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2020 : Limited : Documentary Movies - Sort: Most Popular

Amy Renner Amy Renner

Dec. 10, 2022

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Limited VOD / Digital

DEAR SANTA shines a light on the 100-year-old ‘Operation Santa’ Program of the United States Postal Service. Each year, hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa arrive at Post Offices around the country. Through Operation Santa, the USPS makes it possible for the public to safely adopt these letters and make children’s dreams come true. The film invites audiences along for the magic of this massive endeavor. Traveling the country, much like Santa does on Christmas Eve, the film focuses on select ‘Operation Santa’ Centers: some in metropolitan areas and others in small towns where the Post Office is the heart of the community.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 24 mins

  • 3

92%

8%
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A woman is like the ocean: a true force of nature. SHE IS THE OCEAN follows nine extraordinary women, scattered across all corners of the globe. But they are united by the same sea, and their love for these waters is matched only by their dedication to preserve and protect them. A journey of both natural beauty and human empathy, SHE IS THE OCEAN is the story of powerful women with depths unknown.

Documentary

  • 4

57%

43%

It’s tragic that in the world’s wealthiest country, 4.2 million teenagers are homeless. Former Navy veteran and homeless youth, director Rotimi Rainwater shows viewers the realities of life on the streets as he travels the country to shine a light on the epidemic of youth homelessness in America. With the help of celebrities and politicians who have been homeless themselves or advocates of the repressed, this film takes a large scale issue down to a very personal level.

Documentary

  • 2.5

52%

48%

The Fight is an inspiring, emotional insider look at how these important battles are fought and the legal gladiators on the front lines fighting them. Directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Despres capture the rollercoaster ride of the thrill and defeat in these deeply human battles. When a mother is separated from her child, a soldier is threatened to lose his career, a young woman’s right to choose is imperiled at the pleasure of a government official, and the ability to exercise our basic right to vote is threatened, the consequences can be devastating to us and to future generations. The Fight celebrates the unsung heroes who fiercely work to protect our freedoms.

PG-13 Documentary 1 hr, 36 mins

  • 1

14%

86%
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Jerusalem-born trauma expert Ofra Bloch forces herself to confront her personal demons in a journey that takes her to Germany, Israel and Palestine. Set against the current wave of fascism and anti-Semitism sweeping the globe, AFTERWARD delves into the secret wounds carried by victims as well as victimizers, through testimonies ranging from the horrifying to the hopeful.

Documentary

  • 2

44%

56%

Billie Holiday had one of the greatest voices of all time and changed the face of American music. She was a woman of breath-taking talent and global popularity while also stirring controversy. She started a notable rebellion singing “Strange Fruit” which exposed the realities of Black life in America and earned her powerful enemies. Raw, emotional and brutally honest, Billie is filled with never-before-heard interviews from musical greats like Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett, Sylvia Syms and Count Basie.

Documentary Music 1 hr, 36 mins

52%

48%
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City of Joel follows an ultra-orthodox Hasidic sect as they wage a turf war with their secular neighbors. 50 miles north of New York City, the Satmar sect has thrived in a 1.1 square mile religious haven called Kiryas Joel, or City of Joel, for over 40 years. With some of the highest rates of marriage, birth, and religious observance in the US, their success has come at a price, as Kiryas Joel is no longer big enough to hold its 22,000 members. When a plan is created to double the size of the village to keep up with its growth, their secular neighbors fight back, believing that the expansion will disrupt their lives, harm the environment, and tilt the balance of local political power. With unprecedented access, the documentary presents people on all sides of a conflict - from religious zealots to dissidents, from rabbis to people who doubt their own faith as they struggle to find their place in the City of Joel.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 23 mins

  • 4.6

21%

79%

Documentary about Herb Alpert’s personal and creative journey with interviews with Questlove, Sting and Bill Moyers. Alpert has sold over 72 million records and co-founded A&M Records.

