2000s Documentary Movies

Award-winning documentary about how one Uruguayan leftist survived solitary confinement during the dirty war. The story of former Tupamaro guerilla fighter, Henry Engler, whose prolonged confinement and torture during the Uruguayan dictatorship led to a mental breakdown. Today Dr. Engler is a Swedish citizen and a scientist renowned for his research into Alzheimer’s disease. In this impressive documentary, the scientist visits the places of his painful past, painting an intimate and disturbing portrait of prison life under the dictatorship.

Twenty years ago, director Christiane Burkhard’s parents died in a plane crash. Now she has made a documentary, in collaboration with her sister, about remembering and coming to terms with the facts. First, she looks for accounts in the former homes and from family and friends of the couple. She also has a large number of old Super-8 recordings. Her mother was an enthusiastic amateur filmmaker, who captured all the major family events on film. Together with her sister, Burkhard watches the footage of the smiling faces of her parents. Making this documentary becomes a self-conceived ritual that should help her bid farewell to an unreal and unaccepted past. The subdued tone suits the difficulties all those involved have talking about the event, even after twenty years.

Archival race footage, outtakes, home videos and interviews Dale Earnhardt's friends, family, and competitors are used in this documentary on the racing legend who won seven NASCAR championships before his death in 2001 at the Daytona 500.

A look into the world of 20th century burlesque queens. The film premiered on HBO and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2006

Johnny Knoxville and his band of maniacs perform a variety of stunts and gross-out gags on the big screen for the first time. They wander around Japan in panda outfits, wreak havoc on a once civilized golf course, they even do stunts involving LIVE alligators, and so on.

Fantasies and clichés about Brazil and Brazilians as reinforced by international films, even those actually shot in Brazil. This documentary features interviews with non-Brazilian directors, writers and stars who have been involved in some of those films.

Documentary about Héctor Germán Oesterheld, his experience as a comic book writer, and his political activism. Colleagues and comic book experts analyze his narrative style and the impact his joining the Montoneros had on his writing. Elsa Oesterheld, his wife, recounts the final years of his life, when he and his four daughters were victims of state terrorism.

In America, size matters. The bigger you are, the more power you have, especially in the business world. Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate the industry.

This beautifully crafted and thoughtful film deploys rarely seen archival footage, right-wing movement propaganda and original investigative material to probe the origins of apocalyptic Christian nationalism and its most extreme adherents, as they move from the margins to the mainstream. A riveting historical document as well as cautionary commentary on power vacuums, racism and civil society apathy, SILHOUETTE CITY prefigures the so-called “alt right” forces that now rally around Trump as their emboldening metropole. This history is troubling enough to be fiction, but in fact, this is the factual story of one faction of American fascism and its rise to the mainstream.

The short piece features remarks and footage from Forster, Wilson, Bradley, Evans, Kurylenko and Arterton.

This short documentary looks at X2's main new hero. Writer/artist Chuck Austen discusses his entrance into comics and his take on the character as well as some of Nightcrawler's history.

The true story of the rise of a Japanese businessman from Los Angeles named Eishy Hayata from an Airline engineer into the legend of the Emerald world -- the Emerald Cowboy

Faced with President François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac embodied the opposition. In 1986, the right won the legislative elections and he became Prime Minister. After two years of tough cohabitation, François Mitterrand was re-elected in 1988. After a moment of despondency, the Chirac machine started up again. During the referendum on Maastricht, he took a position for the "yes", against the vast majority of his party. In March 1993, the opposition led by Chirac won a crushing victory. Edouard Balladur became Prime Minister. In 1995, Jacques Chirac was elected President of the Republic: thirty years of political life found their fulfillment.

March 27, 1977. At 2:00 in the afternoon, a thick fog rolled into the usually quiet Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. On the runway sat two fully loaded jumbo airliners. An explosion at a nearby airport had redirected air traffic to the undermanned airfield at Tenerife. Within three hours 583 people would be dead. This film reconstructs the moments leading up to the tragedy.

This documentary follows various migratory bird species on their long journeys from their summer homes to the equator and back, covering thousands of miles and navigating by the stars. These arduous treks are crucial for survival, seeking hospitable climates and food sources. Birds face numerous challenges, including crossing oceans and evading predators, illness, and injury. Although migrations are undertaken as a community, birds disperse into family units once they reach their destinations, and every continent is affected by these migrations, hosting migratory bird species at least part of the year.

