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2012 : Documentary Movies - Sort: Most Popular

Amy Renner Amy Renner

Nov. 25, 2013

Filter menu Filters Showing 1-20 of 92 movies

In Theaters Netflix Blu-ray Netflix DVD

Disneynature takes moviegoers deep into the forests of Africa with Chimpanzee, a new True Life Adventure introducing a baby chimp named Oscar and his entertaining approach to life in a story of family bonds and individual triumph. Oscar’s playful curiosity and zest for discovery showcase the intelligence and ingenuity of some of the most extraordinary personalities in the animal kingdom. Working together, Oscar’s chimpanzee family—including his mom and the group’s savvy leader, Freddy— navigates the complex territory of the forest. The world is a playground for little Oscar and his fellow young chimps, who’d rather make mayhem than join their parents for an afternoon nap. But when Oscar’s family is confronted by a rival band of chimps, he is left to fend for himself until a surprising ally steps in and changes his life forever.

G Family Documentary

  • 4

88%

12%
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Following five kids and families over the course of a school year, the film confronts bullying’s most tragic outcomes, including the stories of two families who’ve lost children to suicide and a mother who waits to learn the fate of her 14 –year-old daughter, incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus. With rare access to the Sioux City Community School District, the film also gives an intimate glimpse into school busses, classrooms, cafeterias and even principles offices, offering insight into the often-cruel world of children, as teachers, administrators and parents struggle to find answers.

PG-13 Documentary 1 hr, 40 mins

  • 4.3

89%

11%

Takes us to Southern Louisiana, where a group of young athletes, including future MMA powerhouse Dustin Poirier, strive towards personal and professional greatness.

NR Sports Documentary

  • 4

48%

52%

A first-ever big-screen look at the international superstar’s life both on and off stage.

PG Documentary Music 1 hr, 31 mins

  • 3

64%

36%
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Netflix DVD New York / Los Angeles

For the young dancers at the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the world's most prestigious ballet competitions, lifelong dreams are at stake. With hundreds competing for a handful of elite scholarships and contracts, practice and discipline are paramount, and nothing short of perfection is expected. Bess Kargman's documentary, First Position, follows six young dancers as they prepare for a chance to enter the world of professional ballet, struggling through bloodied feet, near exhaustion and debilitating injuries all while navigating the drama of adolescence.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 30 mins

  • 4

65%

35%

A documentary about Earth's most valuable resource, water.

PG-13 Documentary

  • 3.7

30%

70%
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A look inside the world of Major League Baseball (MLB) training camps in the Dominican Republic. Miguel Angel and Jean Carlos are two of the top prospects at an MLB training camp, and they are both about to turn 16, which means they can be signed to an MLB farm team and ultimately move up to the majors.

NR Sports Documentary 1 hr, 12 mins

  • 3.7

30%

70%

A feature documentary that will follow seven people from around the world as they travel to Comic-Con in San Diego.

PG-13 Documentary

  • 4.5

69%

31%

July 4, 1976, Entebbe, Uganda - Led by Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, crack Israeli commandos burst inside a non-descript airline terminal, killing stunned terrorists and evacuating 103 hostages. A lone shot sounds in the night, and Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lay dead. Follow Me is an intimate story that penetrates the tough exterior of the only soldier killed in Entebbe. Using Yonatan's own poetry, letters and prose, the film delves into the mind of this reluctant young hero, where duty to family and country, love, turmoil, and doubt over the core value of war raged.

NR Documentary

  • 4

74%

26%

Exposes the abuse of power in the Catholic Church and a cover-up that winds its way from the row houses of Milwaukee Wisconsin, through the bare ruined choirs of Ireland's churches all the way to the highest office of the Vatican.

Documentary 1 hr, 46 mins

  • 3.3

39%

61%

2016 Obama's America takes audiences on a journey into the heart of the world’s most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years. The film examines the question, "If Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?"

PG Documentary

  • 3.8

62%

38%

Only the Young is the story of the children that inhabit a small desert town in Southern California – a town dominated by foreclosed homes and underpasses, unfilled swimming pools and skate parks. The three teenagers of focus must find things to do in a place that offers nothing – but in observing their day-to-day lives, we see them discover friendship, first love, heartbreak, and what it means to be young.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 10 mins

44%

56%
Limited VOD / Digital

Over the past century more than 45,000 large dams have redefined river corridors around the globe with disastrous results. Descending the Baker River from the Northern Patagonia Ice Cap to its terminus at the Pacific Ocean, Patagonia Rising investigates a controversial plan to build five large hydroelectric dams in Chile's famed wilderness. Stopping off at Patagonia's most remote frontier ranches, this engaging story brings voice to the iconic South American cowboys, Gauchos, caught in the crossfire of future energy demands. Chile could become a leader in sustainable energy development, or it could continue down the road to squandering the pure watersheds of Patagonia.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 28 mins

  • 3

0%

100%

Robert Cringely's 1995 conversation with the late co-founder of Apple.

Documentary

  • 4

41%

59%
Limited Netflix Blu-ray Netflix DVD

Named by ArtReview as the most powerful artist in the world, Ai Weiwei is China's most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, he quickly became China's most famous missing person. First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to the charismatic artist, as well as his family and others close to him, while working as a journalist in Beijing. In the years she filmed, government authorities shut down Ai's blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention--while Time magazine named him a runner-up for 2011's Person of the Year.

R Documentary 1 hr, 31 mins

19%

81%

Chronicles the 90-year-old icon - both onstage and off...past and present. The film is both an intimate love story and a rarefied journey inside Broadway's most glamorous era.

Documentary

  • 4

21%

79%

Chely Wright: Wish Me Away is the story of Chely Wright, the first Nashville music star to come out as gay. Over three years, the filmmakers were given extraordinary access to Chely's struggle and her unfolding plan to come out publicly. Using interviews with Chely, her family, her pastor, and key players in the music world, alongside Chely's intimate private video diaries, the film goes deep into her back story as an established star and then forward as she steps into the national spotlight to reveal her secret. Chronicling the aftermath in Nashville and within the LGBT community, Chely Wright: Wish Me Away reveals both the devastation of her own internalized homophobia and the transformational power of living an authentic life.

NR Documentary Music 2 hrs, 0 mins

  • 3

39%

61%

In central China, a Master coach recruits poor rural teenagers and turns them into Western-style boxing champions. Through hard work and discipline, these boys and girls come of age, trained in the art of boxing and the game of life. They are filled with Olympic dreams, hoping to become China's next amateur heroes. But the pull of professionalism also weighs upon their shoulders. Their coach hopes to show them the way. The top student boxers face dramatic choices as they graduate--should they fight for the collective good as amateurs or for themselves and their own personal gain as professionals? It's a metaphor for the choices that everyone faces now, in the New China.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 34 mins

  • 3

43%

57%
Limited Netflix DVD

Nobody noticed when thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent died in her apartment above a shopping mall in North London in 2003. When her skeleton was discovered three years later, her television was still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of Joyce's life- not even a photograph. Who was Joyce Vincent? And how could this happen to someone in our day and age--the so-called age of communication? Dreams of a Life is Carol Morley's quest to discover who Joyce was and how she came to be so forgotten.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 35 mins

  • 2.8

44%

56%
Los Angeles Netflix DVD VOD / Digital

Does hell exist? If so, who ends up there, and why? Featuring an eclectic group of authors, theologians, pastors, social commentators and musicians, Hellbound? is a provocative, feature-length documentary that looks at why we are so bound to the idea of hell and how our beliefs about hell affect the world we are creating today.

NR Documentary

  • 3

45%

55%

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