1980s Documentary Movies

Famous Spanish film critic Alfonso Sánchez talks about his personal life, his work and Anouk Aimée. A sentimental tribute to one of the most relevant figures on the Spanish film scene.

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

Completed a year after his death in 1983, this program presents the definitive biography of Spain’s renowned Surrealist film maker and iconoclast, Luis Buñuel. Using photographs, film excerpts, and numerous interviews with Bunuel, the video chronicles his early friendships with Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca, the stormy reactions to many of his groundbreaking films, and the influence he has had on international cinema. Among those interviewed are directors Federico Fellini, John Huston, and Jose L. Saenz De Heredia; Buñuel’s wife, Jeanne Rucar, and son Juan; actor Francisco Rabal; and Octavio Paz.

The film shows the genesis of the El Rocío pilgrimage and unveils the economic, socio-political and religious reasons and interests that nurture the phenomenon.

Narrated by Phil Harris, a longtime friend of Fountain's, "Pete!" uses performance film, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and a home videos to offer an intimate portrait of Fountain, the walking, talking embodiment of his hometown. Produced and directed by by John Beyer, the film originally aired on PBS stations nationwide. When it aired locally as part of a PBS membership drive, "Pete!" was credited with raising "more than had ever been raised by a single program in the history of WYES," according to a story published in The Times-Picayune in August 1980.

In this heartwarming docudrama, Chilean immigrant Marilú Mallet strives to make a film about her experience of deep isolation. Her English-speaking husband, a prominent film director, criticizes her subjective approach to filmmaking; her young son, raised in Quebec, speaks only French. Interviews with Isabel Allende and other Chilean exiles reveal a deep bond in this powerful and resonant film about language and genre, exile and immigration.

A documentary about filmmaker Marguerite Duras.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Peter Fonda host an examination of the history of decency standards for movies from the early 1920s onwards.

No overview available

In interviews, various actors and directors discuss their careers and their involvement in the making of what has come to be known as "cult" films. Included are such well-known genre figures as Russ Meyer, Curtis Harrington, Cameron Mitchell and James Karen.

Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.

It is 1 p.m. on June 30, 1982, when Christophe Profit, 24, shows up at the foot of Les Drus with his pof bag, his climbing shoes and nothing else. He will try the west face of Les Drus in "solo", in the Mont Blanc massif by "Directe Américaine", 1100 meters of vertical and smooth rock. Christophe will achieve the feat of climbing the wall in free solo, without using a rope or any belaying technique. At 4:10 p.m., barely more than three hours after the start of his ascent, the new climbing star can embrace the Virgin of the Drus at the same time as the career of a high-level mountaineer. Three years later, on July 25, 1985, he climbed the north faces of the Matterhorn, the Eiger and the Jorasses in the same day. Awarded at many mountain film festivals, this great documentary is a magnificent testimony to one man's passion for climbing, the mountains and adventure.

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Photographer Bruce Weber profiles boxer Andy Minsker, including his pro career and family relations, and the boys' boxing club Minsker runs.

A series of images, music and sounds which transport through Mexico's history, without any narrative sequence. The film spins constantly round the question 'Where are the singers from?'

The Black Audio Film Collective’s acclaimed essay film, 'Handsworth Songs', examines the 1985 race riots in Handsworth and London. Interweaving archival photographs, newsreel clips, and home movie footage, the film is both an exploration of documentary aesthetics and a broad meditation social and cultural oppression through Britain’s intertwined narratives of racism and economic decline.

The story of sport of Mayas

No overview available

In a world of cold facts, this film speaking in more than 20 languages offers a vision of a world momentarily united and willing to listen to the human voice.

A documentary which follows a coach party of former inmates on a trip to Auschwitz.

The Official Golden Harvest tribute to the Master of the Martial Arts Film, Bruce Lee.

William's government blended elements of the English and Norman systems into a new one that laid the foundations of the later medieval English kingdom. How abrupt and far-reaching the changes were is still a matter of debate among historians, with some such as Richard Southern claiming that the Conquest was the single most radical change in European history between the Fall of Rome and the 20th century. Written by jeff davis, III

At the roots of reggae, in Jamaica, close-up on the group Third World. Portraits of the musicians in their daily lives and the cultural context from which they draw their artistic inspiration.

The second entry in Velu Viswanadhan's series of experimental documentaries. This film traces the Ganges river upstream.

No overview available

Story of psychological pressure which former Soviet Afghan soldiers have to deal with in peaceful life. Through the story of Ruslan we are shown how public indifference often leads to drug usage.

About prostitution in late USSR. Who are they? Why are they doing it? Are they ashamed? What do foreigners feel and want from it?

Right after the Red Army in 1944 was deliberating a little village, Veszto in eastern Hungary, the locals formed their "government", excommunicated the goods remaining in the village and distributed them among the poor. The social experiment only lasted two months, but this episode later became infamous in the communist press of Hungary and was referred to as 'Republic of Veszto'. 35 years later, in 1979, the actors and the witnesses, the representatives of the communist administration back then and the poors of the village get together in a little pub in Veszto and try to resuscitate and evaluate those old days. The memories clash one another.

No other film has the sweeping review of Ali's greatest fights, the legendary fight footage, and the real time relevant comments and conversations with the men who made him "The Greatest." Muhammad Ali was simply the greets and he proved by going up against the most incredible fighters of all time, together they made the world of sports stand still as they battled for dominance.

No overview available

Produced in almost marginal conditions, Los Totos is a portrait of life in impoverished neighbourhoods

This documentary traces the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice.

An investigation & analysis of UFO contactee Billy Meier's sightings, photographs & films.

In Our Nazi, we are plunged into a situation we barely, and only slowly, understand: the filming of Thomas Harlan’s experimental feature Wundkanal (1984), in which true-life ex-SS officer Alfred Filbert, now very old, is ‘put on trial’ for the camera, without him suspecting what is to come or why he is really there. Kramer’s confronting film is an essay about the sticky complicity of everyone present at this event, each bringing their own history, their own political ideology, their own desires to take revenge, to seek redemption or compassion, or just to put their heads down and ‘get the job done’ professionally, or (in the case of Filbert) to be a star, a part of the magnificent, magical, seductive world of cinema, even if it kills him.

When Brazil finally came out from its dictatorship period, Tancredo Neves, the first civilian president after 20 years of military rule, got ill with a strange infection and finally died on 21 April 1985 before taking office. Knowing political stability could get compromised, before dying, he tried to look healthy, and the press also helped with the farce. The documentary is about his slow public agony and death.

A five-year portrait of Junior Rios' descent into the black hole of drug addiction which will ultimately cost him everything.

A story about several beaver families in their wild surroundings. The interesting process of building a dam can be watched as well as the dangers arising from hungry bears and other influences on the new-built home.

A documentary about the closure of General Motors' plant at Flint, Michigan, which resulted in the loss of 30,000 jobs. Details the attempts of filmmaker Michael Moore to get an interview with GM CEO Roger Smith.

A documentary about the exciting possibilities of computer animation and the shaping of never before imagined worlds.