A film created by Les Blank and Maureen Gosling from footage that was cut from the documentary "Always for Pleasure" (1978) about Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

A surrealist home movie, filmed by Luis Buñuel in Cadaqués in 1930, focusing on Salvador Dalí's father and his wife.

A compilation of interviews, rehearsals and backstage footage of Michael Jackson as he prepared for his series of sold-out shows in London.

RIO BREAKS is more than just a film about surfing. It follows the story of two best friends, Fabio and Naama, as they navigate their way between the pitfalls of life in the slums and the joys of surfing on their favorite beach. Their goal: to win the contest and become professional surfers. Thirteen-year-old Fabio and 12-year-old Naama live at Favela do Pavao, an enormous slum near Arpoador Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pavao is home to Commando Vermelho (CV), or Red Command, one of Rio's most heavily armed drug gangs. It's the Red Command who sets the rules and regulates life in the community. Their presence is ubiquitous, with armed soldiers constantly patrolling the hills and regulating the various points of sale. Fabio lives in an area of the favela called Vietnam, the poorest and most violent part of the slum.

9to5 - Days in Porn focuses on the people behind a controversial and multi-billion dollar industry "The Adult Entertainment industry". It depicts their stories, each one different, unadorned and authentic, without glorification or prejudice. It delivers deep insight into their personal lives - from glamorous to grotesque - strange, fascinating, offensive, absurd and sometimes funny moments all at once.

Today's been sad. Tomorrow won't get any better. Let's un-do it all over again

Filmmaker Marc Forster expresses his thoughts and reflections on life.

Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit.

Exposes the down and dirty schemes and calculated market manipulation behind the glitter of Wall Street. It is a must see for anyone who has ever lost money in stocks...or fears they're about to.

On the triple frontier between Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the twin towns of Letícia and Tabatinga form an urban island surrounded by the Amazon rain-forest. Following the ordinary events and the constant come and go of people along the border, Terras portrays the presence and the influence of the frontier on the lives of its inhabitants.

Tory Island, nine miles off the coast of Donegal is the most remote inhabited island off Ireland. Its notorious inaccessibility and unforgiving landscape has not deterred 150 people from making this island their home. Oileán Thoraí captures, over the course of eighteen months, the changing patterns of life on Tory. It’s an intimate portrayal, exploring the lives of the islanders, their character and community.

"VICE travels to the most dangerous country in the world to figure out what the hell is happening in Darfur. In the video, Vice founder Shane Smith dons a djellaba and walks through the streets of Khartoum, visits a displaced persons camp filled with over 300,000 people and encounters the notorious SPLA (Sudan People Liberation Army)."

A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

A sardonic look at the dark secrets of the British Film Industry of the 1920s and 30s, where scandal and sordid behaviour was almost as rife as in Hollywood.

Chronicles the rise and fall of 1970s New York City nightclub Plato's Retreat.

For more than a decade, an eccentric animator has worked on films featuring a little clay figure he calls "Puppetboy". Many hours of animation have been completed, yet very little has been made available to the public. Following the artist behind the scenes we discover a very intimate relationship between him an his protagonist.

With a team of the world's foremost historic and marine experts as well as friend Bill Paxton, James Cameron embarks on an unscripted adventure back to the wreck of the Titanic where nearly 1,500 souls lost their lives almost a century ago.

The Happy Child is a story of "New Wave" rock genre predominant in the ex-Yugoslavia during the socialist 70's and 80's.

From the Academy Award-winning director of When We Were Kings comes this enthralling tribute to the timeless power and magic of basketball.

Join leading astronomers on a visual journey beyond our solar system in search of planets like Earth. Using CGI animation, we'll explore bizarre worlds that stretch our imagination: planets with iron rain and hot ice, with diamonds everywhere, and endless oceans of gas. Planets with abnormal orbital patterns and planets with no pattern at all that drift alone in the Milky Way. Planets so strange we never could have predicted them before. Could life exist there?

John McNaughton's spotlight on George Condo and his art. The film, which follows the progress of Condo's large-scale oil painting Big Red over the course of one year, features an appearance by Allen Ginsberg, as well as footage of Condo collaborating with William S. Burroughs on paintings the two made together at Burroughs' Kansas home in the mid-1990s.

Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

This is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and the 280 million Americans lucky enough to have the right to a constitutionally protected Uzi. From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old. Bowling for Columbine is a journey through the US, through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.

Documentary about the marginal neighborhood 'Las tres mil viviendas', in Seville.

James Cameron teams up with NASA scientists to explore the Mid-Ocean Ridge, a submerged chain of mountains that band the Earth and are home to some of the planet's most unique life forms.