Observational Documentary Movies

Follow filmmakers as they capture the epic journey of African elephants across the Kalahari desert. The team faces extreme weather, inaccessible...

Some 220 miles above Earth lies the International Space Station, a one-of-a-kind outer space laboratory that 16 nations came together to build. Get a...

Candid interviews of ordinary people on the meaning of happiness, an often amorphous and inarticulable notion that evokes more basic and...

Today in France, one in five young people suffers from severe depressive symptoms, and the number of minors visiting psychiatric emergency rooms has...

A cinéma vérité exploration of the grueling schedules, auditions, lighting design, and backstage operations at the famous...

Climate change is accelerating the melting of glaciers around the world. A study conducted across all continents sounds the alarm about the urgent...

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated...

An account of the last two centuries of the Anthropocene, the Age of Man. How human beings have progressed so much in such a short time through war...

Filmed over 23 years, Rise of the Warrior Apes tells the epic story of an extraordinary troop of chimpanzees in Ngogo, Uganda – featuring four...

Raising Bertie is a longitudinal documentary feature following three young African American boys over the course of six years as they grow into...

In 1932, the writer Paul Nizan published "The New Watchdogs" to denounce the philosophers and writers of his time who, sheltering behind intellectual...

Employing methods of direct cinema–observation, limited stylization, and non-intervention–this stark look into the State Prison for the...

At an Atlanta abortion clinic besieged by protesters, the director of operations, Tracii, takes necessary risks to safeguard staff and patients.

Markus Becker is hit by a car, dragged along, his head bashed on a curb and he falls into a coma. The doctors don’t believe that the...

Shot over the course of 30 days at sea, filmmaker Alizé Jireh documents the group’s voyage across the North Atlantic—from moments...

Pussy Riot make a comeback after a long absence to stand with Ukraine. Their story and their struggle are told through archival footage and...

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie...

In 1978, the Amoco Cadiz, a supertanker loaded with 220,000 tons of petrol, ran aground in Brittany, France. The accident caused the biggest oil...

MENTAL is a feature-length documentary that observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, interwoven with patients,...

In 2001, satellite imagery captured a mysterious “thermal anomaly” on an unexplored volcano at the ends of the Earth. What lies inside...