Free: F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise, the 1927 Masterpiece Voted the 5th Best Movie of All Time

in Film | February 17th, 2014

Ger­man direc­tor F.W. Murnau’s silent mas­ter­piece Sun­rise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) is a rare exam­ple of a for­eign auteur who man­aged to keep his vision in the face of the Hol­ly­wood machine.

Pri­or to this movie, F. W. Mur­nau was arguably the most impor­tant film direc­tor of his time. He direct­ed a string of Ger­man Expres­sion­ist works that were as bleak and brood­ing as they were tech­ni­cal­ly bril­liant. Murnau’s eeri­ly, hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry Nos­fer­atu (1922) rede­fined the hor­ror movie. The spec­tac­u­lar­ly depress­ing Der Let­zte Mann (1924) fea­tured a rov­ing cam­era, dou­ble-expo­sure and forced per­spec­tive to bril­liant­ly evoke the shame, humil­i­a­tion and (in one tour-de-force sequence) drunk­en­ness of a proud door­man demot­ed to a wash­room atten­dant. And his adap­ta­tion of Faust (1926) was the most lav­ish, expen­sive movie Ger­many had ever pro­duced at the time.

Enter William Fox, a Jew­ish-Hun­gar­i­an immi­grant who found­ed the Fox Film Cor­po­ra­tion. Though his stu­dio was mod­er­ate­ly suc­cess­ful pro­duc­ing Tom Mix seri­als, he aspired to some­thing greater; he aspired to art. Fox con­vinced Mur­nau to make the jump to Hol­ly­wood, in part by agree­ing to build a $200,000 set for the movie — an astro­nom­i­cal sum in those days.

Sun­rise opens with a series of title cards that announce just what this movie is about:

This song of the man and his wife is of no place and every place; you might hear it any­where at any time. For wher­ev­er the sun ris­es and sets in the city’s tur­moil or under the open sky on the farm, life is much the same; some­times bit­ter, some­times sweet.

Mur­nau and his screen­writer Carl Mey­er (who also wrote Der Let­zte Mann) made the plot­line so sim­ple, so uni­ver­sal that the char­ac­ters don’t even have names.

A strug­gling farmer is smit­ten with a femme fatale from the city. She invei­gles him to drown his young wife and run off to the city with her. But when it comes time to do the deed, he real­izes that he can’t do it. When the wife flees from him, he fol­lows her into the city, apol­o­giz­ing pro­fuse­ly. Even­tu­al­ly, he and his remark­ably for­giv­ing wife rec­on­cile and rekin­dle their love for one oth­er. The sto­ry is so ele­men­tal that it could be a fairy tale.

Yet Murnau’s abil­i­ty to spin absolute­ly daz­zling images — using tech­nol­o­gy per­fect­ed in Ger­many – is what makes Sun­rise so mem­o­rable. At one point in the movie, the cam­era seem­ing­ly floats over a crowd in an amuse­ment park; at anoth­er the lovers walk down a city street that, with­out a cut, trans­forms into a flow­er­ing mead­ow. Com­pared to his Hol­ly­wood con­tem­po­raries – D.W. Grif­fith for exam­ple – Murnau’s movie seems vital, mod­ern, and sur­pris­ing­ly poignant.

Though the movie earned a few Oscars – includ­ing one for Best Unique and Artis­tic Pro­duc­tion and one for Best Actress for Janet Gaynor — Sun­rise suf­fered the fate of many cin­e­mat­ic mas­ter­pieces: It flopped. Yet over the years, its crit­i­cal rep­u­ta­tion has only grown. In 2012, it was named the 5th best movie of all time by Sight and Sound mag­a­zine just ahead of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unlike Kubrick’s sci-fi saga, how­ev­er, you can watch Sun­rise for free on Archive.org. Check it out. Also find the clas­sic on our list of Great Silent Films, part of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free: Dzi­ga Vertov’s A Man with a Movie Cam­era, Named the 8th Best Film Ever Made

