Movies: Historical documentary

It's the most extraordinary feat of engineering in history, and one of the most iconic man-made structures on the planet - the Great Wall of China, stretching thousands of miles across barren deserts and treacherous mountains before finally plunging ...

The story of the documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1971), directed by Marcel Ophüls, which caused a scandal in a France still traumatized by the German occupation during World War II, because it shattered the myth, cultivated by the followers of P...

This comedic retrospective mixes archival footage and scripted sketches as it revisits all the dread — and occasional delight — that 2021 had to offer....

On the same day that Stalin was buried, Sergei Prokofiev's funeral took place completely unnoticed. And if the farewell to the composer quietly went against the backdrop of the farewell to the dictator that swept the whole country, then in the play e...

The little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898 — the only coup d’état in the history of the US. Stoking fears of 'Negro Rule', self-described white supremacists used i...

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, bystander...

This educational documentary describes the political, social, and religious conditions of sixteenth century Europe. It also Interprets the reforms of Martin Luther as a part and/of these conditions as indications of future trends....

In April 1918, a disease of unknown origin swept across the five continents. In 18 months, millions of lives that had not been taken by the war were swept away by a virus that would cause the worst pandemic in history: the Spanish flu....

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Romantic art was a response to the social upheavals of the 19th century, as shown by works by its emblematic painters Friedrich, Venetsianov and Delacroix....

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention....

What happened after Einstein fled Nazi Germany? Using archival footage and his own words, this docudrama dives into the mind of a tortured genius....

Emmett Till was brutally killed in the summer of 1955. At his funeral, his mother forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism. This short documentary was commissioned by "Time" magazine for their series "100 Photos" about the mo...

By decoding ancient hieroglyphic texts, Jean-François Champollion gave voice to an enigmatic civilization, but behind his legendary feat is a mysterious brother who made it possible. The recent discovery of correspondence between Jean-François Champo...

Egyptian archeologists dig into history, discovering tombs and artifacts over 4,000 years old as they search for a buried pyramid in this documentary....

Using masterfully restored footage from recently declassified images, The Bomb tells a powerful story of the most destructive invention in human history. From the earliest testing stages to its use as the ultimate chess piece in global politics, the ...

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the United States....

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun....

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really m...

Were the eleven official witnesses—twelve if you include Joseph Smith himself—of the Book of Mormon reliable? What about the unofficial witnesses who interacted with the plates in various ways—including a number of women? Were the plates actually mad...