Top Rated Documentary Movies on Kanopy - Page 77

Art of the Prank

2015

Art of the Prank

2015
6.8
The great media prankster, Joey Skaggs, wants to fool the world media AGAIN, and, with the most complex hoax of his career in the pipeline, he now must use every trick in his prankster's arsenal to make it work. Art of the Prank is an emotional journey following the evolution of artist Joey Skaggs-a fierce proponent of independent thinking and the man who has turned the media hoax into an art form. With unprecedented access to the man and his archives, the 95-minute documentary interweaves a current unfolding hoax with a look behind-the-scenes at some classic performance pieces (all reported as fact by a wide range of prestigious journalists) plus commentary from co-conspirators and others.
Motley's Law

2015

Motley's Law

2015
5.6
This captivating documentary follows tough-as-nails lawyer (and former Mrs. Wisconsin) Kimberley Motley, the only American allowed to practice law in Afghanistan. Motley defends US and European citizens caught in the country’s legal and political quagmire, even as she finds herself under threat of assassination. While Motley brazenly chastises Afghani judges on behalf of her clients, she must also balance the needs of her family a world away.
Ida's Diary

2015

Ida's Diary

2015
5.6
Ida's Diary is a film about hope and courage, about finding your own identity and daring to live. It's a personal film based on Ida's own video diary from the last eight years.
Presenting Princess Shaw

2016

Presenting Princess Shaw

2016
6.6
Through You Princess will follow Samantha, Kutiman, and some of the musicians around the world who are not aware of Kutiman creating his new music out of their musical web clips. Everyone is from another background, culture, and country, but all share now a mutual musical vision.
Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art

2015

Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art

2015
6
The titular troublemakers are the New York–based Land (aka Earth) artists of the 1960s and 70s, who walked away from the reproducible and the commodifiable, migrated to the American Southwest, worked with earth and light and seemingly limitless space, and rethought the question of scale and the relationships between artist, landscape, and viewer. Director James Crump has meticulously constructed Troublemakers from interviews (with Germano Celant, Virginia Dwan, and others), photos and footage of Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and Charles Ross among others at work on their astonishing creations.
Kampai! For the Love of Sake

2015

Kampai! For the Love of Sake

2015
6.4
An American journalist, a British sake brewer and the president of a centenary Japanese sake brewery join together to explore the mysterious world of sake, a generic name for Japanese rice wine, actually a sort of liquor. These unique individuals, fascinated by this extraordinary beverage, investigate the spectacular world that has grown around it thorough ages.
Small is Beautiful: A Tiny House Documentary

2015

Small is Beautiful: A Tiny House Documentary

2015
4.5
Four people seek a more sustainable and secure future by asking the question: "What is it really like to build and live in a tiny house?"
Southern Rites

2015

Southern Rites

2015
5.4
Southern Rites visits Montgomery County, Ga., one year after the town merged its racially segregated proms, and during a historic election campaign that may lead to its first African-American sheriff. Acclaimed photographer Gillian Laub, whose photos first brought the area unwanted notoriety, documents the repercussions when a white town resident is charged with the murder of a young black man. The case divides locals along well-worn racial lines, and the ensuing plea bargain and sentencing uncover complex truths and produce emotional revelations.
League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis

2013

League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis

2013
7.5
Drawing on the book of the same name, League of Denial crafts a searing two-hour indictment of the National Football League’s decades-long concealment of the link between football related head injuries and brain disorders.
The Royal Road

2015

The Royal Road

2015
4.9
A fascinating and unlikely reinvention story, The Royal Road simultaneously explores cinematic spiritual channeling, the conquest and colonization of Mexico and the American Southwest, fading historical Californian urban landscapes, and the passions found in butch identity to achieve an achingly beautiful and poetic defense of remembering. Probing roads from El Camino Real, to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, to the road right outside the front door, Olson crafts a deeply intelligent and transcending observation of the human condition that reaches for redemption in the embrace of history, nostalgia, mindfulness, and sheer beauty. If you give yourself over to it, it will crack you wide open.
Western

2015

Western

2015
5
For generations, all that distinguished Eagle Pass, TX, from Piedras Negras, MX, was the Rio Grande. But when darkness descends upon these harmonious border towns, a cowboy and lawman face a new reality that threatens their way of life.
Sembene!

2015

Sembene!

2015
7
Meet Ousmane Sembene, the African freedom fighter who used stories as his weapon.
How to Dance in Ohio

2015

How to Dance in Ohio

2015
6.6
In Columbus, Ohio, a group of autistic teenagers and young adults role-play this transition by going through the deceptively complex social interactions of preparing for a spring formal. Focusing on several young women as they go through an iconic American rite of passage, we are given intimate access to people who are often unable to share their experiences with others. With humor and heartbreak, How to Dance in Ohio shows the daily courage of people facing their fears and opening themselves to the pain, worry, and joy of the social world.
Sam Klemke's Time Machine

2015

Sam Klemke's Time Machine

2015
6.2
In 1977, Sam Klemke began obsessively filming and documenting his life on film. Over the next 35 years we see Sam grow from an optimistic teen to a self-important 20 year old, into an obese, self-loathing 30-something and onwards into his philosophical 50s.
Magical Universe

2014

Magical Universe

2014
6.2
A documentarian strikes up an odd friendship with reclusive 80 year old outsider artist Al Carbee, whose strange Barbie-doll photography gains acclaim and interest over the course of the project's multi-year history. Far beyond a portrait of an eccentric, Magical Universe is about wonder, friendship, and the transcendent power of creativity
I Am Road Comic

2014

I Am Road Comic

2014
5.8
Interviews with T.J. Miller, Pete Holmes, Marc Maron, Doug Benson, Jim Norton, Judah Friedlander, Alonzo Bodden, Maria Bamford, Jen Kirkman, Auggie Smith, W. Kamau Bell, Nikki Glaser, Wayne Federman, Seth Milstein, Oni Perez, Alysia Wood, Kris Tinkle, Traci Skene, Brian McKim, Tim O’Rourke, Tom Rhodes, Kyle Kinane and yours truly.
Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake

2001

Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake

2001
7.2
A look back on Tupac's final years through the eyes of Tupac's personal bodyguard, Frank Alexander. Featuring never-before-seen footage.
The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg

1994

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg

1994
5.3
Visionary, radical, spiritual seeker, renowned poet, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human rights, Buddhist, political activist and teacher. Allen Ginsberg's remarkable life challenged the very soul of the United States.
Big Mama

2000

Big Mama

2000
6.5
Eighteen months in the life of 89 years old Viola Dees as she tries of persuade Los Angeles authorities that she can care for her grandson, 9-year-old Walter.
Nails

1979

Nails

1979
7
This Oscar-nominated documentary short tracks the shift in the relationship of an individual to his work between the 19th century and today. Focusing on how nails are made, we first see a blacksmith laboring at his forge, shaping nails from single strands of steel rods. The scene then shifts from this peaceful setting to the roar of a 20th century nail mill, where banks of machines draw, cut, and pound the steel rods faster than the eye can follow.