Documentary Music

  • 1

75%

25%

The Great American Lie examines the roots of systemic inequalities through a unique gender lens. With America facing widening economic inequality and stagnant social mobility, this film takes audiences on an empathy journey, inspiring a path forward.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 27 mins

  • 1

25%

75%

Aggie' is a feature-length documentary that explores the nexus of art, race, and justice through the story of art collector and philanthropist Agnes "Aggie" Gund's life. Emmy-nominated director Catherine Gund focuses on her mother's journey to give viewers an understanding of the power of art to transform consciousness and inspire social change.

Documentary

  • 1

50%

50%

A documentary about the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas.

Documentary Political

  • 3.5

63%

37%

This documentary portrait of theater operator Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou moves from 1970s Times Square adult film houses through decades of city regulation, chain takeovers, and cultural shifts, charting a charming odyssey through the history of film exhibition and New York City. Abel Ferrara traces the life and work of friend and fellow cinephile Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou, a Cypriot immigrant who began working as a teenager in small neighborhood movie theaters around Manhattan, defying gentrification, changing viewing habits and corporate dominance in the 1980s, only to emerge decades later as one of New York City's last independent theater owners. A moving tribute to friendship, tenacity and the love of cinema, The Projectionist is also a timely paean to what going to the movies is all about.

Documentary

  • 1

18%

82%

Filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and directed by world-renowned photographer Bert Stern, Jazz on a Summer's Day features intimate performances by an all-star line-up of musical legends including Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, and closes with a beautiful rendition or The Lord's Prayer by Mahalia Jackson at midnight to usher in Sunday morning. Fully restored in 4K.

Documentary 1 hr, 25 mins

  • 5

71%

29%

Using interviews and rare archival footage, John Lewis: Good Trouble chronicles Lewis’ 60-plus years of social activism and legislative action on civil rights, voting rights, gun control, health-care reform and immigration. Using present-day interviews with Lewis, now 79 years old, Porter explores his childhood experiences, his inspiring family and his fateful meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957. In addition to her interviews with Lewis and his family, Porter’s primarily cinéma verité film also includes interviews with political leaders, Congressional colleagues, and other people who figure prominently in his life.

PG Documentary Political 1 hr, 36 mins

  • 1

69%

31%

How does a filmmaker go from creating cutting-edge work and competing in Cannes to being labelled a failed erotic filmmaker? The debut documentary feature from Polish critic and academic Kuba Mikurda investigates the work of Walerian Borowczyk, a director of unparalleled creativity & sensitivity, revered in the 1970s for creations including Goto, Island of Love, The Beast, & Immoral Tales. The film interviews his closest collaborators, filmmakers, and leading intellectuals who put his work into perspective, including Bertrand Bonello, Neil Jordan, Patrice Leconte, Slavoj Žižek, Terry Gilliam and the late Andrzej Wajda.

Documentary 1 hr, 16 mins

0%

100%

Moroni Benally is running for the presidency of the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American nation in the US. Young, gay, Mormon, and highly educated, he sets out to confront the political establishment in a homecoming that challenges what he imagined home, and himself, to be. Simultaneously a behind-the-scenes look into a political campaign within a Native American community and an exploration of identities within the community, Moroni for President is an eye-opening and humorous portrait of a political race that runs surprisingly parallel to the current political landscape of the US at large.

Drama Documentary 1 hr, 22 mins

22%

78%

Werner Herzog turns the camera on himself and his decades-long friendship with the late travel writer Bruce Chatwin, a kindred spirit whose quest for ecstatic truth carried him to all corners of the globe. Herzog’s deeply personal portrait of Chatwin, illustrated with archival discoveries, film clips, and a mound of “brontosaurus skin,” encompasses their shared interest in aboriginal cultures, ancient rituals, and the mysteries stitching together life on earth.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 29 mins

  • 2

40%

60%

The inspiring true story of a poor Irish immigrant who sets sail for America in 1928 with dreams of becoming a millionaire but, with the help of the most iconic celebrities of Hollywood, ends up spending his life championing the message, "The family that prays together stays together."

PG Documentary 1 hr, 11 mins

  • 1

89%

11%

An unapologetic look at race, class and polarized politics manifest themselves in unexpected and very messy ways.

Documentary

57%

43%

Spaceship Earth is the true, stranger-than-fiction, adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called BIOSPHERE 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult. The bizarre story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially reimagine a new world.

Documentary

  • 1

71%

29%

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