Watch Ten of the Great­est Silent Films of All Time — All Free Online

Watch Nos­fer­atu, the Sem­i­nal Vam­pire Film, Free Online (1922)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

15 Minute History: Quick History Lessons from a New, Chart-Topping Podcast

in History | February 17th, 2014

I’ve always been jeal­ous of friends who stud­ied his­to­ry in col­lege. They’ve got a work­ing knowl­edge of the caus­es of wars, eco­nom­ic crises, polit­i­cal upheavals, and any oth­er triv­ia ques­tion-wor­thy events. Thank­ful­ly, what­ev­er I’d like to learn is mere­ly a click away: we’ve got over 800 free online cours­es (includ­ing 67 free his­to­ry cours­es) list­ed on Open Cul­ture at the time of writ­ing, and edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions con­tin­ue to upload new lec­tures every week. Most of the lec­tures, how­ev­er, last from 30 min­utes to an hour, requir­ing users to cor­don off a block of time for study. Want some­thing short­er? Enter the 15 Minute His­to­ry pod­cast, cur­rent­ly the fourth most pop­u­lar pod­cast on iTune­sU.

The result of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin’s Hemi­spheres and Not Even Past pub­lic out­reach efforts, the 15 Minute His­to­ry pod­cast focus­es on key sub­jects in world his­to­ry and U.S. his­to­ry. Although the pod­cast is tai­lored to Texas teach­ers and stu­dents, empha­siz­ing the state’s K‑12 cur­ricu­lum, it also hap­pens to be a trea­sure trove of free con­tent for any­one inter­est­ed in his­to­ry. The short pod­casts, which last some 15 min­utes on aver­age, cov­er every­thing from Russia’s Octo­ber 1917 Rev­o­lu­tion, to the Ottoman Empire, to the glob­al con­text of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion. Each episode is led by one of three UT Austin aca­d­e­mics, who dis­cuss the top­ic at hand with anoth­er uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor or grad­u­ate stu­dent. Con­ve­nient­ly, on the 15 Minute His­to­ry web site, the pod­casts are accom­pa­nied by a care­ful­ly for­mat­ted tran­script, plus addi­tion­al read­ing mate­ri­als for those who find them­selves curi­ous about a par­tic­u­lar top­ic.

Inter­est­ed read­ers can find the whole pod­cast series on iTunes, or on the web.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Crash Course in World His­to­ry

The Com­plete His­to­ry of the World (and Human Cre­ativ­i­ty) in 100 Objects

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy, from 600 B.C.E. to 1935, Visu­al­ized in Two Mas­sive, 44-Foot High Dia­grams

Jorge Luis Borges Chats with William F. Buckley on Firing Line (1977)

in Literature, Television | February 17th, 2014

Despite his respect­ed facil­i­ty with the Eng­lish lan­guage, Argen­tine mas­ter crafts­man of short fic­tion Jorge Luis Borges did his best work in his native Span­ish. Though we remem­ber pro­lif­ic inter­view­er and even more pro­lif­ic writer William F. Buck­ley for his for­mi­da­ble com­mand of Eng­lish above all else, he did­n’t even learn it as his first lan­guage, start­ing in on his Eng­lish edu­ca­tion at age sev­en, hav­ing already learned Span­ish (not to men­tion French).

This must have placed him well to appre­ci­ate Borges’ writ­ing, and indeed, in his intro­duc­tion to their Fir­ing Line con­ver­sa­tion above, Buck­ley cites Borges’ rep­u­ta­tion as the great­est, most influ­en­tial writer then alive. “We met in Buenos Aires, in 1977, dur­ing the mil­i­tary jun­ta days,” Buck­ley recalls of the tap­ing in a Paris Review inter­view. “He seemed aston­ish­ing­ly frail, but he spoke with­out a pause.”

