Directed by Claire Simon • 2016 • France

Every year, a mere forty students are selected from hundreds of applicants to study at Paris’s La Fémis, one of the most prestigious film schools in the world. Following in the footsteps of Frederick Wiseman, Claire Simon (OUR BODY) observes the process w...

Directed by Wim Wenders • 1989 • West Germany, France

Wim Wenders’s diary film investigates the similarities between his approach to filmmaking and the work of celebrated Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, who, in the early 1980s, revolutionized the fashion world with his avant-garde silhouettes ...

Directed by Bruce Brown • 1966 • United States

The definitive surfing documentary, Bruce Brown’s sun-kissed cinematic dream follows California beach bums Mike Hynson and Robert August on a round-the-world odyssey that takes them from Australia to Tahiti to Hawaii to Senegal to South Africa and b...

Directed by Jack Hazan • 1973 • United Kingdom
Starring David Hockney

This intimate and innovative documentary about English-born, California-based artist David Hockney and his work honors its subject through creative risk-taking. Director Jack Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction...

Directed by D. A. Pennebaker • 1967 • United States

Bob Dylan is captured on-screen as he never would be again in this groundbreaking film from D. A. Pennebaker. The legendary documentarian finds Dylan in England during his 1965 tour, which would be his last as an acoustic artist. In this wildly...

Directed by Sini Anderson • 2013 • United States

Kathleen Hanna, electrifying lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill and dance-punk trio Le Tigre, rose to national attention as the reluctant but never shy voice of the riot grrrl movement, becoming both a famously outspoken feminist leader as w...

Directed by Estefanía Contreras and Silvia del Carmen Castaños • 2023 • United States

In HUMMINGBIRDS, directors Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras tell their own coming-of-age story, transforming their hometown on the Texas-Mexico border into a wonderland of creative expr...

Directed by Abel Ferrara • 2024 • United Kingdom, Germany, Italy
Starring Patti Smith

An intensely visceral, aesthetically bold personal response to the war in Ukraine that only the fearlessly iconoclastic director Abel Ferrara could make, this form-breaking documentary blends harrowing battlefi...

Directed by Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen • 2000 • United States

Far from a standard music documentary, Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen’s loving portrait of underground musician Benjamin Smoke—speed freak, drag queen, and a true outsider artist in every sense of the word—captures his singular personalit...

Directed by Michael Glawogger • 2005 • Austria, Germany

Michael Glawogger’s startling, unflinching look at some of the world’s most dangerous jobs is an eye-opening confrontation with the kind of backbreaking, life-threatening labor that is often rendered invisible. Shooting amid the harsh condi...

Directed by Corinna Belz • 2011 • Germany

A sublime work of art in its own right, this beautifully shot, endlessly revealing documentary offers unprecedented insight into the life and work of one of the greatest artists of our time. In the spring and summer of 2009, legendary German painter Gerh...

Directed by Sierra Urich • 2023 • United States

In this moving first-person documentary, a young filmmaker delves into her mother and grandmother’s complicated pasts and her own fractured Iranian identity. Having grown up in rural Vermont, far removed from the homeland of her mother, Mitra, and ...

Directed by Barbara Sonneborn • 1998 • United States

In this powerful and poetic documentary, the legacy of the Vietnam War is explored from a perspective rarely acknowledged: that of the survivors whose lives continue to be impacted by the loss of their loved ones. Twenty years after her husban...

Directed by Alison Tavel • 2024 • United States

Winner of the SXSW Audience Award for Documentary Feature, RESYNATOR marks filmmaker Alison Tavel’s directorial debut, chronicling her ten-year journey as she uncovers the revolutionary synthesizer her late father created in the 1970s. What begins ...

Directed by Marian Lacombe • 2023 • France

A SEASON WITH ISABELLA ROSSELLINI catches up with the celebrated actor, model, animal-behavior expert, and all-around creative force as she is turning seventy, facing life with the same spirited curiosity and playfulness that have sustained her singular...

Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe • 2022 • United States
Starring John Waters, Karyn Kusama, Justin Benson

The themes, images, and cultural vernacular of Victor Fleming’s THE WIZARD OF OZ continue to haunt David Lynch’s filmography—from his early short THE ALPHABET to his recent television serie...

Directed by Nick Spitzer • 1984 • United States

Shot in rural French-speaking Louisiana, this vibrant ethnographic portrait of zydeco’s beloved musical families explores their Creole identities through engaging footage of them at home, in local clubs, at work, and running Mardi Gras. Featuring p...

Directed by Robert Abel • 1965 • United States

SEVEN SECOND LOVE AFFAIR marked legendary filmmaker Les Blank’s first documentary photography job shooting drag racers in Long Beach, California. Driving everything from hopped up Mercs to supercharged Rail Dragsters, these daredevil drivers could a...

Directed by Benjamin Christensen • 1922 • Denmark
Starring Benjamin Christensen, Astrid Holm, Karen Winther

Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that th...