BFI's 100 Documentary Films

What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Cote d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.

At a morgue, forensic pathologists conduct autopsies of the corpses assigned. "S. Brakhage, entering, WITH HIS CAMERA, one of the forbidden, terrific locations of our culture, the autopsy room. It is a place wherein, inversely, life is cherished, for it exists to affirm that no one of us may die without our knowing exactly why. All of us, in the...

A compilation of 60s films on the bomb and what to do when under nuclear attack. From a 21st century perspective, 'Duck and Cover' and other public safety propaganda from the 60s appears naive and misguided.

The chronicle of the political tension in Chile in 1973 and of the violent counter revolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.

Chronicles the events immediately surrounding the CIA- supported coup itself.

Guzmán’s final instalment shifts from covering the actions of Allende’s opponents to those who battled to revive & promote their toppled leader’s vision for a new Chile.

Berlin is Walter Ruttmanns black and white documentary of Berlin in 1927. The big city symphony shows a day in the life of metropolitan Berlin. Showing the industrial uprising as well as the lives and working circumstances of the time.

Michael Moore tries to find more information on the Columbine shooting incident and the larger picture of arms control in the USA.

Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of unconventional interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton; his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio); his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne; early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air F...

Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students ...

Documentary depicts what happened in Rio de Janeiro on June 12th 2000, when bus 174 was taken by an armed young man, threatening to shoot all the passengers. Transmitted live on all Brazilian TV networks, this shocking and tragic-ending event became one of violence's most shocking portraits, and one of the scariest examples of police incompetenc...

A documentary detailing the spread of Hawaiian sugar-cane toads through Australia in a botched effort to introduce them as counter pests.

An in-depth exploration of the various reactions by the French people to the Vichy government's acceptance of the German invasion.

The film begins with a discussion between Rouch and Morin on whether or not it is possible to act sincerely in front of a camera. A cast of real life individuals are then introduced and are led by the filmmakers to discuss topics on the themes of French society and happiness in the working class.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners.

During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Alabama governor George Wallace, deputy attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach and the students Vivian Malone and James Hood. As Wallace has promised to pers...

A feminist documentary about female relationships, especially between mother and daughter.

This fake documentary which appears quite real on the surface is about a young man making a movie about his everyday life and discovering something important about himself and his reality. This film is not a real documentary or is it?

An ethnographic documentary documenting the ritual warfare cycle, social life, and belief systems of the Dani people of the Baliem Valley in western New Guinea.

A narrator recounts the state of Great Britain near the end of WWII via a visual diary for the titular baby boy born in September 1944.

Don’t Look Back is a documentary of Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England. The film begins with the famous and some say best music video of all times "Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The cameras follow Dylan as he experiments with the electric guitar for the first time.

A documentary following Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old WW2 veteran notorious for his protests against Emperor Hirohito, as he tries to expose the needless executions of two Japanese soldiers during the war.

Ce documentaire porte sur la classe unique d'une école communale, à Saint-Etienne sur Usson, en Auvergne. Le réalisateur Nicolas Philibert a ainsi filmé une de ces classes qui regroupent, autour du même maître ou d'une institutrice tous les enfants d'un même village, de la maternelle au CM2.

A compilation of newsreels shot between 1913 and 1917 - the years leading up to the Russian Revolution.

Farrebique, the first feature-length effort of French documentary filmmaker Georges Rouqier, is widely regarded as his finest film. Rouqier concentrates on a single French farm family, following them through the four seasons. As in the works of Robert Flaherty, the human characters and the land surrounding them are "one", and Rouqier never misse...

The final days of the reign of the Shah: processions of mourning and jubilation, scenes after the fire in the Cinema Rex in Abadan, southern Iran, in which 377 viewers died; the famous interview with the Shah – shortly before his departure at Mehrabad Airport, followed by the acclaimed arrival and first speech by Ayatollah Khomeini; finally the ...

An exploration of the careers of four unrelated professionals: a lion tamer, a robotics expert, a topiary gardener, and a naked mole rat specialist.

The life story of Colin McKenzie, a forgotten pioneer of international cinema who was born in rural New Zealand in 1888.

Varda films and interviews gleaners in France in all forms, from those picking fields after the harvest to those scouring the dumpsters of Paris.

An old mother and her middle-aged daughter, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, live their eccentric lives in a filthy, decaying mansion in East Hampton.

Werner Herzog’s documentary film about the “Grizzly Man” Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one man’s 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.

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...

A cinéma vérité documentary observing the Fischer family of Aberdeen, South Dakota, following the 1963 birth of the first surviving American quintuplets. Filmed shortly after the event, the film contrasts civic promotion, media attention, and commercial interest with the private fatigue and quiet suffering of Mrs. Fischer, revealing the tensions...

A filmed account of a bitterly violent miner strike.

In this CBS News production broadcast on Thanksgiving 1960, Edward R. Murrow points out the plight of migrant farm workers in America. Topics range from the harsh living conditions, endless travel, low wages, and poor opportunities for their children.

A documentary crew from the BBC arrives in L.A. intent on interviewing Heidi Fleiss, a year after her arrest for running a brothel but before her trial. Several months elapse before the interview, so the crew searches for anyone who'll talk about the young woman. Two people have a lot to say to the camera: a retired madam named Alex for whom Fle...

This documentary follows two inner-city Chicago residents, Arthur Agee and William Gates, as they follow their dreams of becoming basketball superstars. Beginning at the start of their high school years, and ending almost 5 years later, as they start college, we watch the boys mature into men, still retaining their "Hoop Dreams".

An impassioned three-part documentary of the liberation struggle waged throughout Latin America, using Argentina as a historical example of the imperialist exploitation of the continent. Part I: Neo-Colonialism and Violence is a historical, geographic, and economic analysis of Argentina. Part II: An Act For Liberation examines the ten-year reign...

The problem of slum dwellings in the 1930s.

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Drawing from 40 years' worth of film footage and tape recordings her father sent to family members in India, filmmaker Sandhya Suri crafts a personal history that also explores the experiences of Indian expatriates. After moving to Great Britain in 1965, Yash Pal Suri chronicled his discoveries about his new home along with his feelings of alien...

Both sober and sobering, producer-director Emile de Antonio’s In the Year of the Pig is a powerful and, no doubt for many, controversial documentary about the Vietnam War.

Jazz is a ten part series that explores the evolution – and the genius – of America’s greatest original art form, focusing on the extraordinary men and women who could do something remarkable – create art on the spot. Jazz celebrates their profoundly enduring, endlessly varied, and infinitely alluring music in the context of the complicated coun...

A documentary about the Kon-Tiki expedition of the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl.

A movie with no conventional plot: merely a collection of expertly photographed scenes. Subject matter has a highly environmental theme.

This film shows the disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames. In contrast to the common documentary film there are no comments and few interviews. What must have been the hell itself is presented to the viewer in such beautiful sights and beautiful music that one has to be fascinated by it.

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 follows patients and staff during their treatment. It deals with what would now be called PTSD, but at the time was categorised as psychoneurosis or shell-shock. G...

Documentary about women's experiences of labour, in factories, mines and dockyards, in the USA during the second World War and how it affected their work and career aspirations once they were encouraged to give up such employment in peacetime.

This short film portrays the story of singer Paul Anka, who rose from obscurity to become the idol of millions of adolescent fans around the world. Taking a candid look at both sides of the footlights, this film examines the marketing machine behind a generation of pop singers. Interviews with Anka and his manager reveal their perspective on the...