degrees of traditional Chinese boxing, Wu-tang, Shao-lin, and Shao-lin with a sword. A long sequence of the ballet-like, sinuous Wu-tang becomes the more erratic Shao-lin; in the middle, there is an abrupt change to leaping sword movements, in the center of which, at the apogee of the leap, there is a long held freeze-frame.
Welfare

1975

Welfare

1975
7.2
WELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. These issues are presented in a context where welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and life.
Araya

1959

Araya

1959
7
"Araya" is an old natural salt mine located in a peninsula in northeastern Venezuela which was still, by 1959, being exploited manually five hundred years after its discovery by the Spanish. In images, the life of the "salineros" and their archaic methods of work before their definite disappearance with the arrival of the industrial exploitation.
Britain's Greatest Codebreaker

2012

Britain's Greatest Codebreaker

2012
6.1
Alan Turing is the genius British mathematician who was instrumental in breaking the German naval Enigma Code during World War II, arguably saving millions of lives. Turing's achievements went unrecognised during his lifetime. Instead he ended up being treated as a common criminal, for being homosexual at a time when homosexual acts were a crime. In 1952, he was convicted of 'gross indecency' with another man and was forced to undergo so-called 'organo-therapy' - chemical castration. Two years later, he killed himself with cyanide, aged just 41. Alan Turing was driven to a terrible despair and early death by the nation he'd done so much to save.
A Film Unfinished

2010

A Film Unfinished

2010
6.4
Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

2007

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

2007
6.9
A documentary on the influential musician Scott Walker.
Armstrong

2019

Armstrong

2019
7.3
Dramatic, moving and deeply human, ARMSTRONG offers the definitive life story of Neil Armstrong: from his childhood in Ohio to his first steps on the Moon, and beyond.
National Parks Adventure

2016

National Parks Adventure

2016
6.8
Narrated by Academy Award winner Robert Redford, National Parks Adventure takes audiences on the ultimate off-trail adventure into the nation’s awe-inspiring great outdoors and untamed wilderness. Immersive IMAX 3D cinematography takes viewers soaring over red rock canyons, hurtling up craggy mountain peaks and into other-worldly realms found within America’s most legendary outdoor playgrounds, including Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Yosemite, and Arches. Celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the national parks with world-class mountaineer Conrad Anker, adventure photographer Max Lowe and artist Rachel Pohl as they hike, climb and explore their way across America’s majestic parks in an action-packed expedition that will inspire the adventurer in us all.