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2021 : Limited : Documentary Movies - Sort: Most Popular

Amy Renner Amy Renner

Jan. 16, 2023

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Limited VOD / Digital

STRAY explores what it means to live as a being without status or security, following three strays as they embark on inconspicuous journeys through Turkish society. Zeytin, fiercely independent, embarks on adventures through the city at night; Nazar, nurturing and protective, easily befriends the humans around her; while Kartal, a shy puppy living on the outskirts of a construction site, finds companions in the security guards who care for her. The strays’ disparate lives intersect when they each form intimate bonds with a group of young Syrians with whom they share the streets. Director Elizabeth Lo’s award-winning film is a critical observation of human civilization through the unfamiliar gaze of dogs and a sensory voyage into new ways of seeing.

Documentary 1 hr, 12 mins

  • 5

87%

13%
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Limited VOD / Digital

GUNDA chronicles the unfiltered lives of a mother pig, a flock of chickens, and a herd of cows with masterful intimacy. Using stark, transcendent black and white cinematography and the farm's ambient soundtrack, Master director Victor Kossakowsky invites the audience to slow down and experience life as his subjects do, taking in their world with a magical patience and an other worldly perspective. GUNDA asks us to meditate on the mystery of animal consciousness, and reckon with the role humanity plays in it. Executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix.

G Drama Documentary 1 hr, 33 mins

  • 3.7

67%

33%

With his signature blend of scientific acumen, candor and integrity, Dr. Anthony Fauci became America’s most unlikely cultural icon during COVID-19. A world-renowned infectious disease specialist and the longest-serving public health leader in Washington, D.C., he has valiantly overseen the U.S. response to 50 years’ worth of epidemics, including HIV/AIDS, SARS and Ebola. FAUCI is an unprecedented portrait of one of our most vital public servants, whose work saved millions while he faced threats from anonymous adversaries.

PG-13 Documentary

27%

73%

A Crime on the Bayou is the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teenager from Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans. In 1966, Duncan tries to break up an argument between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. The boy recoils like a snake. That night, police burst into Duncan’s trailer and arrest him for assault on a minor. A young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, leaves his prestigious D.C. firm to volunteer in New Orleans. With his help, Duncan bravely stands up to a racist legal system powered by a white supremacist boss to challenge his unfair arrest. Their fight goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and their lifelong friendship is forged.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 29 mins

  • 5

88%

13%
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How far do you have to travel to find yourself? And what sacrifices are you willing to make to get there? Veiga Grétarsdóttir is the first person in the world to attempt to kayak the 1,300 mile circumference of Iceland, counter-clockwise and against the current, an achievement that has been compared to climbing K2. Veiga’s personal journey is no less remarkable. She was born 44 years ago as a boy in a fishing village on the far west coast of Iceland. By the age of 38 Veigar had a wife and family but decided that she could no longer live as a man and decided to undergo gender reassignment. The inner struggle for Veigar to become Veiga was a journey as difficult if not more so than the solo kayak expedition she undertakes. These two stories of conflict and struggle are intertwined as the film follows her amazing 103 day journey around Iceland, with the magical, rugged coastline of the country a backdrop to the story of Veiga’s transition.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 28 mins

  • 4

80%

20%

In the fall of 1971, tensions between inmates and guards at the Attica Correctional Facility are at an all-time high. On the morning of September 9, it all comes to a head when inmates erupt into one of the largest U.S. prison riots ever witnessed.

Documentary

  • 5

89%

11%
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Homeroom follows Oakland High School’s class of 2020 as they confront an unprecedented year. Anxiety over test scores and college applications gives way to uncertainty springing from a rapidly developing pandemic. Efforts to eliminate the school district’s police force unfold against the backdrop of growing nationwide demands for systemic change.

NR Documentary

  • 4

60%

40%

Tells the story of the legendary cookbook author and television superstar who changed the way Americans think about food, television, and even about women. Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.

PG-13 Documentary 1 hr, 35 mins

  • 4.5

97%

3%

It’s not where you go. It’s what you leave behind . . . Chef, writer, adventurer, provocateur: Anthony Bourdain lived his life unabashedly. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?), this unflinching look at Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him.