Buck­ley goes on to pro­vide many choice quotes from Borges’ answers to ques­tions about his sight (“When you are blind, time flows in a dif­fer­ent way. It flows, let’s say, on an easy slope”), his love of Amer­i­can writ­ers like Emer­son and Melville, his lan­guages (“Of course, my Latin is very rusty. But still, as I once wrote, to have for­got­ten Latin is already, in itself, a gift”), and where he finds beau­ty and art (“A man may say a very fine thing, not being aware of it. I am hear­ing fine sen­tences all the time from the man in the street, for exam­ple. From any­body”), and how he taught (“I tried to teach my stu­dents not literature—that can’t be taught—but the love of lit­er­a­ture”). For more on that last, see also “The Dag­gers of Jorge Luis Borges,” a piece on the new book Pro­fes­sor Borges: A Course on Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture, by Michael Green­berg in the New York Review of Books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 33 Vol­umes of Jorge Luis Borges’ Favorite Short Sto­ries (Read 7 Free Online)

Borges: Pro­file of a Writer Presents the Life and Writ­ings of Argentina’s Favorite Son, Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

Two Draw­ings by Jorge Luis Borges Illus­trate the Author’s Obses­sions

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, Asia, film, lit­er­a­ture, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on his brand new Face­book page.

Browse The Magical Worlds of Harry Houdini’s Scrapbooks

in History, Religion, Science, Theatre | February 16th, 2014

Between the mid-nine­teenth and ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­turies, men and women alike made scrap­books as a way of pro­cess­ing the news. As Ellen Gru­ber Gar­vey shows in her book Writ­ing with Scis­sors: Amer­i­can Scrap­books from the Civ­il War to the Harlem Renais­sance, the prac­tice crossed lines of class and gen­der. Every­one from Mark Twain and Susan B. Antho­ny to Joseph W.H. Cath­cart, an African-Amer­i­can jan­i­tor liv­ing in Philadel­phia who amassed more than a hun­dred vol­umes in the sec­ond half of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, select­ed and past­ed arti­cles and ephemera into big books, often anno­tat­ing and com­ment­ing upon the mate­r­i­al.

The Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin has recent­ly dig­i­tized ten scrap­books belong­ing to Har­ry Hou­di­ni. The books are divid­ed into three groups: vol­umes com­piled by oth­er magi­cians about their careers; scrap­books hold­ing Houdini’s clip­pings on the prac­tice of mag­ic in gen­er­al; and books that chart Houdini’s inves­ti­ga­tions of fakes, frauds, and con­jur­ers. (Lat­er in his life, Hou­di­ni became fas­ci­nat­ed with the post-WWI fad for spiritualism—mediums, séances, and psychics—and took on a role as skep­ti­cal debunker of spir­i­tu­al­ist per­form­ers.)

The scrap­books are fun to look at on a num­ber of lev­els. First, it’s cool to think of Hou­di­ni and his magi­cian col­leagues select­ing the arti­cles and images and arrang­ing them on the page. Sec­ond, the mate­r­i­al that’s cov­ered is col­or­ful and bizarre (an arti­cle in one of Hou­dini’s books: “Tri­al By Com­bat Between A Dog And His Master’s Mur­der­er”). Third, Hou­di­ni and his cohort clipped and saved from a wide array of peri­od­i­cals; while it’s some­times annoy­ing that many of the arti­cles have lost their meta­da­ta (date and place of pub­li­ca­tion), it’s still inter­est­ing to see the range of types of cov­er­age that pre­vailed at the time.

The book put togeth­er by the per­former S.S. Bald­win, mailed to Hou­di­ni by Baldwin’s daugh­ter Shad­ow after Baldwin’s death, is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing.  The Ran­som Center’s intro­duc­tion to the col­lec­tion notes that some items in the Bald­win scrap­book “depict graph­ic sub­ject matter”—a sure entice­ment for this researcher, at least, to make sure to check it out. The warn­ing may refer to this amaz­ing image of the Indi­an god­dess Kali draped in sev­ered heads and limbs, or an engrav­ing of an exe­cu­tion by ele­phant. Along­side many arti­cles about his per­for­mances, fliers, and oth­er ephemera, Bald­win also col­lect­ed images of peo­ple liv­ing in the places where he performed—an approach that adds yet anoth­er lev­el of inter­est to his scrap­book.

