Movies: Documentary portrait

"McCarthy" chronicles the rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who came to power after a stunning victory in an election no one thought he could win. Once in office, he declared that there was a vast conspiracy threatening America ...

Two legends contested their identities as women in the court of public opinion: April Ashley, who was immortalized as a trailblazer by embracing her transgender history; and Amanda Lear, who has consciously denied and obfuscated her history for decad...

...

...

The Strangest Dream tells the story of Joseph Rotblat, the history of nuclear weapons, and the efforts of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs - an international movement Rotblat co-founded - to halt nuclear proliferation....

A wide-ranging, definitive look at Hawk’s life and iconic career, and his relationship with the sport with which he’s been synonymous for decades, featuring unprecedented access, never-before-seen footage, and interviews with Hawk and prominent figur...

Heaven Adores You is an intimate, meditative inquiry into the life and music of Elliott Smith. By threading the music of Elliott Smith through the dense, yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in -- Portland, New York City,...

Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least o...

Péter Gerő's unfinished portrait film of cinematographer-filmmaker György Fehér. The "film torso" (as the director calls it), which is shorter than 40 minutes, features such prominent figures from the history of Hungarian film and television as theat...

...

...

...

Two men, a Finn and a Belarusian live alone, on a lake's island....

I AM RAQUEL WELCH is a feature documentary that celebrates the life of a trailblazing actress and single mother who not only redefined the world's idea of a Hollywood "Sex Symbol," but also led the way for modern-day action heroines....

More than 60,000 of Ernest Cole’s 35mm film negatives were inexplicably discovered in a bank vault in Stockholm, Sweden. Most considered these forever lost, especially the thousands of pictures he shot in the U.S. Told through Cole’s own writings, th...

With his grizzled moustache and chiselled features, Charles Bronson is the embodiment of a slightly archaic, brooding and almost reactionary virility. But who is he really? Often hired to play marginalised Native American or Mexican characters befor...

Jonestown: Paradise Lost is a documentary on the final days of Jonestown, the Peoples Temple, and Jim Jones. From eyewitness and survivor accounts, it recreates the last week before the mass murder-suicide on November 18, 1978....

Learn more about Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign, his personal life and more through this documentary....

This film sketches a very personal and decidedly political portrait of the Iron Lady who left the greatest mark on the UK, alongside Queen Elizabeth II. Archives and interviews are enriched by songs from this period that really help to understand the...

Shadows have followed Harvey Keitel wherever he went, from his blasphematory childhood, to the army and his iconic roles in films such as Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. Treated as an outcast after being fired from the set of Apocalypse Now,...