Poetic Documentary Movies

This short experimental film tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood to become a star, only to fail and be dehumanized. He is identified by...

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of...

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem...

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied...

A formally free poetic documentary filmed through a summer depression in northern Portugal.

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

On July 25th, 2020, Ridley Scott and Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald invite you to be part of Life in a Day—a historic, global documentary...

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form....

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan,...

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting...

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form....

May Pang lovingly recounts her life in rock & roll and the whirlwind 18 months spent as friend, lover, and confidante to one of the towering figures...

Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing...

Robert Drew shows the sights and sounds from the funeral of President John F. Kennedy in November, 1963. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in...

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th...

Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history...

A generational trauma through the lens of an Asian American teenager through food and poetry.

A short anecdotal documentary about the nature of destruction, a debilitating deadlock of humanity.

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.