H/T Not Even Past

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Online Emi­ly Dick­in­son Archive Makes Thou­sands of the Poet’s Man­u­scripts Freely Avail­able

The Pulp Fic­tion Archive: The Cheap, Thrilling Sto­ries That Enter­tained A Gen­er­a­tion of Read­ers (1896–1946)

 New Archive Makes Avail­able 800,000 Pages Doc­u­ment­ing the His­to­ry of Film, Tele­vi­sion, and Radio

Rebec­ca Onion is a writer and aca­d­e­m­ic liv­ing in Philadel­phia. She runs Slate.com’s his­to­ry blog, The Vault. Fol­low her on Twit­ter: @rebeccaonion.

New “Hemingway” App Promises to Make Your Writing “Strong and Clear”

in English Language, Literature, Writing | February 15th, 2014

I con­fess, I pre­fer Faulkn­er to Hem­ing­way and see noth­ing wrong with long, com­plex sen­tences when they are well-con­struct­ed. But in most non-Faulkn­er writ­ing, they are not. Stream of con­scious­ness is a delib­er­ate effect of care­ful­ly edit­ed prose, not the unre­vised slop of a first draft. In my days as a writ­ing teacher, I’ve read my share of the lat­ter. The Eng­lish teacher’s guide for par­ing down unruly writ­ing resem­bles a new online app called “Hem­ing­way,” which exam­ines writ­ing and grades it on a col­or-cod­ed dif­fi­cul­ty scale. “Hem­ing­way” sug­gests using sim­pler dic­tion, edit­ing out adverbs in favor of stronger verbs, and elim­i­nat­ing pas­sive voice. It promis­es to make your writ­ing like that of the famous Amer­i­can min­i­mal­ist, “strong and clear.”

Of course I couldn’t resist run­ning the above para­graph through Hem­ing­way. It received a score of 11—merely “O.K.” It sug­gest­ed that I change the pas­sive in sen­tence one and remove “care­ful­ly” from the fourth sen­tence (I declined), and it iden­ti­fied “unruly” as an adverb (it is not). Like all forms of advice, it pays to use your own judg­ment before apply­ing whole­sale. Nev­er­the­less, the sug­ges­tion to stream­line and sim­pli­fy for clarity’s sake is a gen­er­al rule worth heed­ing more often than not. Broth­ers Adam and Ben Long, cre­ators of the app, real­ized that their “sen­tences often grow long to the point that they became dif­fi­cult to read.” It hap­pens to every­one, ama­teur and pro­fes­sion­al alike. The app sug­gests writ­ing that scores a Grade 10 or below is “bold and clear.” Writ­ing above this mea­sure is “hard” or “very hard” to read. Which prompts the inevitable ques­tion: How does Hem­ing­way him­self score in the Hem­ing­way app?

In a blog post yes­ter­day for The New York­er, Ian Crouch ran a few of the master’s pas­sages through the online edit­ing tool (a con­cept akin to John Malkovich enter­ing John Malkovich’s head). The open­ing para­graph of “A Clean, Well-Light­ed Place” received a score of 15. Hemingway’s descrip­tion of Romero the bull­fight­er from The Sun Also Ris­es also “breaks sev­er­al of the Hem­ing­way rules” with its use of pas­sive voice and extra­ne­ous adverbs. Does this mean even Hem­ing­way falls short of the ide­al? Or only that writ­ing rules exist to be bro­ken? Both, per­haps, and nei­ther. Style is as elu­sive as gram­mar is con­strict­ing, and both are mas­tered only through end­less prac­tice. Will “Hem­ing­way” turn you into Hem­ing­way? No. Will it make you a bet­ter writer? Maybe. But only, I’d sug­gest, inas­much as you learn when to accept and when to ignore its advice.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sev­en Tips From Ernest Hem­ing­way on How to Write Fic­tion

