An audiovisual symphony that delves into the industrial, agrarian, and cultural fabric of the Donbas region during the inaugural Soviet Five Year Plan. It spotlights anti-religious campaigns, propagandistic marches, and…

A World War II drama-documentary showing the struggles of Merchant Navy seamen following an attack by a U-Boat. Western Approaches is a vast area of ocean control covering thousands of…

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…

Oscar winner William Wyler directed this 1944 “newsdrama,” narrated by Lieut. Robert Taylor, USNR (Bataan), and photographed in zones of combat by the U.S. Navy. The film follows one of…

The research, development, and deployment of the first atomic bomb, as well as the bombing of Hiroshima, are detailed in this docudrama.

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant…

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany…

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

The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film…

This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.

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…

Joris Ivens’s advocacy documentary for the Republican cause intercuts a besieged Madrid with a nearby village digging an irrigation canal, linking the war to bread, land, and survival. Produced by…

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings

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.

Expeditions in Borneo by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson show the terrain, flora, fauna and lifestyle of Borneo as the Johnsons search for a huge orangutan.

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

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love…

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

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada’s northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful…

The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film…

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl’s monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports…