Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American…

A dramatized re-enactment and documentary of the Battle of Verdun as seen by both French and German soldiers, shot on site of the actual battle.

This WW2 documentary centers on the crew of the American B-17 Flying Fortress Memphis Belle as it prepares to execute a strategic bombing raid on Nazi submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven,…

Stanley Kubrick’s short documentary about Father Fred Stadtmueller, a Catholic priest serving a vast 4,000-square-mile parish in rural New Mexico. To reach his scattered congregation, he pilots his own Piper…

Joris Ivens’s wartime documentary of China’s resistance to the Japanese invasion, cross-cutting civilian exodus and bombing with the Nationalist state’s mobilization—schools, industry, dispersed war production, foreign relief—and guerrilla fighting. Framing…

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings

The fifth film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World…

A silent film by John Grierson. It tells the story of Britain’s North Sea herring fishery.

A propaganda short film produced by the US Navy in 1945 about the naval engagements of the invasion of Okinawa.

The movie follows the clock round as music hall clown Beby takes off his make up, goes home for a meal, looks at photos and goes to bed to rise,…

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

A lyrical portrait of Amsterdam and its changing appearance during a rain-shower.