Jack Ker­ouac Lists 9 Essen­tials for Writ­ing Spon­ta­neous Prose

Crime Writer Elmore Leonard Pro­vides 13 Writ­ing Tips for Aspir­ing Writ­ers

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

285 Free Documentaries Online

in | February 14th, 2014

Watch over 200 free doc­u­men­taries online. The doc­u­men­taries cov­er every­thing from music and cin­e­ma, to lit­er­a­ture, reli­gion, pol­i­tics and physics. They’re thought-pro­vok­ing, eye-open­ing, and enlight­en­ing. For more great films, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

• 3,000 Free Films from the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da — Free — The Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da has put online thou­sands of films, includ­ing a good num­ber of doc­u­men­taries.
• 400 Free Doc­u­men­taries from Deutsche Welle — Free — The Ger­man pub­lic broad­cast­er makes avail­able 400+ doc­u­men­taries cov­er­ing many areas, includ­ing arts & cul­ture.
• 10 Years with Hayao Miyaza­ki — Free — A four part doc­u­men­tary on the unstop­pable Japan­ese ani­ma­tor direct­ed by Kaku Arakawa. (2019)
• 15 Films by Design­ers Charles & Ray Eames — Free — Watch a series of short films by the icon­ic design­ers.
• 50 Archi­tec­ture Doc­u­men­taries — Free — A col­lec­tion of free doc­u­men­taries direct­ed by Richard Copans on famous archi­tects and build­ings. Top­ics include Bauhaus, Le Cor­busier, Zaha Hadid & more.
• A is for Archi­tec­ture — Free — This short doc­u­men­tary offers a panora­ma of archi­tec­ture, mov­ing from one tra­di­tion to anoth­er, illus­trat­ing how each reflects the sen­ti­ments and val­ues of its time. (1960)
• A Brief His­to­ry of John Baldessari — Free — A short film nar­rat­ed by Tom Waits on the life and work of West-Coast con­cep­tu­al artist John Baldessari. (2012)
• A Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Primer — Free — An instruc­tion­al film on the basics of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, cre­at­ed by Charles and Ray Eames of Eames Office for IBM. (1953)
• A Land With­out Bread — Free — Osten­si­bly a doc­u­men­tary about the Las Hur­des region locat­ed in a remote cor­ner of Spain, this Luis Buñuel’s film is in fact a lac­er­at­ing par­o­dy of trav­el doc­u­men­taries. (1933)
• A Look Behind the Future — Free — Intrigu­ing 1966 doc­u­men­tary takes you inside the mak­ing of Kubrick­’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the thrilling tech­nolo­gies then in real-life devel­op­ment. (1966)
• A Man Among Men: Alber­to Gia­comet­ti — Free — An hour-long doc­u­men­tary about Gia­comet­ti, by Jean-Marie Drot. (1963)
• A Nec­es­sary Ruin: The Sto­ry of Buck­min­ster Fuller and the Union Tank Car Dome — Free — Tells the his­to­ry of the Union Tank Car Dome, the largest clear-span struc­ture in the world, based on the engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples of the vision­ary design sci­en­tist Buck­min­ster Fuller. (2010)
• A Sto­ry of Heal­ing — Free — Won Acad­e­my Award for best Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. Fol­lows a team of vol­un­teers in Viet­nam. (1997)
• A World of Art: The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art — Free — Found­ed in 1870, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art in New York City is a three dimen­sion­al ency­clo­pe­dia of art his­to­ry. Filmed in 2004.
• Albert Ein­stein: How I See the World — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on physi­cist Albert Ein­stein which chron­i­cles the expe­ri­ences that lead him to become a great advo­cate for world peace. (1991)
