Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 50

1971

2014

1971

2014
6.7
Forty years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. In 1971, eight activists plotted an intricate break-in to the local FBI offices to leak stolen documents and expose the illegal surveillance of ordinary Americans in an era of anti-war activism. In this riveting heist story, the perpetrators reveal themselves for the first time, reflecting on their actions and raising broader questions surrounding security leaks in activism today.
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.
Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters

2020

Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters

2020
6.8
The documentary that tells us the full story from where it all started through to the future of the "Ghostbusters" franchise.
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.
Anita

2013

Anita

2013
7
The story of young, brilliant African-American Anita Hill who accuses the Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of unwanted sexual advances during explosive Senate Hearings in 1991 and ignites a political firestorm about sexual harassment, race, power and politics that resonates today.
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.
Basic Training

1971

Basic Training

1971
6.6
Shot during the summer of 1970 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Frederick Wiseman’s film Basic Training focuses on a group of men going through infantry training, showing how they are turned from civilians into soldiers. As well as being a unique portrait of the US army at work, the film is also a fascinating snapshot of a time and place at a defining moment in American history.
The Store

1983

The Store

1983
6.2
THE STORE is a film about the main Neiman-Marcus store and corporate headquarters in Dallas. The sequences in the film include the selection, presentation, marketing, pricing, advertising and selling of a vast array of consumer products including designer clothes and furs, jewelry, perfumes, shoes, electronic products, sportswear, china and porcelain and many other goods. The internal management and organizational aspects of a large corporation are shown, i.e., sales meetings, development of marketing and advertising strategies, training, personnel practices and sales techniques.
Zombie Girl: The Movie

2009

Zombie Girl: The Movie

2009
6.4
Emily Hagins is making a zombie movie. It's feature-length, it's bloody, and the zombies don't run. Just like it should be. But there's just one difference between her film and every other zombie movie you've ever seen. Emily is twelve.
Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story

2007

Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story

2007
7.7
Chronicles the last great American showman, filmmaker William Castle, a master of ballyhoo who became a brand name in movie horror with his outrageous audience participation gimmicks.
Blank City

2011

Blank City

2011
7.1
In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.
Sound and Fury

2000

Sound and Fury

2000
7.1
A documentary film released in 2000 about two American families with young deaf children and their conflict over whether or not to give their children cochlear implants, surgically implanted devices that may improve their ability to hear but may threaten their deaf identity.
Daddy and the Muscle Academy

1991

Daddy and the Muscle Academy

1991
5.8
Tom of Finland is one of the gay world's few authentic icons. His drawings have had an enormous influence on gay identity. Tom's ultimate leather men are known and seen everywhere. They are symbols of gay pride and friendship. The documentary includes some titillating 'enactments' inspired by Tom's art work.
Dancing Dreams

2010

Dancing Dreams

2010
6.8
The dance performance “Kontakthof” bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness, with all its attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is a dance about feelings, which always pose a big challenge – particularly for young people. Teenagers from more than eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey that lasted almost a year. Every Saturday, forty students aged between fourteen and eighteen years of age took part in rehearsals that were led by Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and intensely supervised by Pina Bausch herself.
The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy

2009

The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy

2009
7
The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man's detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti's film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character's radical renunciation of life itself.
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

1988

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

1988
7.6
This documentary offers a rare glimpse of the legendary Soviet filmmaker, Andrei Tarkosvky, at work. Tarkovsky made only seven films in his brief, but brilliant, career; Michal Leszczylowski's respectful movie chronicles him at work on his last film, The Sacrifice. Offering insight into Tarkovsky's working methods and transcendental aesthetics, the movie is a compelling account of the difficulties of film production. In the case of an uncompromising and visionary filmmaker like Tarkovsky, the practical problems of filmmaking are only magnified, as cast and crew struggle to realize the ambitious concepts in Tarkovsky's mind.
Orgasm Inc.

2009

Orgasm Inc.

2009
5.9
Extraordinary behind-the-scenes access reveals a drug company's fevered race to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women - and offers a humorous but sobering look inside the cash-fueled pharmaceutical industry.
I Need That Record!

2008

I Need That Record!

2008
6.5
Guerilla filmmaker Brendan Toller unleashes I NEED THAT RECORD! THE DEATH (OR POSSIBLE SURVIVAL) OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE, "an elegy for a vanishing subculture...a lively, bittersweet film that examines - with caustic humor, brutal candor, and, ultimately, great affection - why roughly 3,000 indie record stores have closed across the nation over the past decade," (Johnathan Perry, Boston Globe). A tour-de-force tale of greed, media consolidation, homogenized radio, big box stores, downloading, and technological shifts in the music industry told through candid interviews, crestfallen record store owners, startling statistics, and eye-popping animation. Fat cats or our favorite record stores? You decide. Featuring- IAN MACKAYE, NOAM CHOMSKY, MIKE WATT, THURSTON MOORE, LENNY KAYE (Patti Smith), CHRIS FRANTZ (Talking Heads), GLENN BRANCA, PATTERSON HOOD (Drive By Truckers), PAT CARNEY (Black Keys) , LEGS MCNEIL, BOB GRUEN, BP HELIUM, and many indie record stores across the U.S.
Bright Leaves

2004

Bright Leaves

2004
6.9
Ross McElwee travels through the North Carolina tobacco belt in search of the ancient southern traditions associated with tobacco growing and use, while comparing his filmmaking to commercial cinema, represented by Bright Leaf, a melodrama directed by Michael Curtiz in 1950, starring Gary Cooper, apparently based on the life of his great-grandfather.
Bananas!*

2009

Bananas!*

2009
6.6
Juan “Accidentes” Dominguez is on his biggest case ever. On behalf of twelve Nicaraguan banana workers he is tackling Dole Food in a ground-breaking legal battle for their use of a banned pesticide that was known by the company to cause sterility. Can he beat the giant, or will the corporation get away with it?