Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 31

At Berkeley

2013

At Berkeley

2013
6.7
Direct cinema pioneer Frederick Wiseman takes an in-depth look at the preeminent American university during a fall semester that saw a vigorous debate taking place over tuition hikes, budget cuts, and the future of higher education in the United States.
Approved for Adoption

2012

Approved for Adoption

2012
7.3
This remarkable animated documentary traces the unconventional upbringing of the filmmaker Jung Henin, one of thousands of Korean children adopted by Western families after the end of the Korean War. It is the story of a boy stranded between two cultures. Animated vignettes – some humorous and some poetic – track Jung from the day he first meet his new blond siblings, through elementary school, and into his teenage years, when his emerging sense of identity begins to create fissures at home and ignite the latent biases of his adoptive parents. The filmmaker tells his story using his own animation intercut with snippets of super-8 family footage and archival film. The result is an animated memoir like no other: clear-eyed and unflinching, humorous, and above all, inspiring in the capacity of the human heart.
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners

2012

Free Angela and All Political Prisoners

2012
7.1
The story of how, in 1970, the social activism of young UCLA philosophy professor Angela Davis led her to become involved in a failed kidnapping attempt that ended in a shootout, four deaths, and her name on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

1968

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

1968
7.4
Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s New York, interweaving moments with family, friends, lovers, and artistic idols. Blending everyday encounters with portraits of the avant-garde art scene, it forms an epic, personal meditation on community, creativity, and the passage of time.
Last Days Here

2011

Last Days Here

2011
7.4
Documentary follows Bobby Liebling, lead singer of seminal hard rock/heavy metal band Pentagram, as he battles decades of hard drug addiction and personal demons to try and get his life back.
On the Bowery

1957

On the Bowery

1957
6.6
A mix of documentary and scripted footage on the Bowery, New York City's skid row. Against a backdrop of men (and a few women) drinking in bars, talking and arguing, and sleeping on sidewalks, we have the story of Ray.
Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike

1943

Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike

1943
6.3
The second film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the Nazis as its latest incarnation.
Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

2011

Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

2011
5.2
In 1987, Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitch Deprey recorded the nightly squabbles of their over-the-top neighbors, homophobic Raymond Huffman and proudly gay Peter Haskett, and the chronicle of the pair's bizarre existence soon took on a life of its own. This darkly funny documentary checks in with former punks Eddie and Mitch, who detail their late-'80s Lower Haight surroundings, and surveys the tapes' influence on an array of underground artists.
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu

2010

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu

2010
7.7
The three-hour-long documentary covers 25 years in the life of Nicolae Ceaușescu and was made using 1,000 hours of original footage from the National Archives of Romania.
Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place

2011

Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place

2011
6.9
A freewheeling portrait of Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster’s fabled road trip across America in the legendary Magic Bus. In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World’s Fair. He was joined by “The Merry Band of Pranksters,” a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus.
Sweetgrass

2009

Sweetgrass

2009
6.8
An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture, revealing a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.
Comic Book Confidential

1989

Comic Book Confidential

1989
6.6
A survey of the artistic history of the comic book medium and some of the major talents associated with it.
No Impact Man

2009

No Impact Man

2009
6.2
Follow the Manhattan-based Beavan family as they abandon their high consumption 5th Avenue lifestyle and try to live a year while making no net environmental impact.
Street Fight

2005

Street Fight

2005
7
This documentary follows the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey, in which a City Councilman, Cory Booker, attempted to unseat longtime mayor Sharpe James.
Beautiful Losers

2008

Beautiful Losers

2008
6.4
This documentary follows the lives and careers of a collective group of do-it-yourself artists and designers who inadvertently affected the art world.
The Real Cancun

2003

The Real Cancun

2003
3.9
Sixteen American college students drink, flirt, fight and canoodle during their Spring Break vacation in Cancun, Mexico.
It's Not Me

2024

It's Not Me

2024
7
This free-form film is a self-portrait, which revisits more than 40 years of the author’s filmography and questions the major stations of his life, while capturing the political tremors of the time.
Lynch/Oz

2023

Lynch/Oz

2023
6.9
Victor Fleming’s 1939 film The Wizard of Oz is one of David Lynch’s most enduring obsessions. This documentary goes over the rainbow to explore this Technicolor through-line in Lynch’s work.
Lust for Gold: A Race Against Time

2021

Lust for Gold: A Race Against Time

2021
6.2
A team of modern adventurers is on a quest for gold in the mountains of eastern Arizona.
The Magic Pill

2017

The Magic Pill

2017
6.8
Doctors, scientists and chefs around the globe combat illness with dietary changes, believing fat should be embraced as a source of fuel.