Documentary 1 hr, 58 mins

  • 3

67%

33%

Super Frenchie provides an intimate look at the life of professional skier and BASE jumper Matthias Giraud, who stops at nothing to pursue his passion for adventure. The film follows Matthias as he dares ever more dangerous stunts while simultaneously falling in love and starting a family. The story takes a turn when Matthias suffers a catastrophic crash just days before the birth of his first child.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 17 mins

  • 5

50%

50%

A cinematic quest to find the “52 Hertz Whale,” which scientists believe has spent its entire life in solitude calling out at a frequency that is different from any other whale. As the film embarks on this engrossing journey, audiences will explore what this whale’s lonely plight can teach us — not just about our changing relationship to the oceans, but to each other.

PG Documentary

  • 3

71%

29%

In a small Oregon community, a high school soccer team struggles to overcome their class and racial divides in a quest for both individual and team success. Win or lose, soccer has the power to level the playing field and unite us all.

Documentary 1 hr, 21 mins

  • 4.6

76%

24%

Moby Doc is a surrealist biographical documentary narrated by Moby as he reflects on his turbulent personal life and iconic music from underground punk bands to chart-topping solo artist, and from struggling addict to vegan activist. Featuring interviews with David Lynch and David Bowie, along with extraordinary concert footage, utilizing a unique blend of re-enactments, interviews, and archival footage, audiences will be treated to an insightful, unvarnished look at an artist who has sold more than 20 million albums, an activist who has long championed animal rights, and a man whose traumatic childhood shaped him in profound ways. This introspective journey sets out to answer existential questions of purpose and meaning by examining a life of extreme highs and lows, joy, tragedy, success and failure.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 32 mins

  • 3

64%

36%

American jazz musician Billy Tipton developed a reputable touring and recording career in the mid-twentieth century, along with his band The Billy Tipton Trio. After his death in the late 80s, it was revealed that Tipton was assigned female at birth, and his life was swiftly reframed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 20 mins

  • 4.5

67%

33%

From the Oscar-nominated director of The Gatekeepers comes the untold, behind-the-scenes story of the United States’ 30-year effort to secure peace in the Middle East, told from the perspective of the American negotiators.

PG-13 Documentary

  • 5

33%

67%

Documentary about the execution of Carlos DeLuna who was arrested in 1993 aged 21 for the murder of Wanda Lopez. DeLuna protested his innocence until his execution, declaring that it was another Carlos who committed the crime.

Crime Documentary

  • 2.5

58%

42%

A documentary about The Villages, America’s largest retirement community – a massive, self-contained utopia located in Central Florida. Behind the gates of this palm tree-lined fantasyland, Some Kind of Heaven invests in the dreams and desires of a small group of Villages residents – and one interloper – who are unable to find happiness within the community’s pre-packaged paradise.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 23 mins

  • 3

71%

29%

Project Recover, a small team of accomplished scientists, historians, and military veterans, scour the depths of the ocean and the farthest corners of the earth, to search for and recover the remains of the more than 80,000 Americans missing in action since World War II, delivering closure, solace, and kinship to MIA families who’ve gone generations without answers.

Documentary 1 hr, 21 mins

  • 5

89%

11%

What if we are living in a simulation, and the world as we know it is not real? To tackle this mind-bending idea, acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (Room 237) uses a noted speech from Philip K. Dick to dive down the rabbit hole of science, philosophy, and conspiracy theory. Leaving no stone unturned in exploring the unprovable, the film uses contemporary cultural touchstones like The Matrix, interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a wide array of voices, expert and amateur alike. If simulation theory is not science fiction but fact, and life is a video game being played by some unknowable entity, then who are we, really?

NR Documentary 1 hr, 48 mins

  • 3

63%

37%

A documentary that sheds light on William Henry Pratt (better known by his stage name, Boris Karloff) as Hollywood’s master of menace, as well as his films, his legend and the fears that haunted him through his life. Karloff is best known for his role as “The Monster” in the classic horror films Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). This documentary examines his extraordinary 60-year career in the entertainment industry, as well as his continuing influence as a horror icon.

NR Documentary 1 hr, 30 mins

  • 1

91%

9%

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