• Aleis­ter Crow­ley: The Wickedest Man in the World — Free —  Takes you into the life of Aleis­ter Crow­ley, an Eng­lish occultist, cer­e­mo­ni­al magi­cian, poet, and moun­taineer, respon­si­ble for found­ing the reli­gion of Thele­ma.
• Albert Camus: The Mad­ness of Sin­cer­i­ty — Free — About the life and work of writer Albert Camus, includ­ing inter­views with his for­mer mis­tress­es and Camus’ daugh­ter Cather­ine and her twin broth­er Jean. (1997)
• Andy Warhol and Roy Licht­en­stein - Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the two artists from 1966.
• Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye - Free — A reveal­ing look at the “Father of Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­phy.” Appeared in the PBS Amer­i­can Mas­ters series. (1999)
• Andy Warhol: The Com­plete Pic­ture — Free — A doc­u­men­tary cov­er­ing the life and work of the most enig­mat­ic and influ­en­tial artist of the late twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. (2001)
• Ansel Adams, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er — Free — Doc­u­men­tary reveals the artis­tic and tech­ni­cal approach of Ansel Adams, Amer­i­ca’s finest pho­tog­ra­ph­er of nat­ur­al land­scapes. (1958)
• Ansel Adams: The Inci­sive Art — Free — Explores the work of one of America’s most famous pho­tog­ra­phers, Ansel Adams as he goes beneath the sur­face to record nature and the qual­i­ty of human­i­ty. (1962)
• Arduino: The Doc­u­men­tary — Free — Revis­its a project launched in the Ital­ian town of Ivrea back in 2005. The chal­lenge? To devel­op cheap, easy-to-use elec­tron­ics com­po­nents for design stu­dents. (2010)
• At the Muse­um — Free — The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (aka MoMA) cre­ates an 8‑part doc­u­men­tary series on what it takes to run a world-class muse­um. (2017)
• Athe­ism: A Rough His­to­ry of Dis­be­lief — Free — A mini-series cre­at­ed by Jonathan Miller explores the his­to­ry of athe­ism in the world. (2004)
• Audio Ammu­ni­tion — Free — A series of short doc­u­men­taries on The Clash and five of their clas­sic stu­dio albums. Pro­duced by Google. (2013)
• Badiou — Free — The first fea­­ture-length film on France’s most famous liv­ing philoso­pher. (2018)
• Bauhaus World — Free — To com­mem­o­rate the 100th anniver­sary of the found­ing of the Bauhaus school, this doc­u­men­tary explores the his­to­ry and influ­ence of Germany’s leg­endary art, archi­tec­ture & design move­ment. (2019)
• Bob Mar­ley ‘Come A Long Way’ — Free — Doc­u­men­tary made for NZ tv show ‘Good Day’ by Dylan Taite. (1979)
• Beat This!: A Hip-Hop His­to­ry — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly part of the Are­na tele­vi­sion series, the TV doc was among the first crop of doc­u­men­taries about hip-hop and hip-hop cul­ture. (1984)
• Bed Peace - Free — 70 minute doc­u­men­tary revis­its John and Yoko’s famous 1969 Bed-Ins, which amount­ed to a peace­ful protest against the Viet­nam War. (2011)
• Beau­ti­ful Equa­tions — Free — Artist/writer Matt Collings takes the plunge into an alien world of equa­tions, ask­ing top sci­en­tists to help him under­stand five of the most famous equa­tions in sci­ence. (2010)
• Benoit Man­del­brot: Father of Frac­tals — Free — In this final inter­view shot by film­mak­er Erol Mor­ris, Man­del­brot shares his love for math­e­mat­ics and how it led him to his won­drous dis­cov­ery of frac­tals. (2013)
• Black Cof­fee — Free — A three part look at  “the world’s most wide­ly tak­en legal drug,” a bev­er­age whose intel­lec­tu­al­ly intense die-hard enthu­si­asts give wine’s a run for their mon­ey, from his­tor­i­cal, polit­i­cal, social, and eco­nom­ic angles. (2007)
• Blitzkrieg Bop - Free — Hour-long TV doc­u­men­tary takes an old school look at CBGB dur­ing the hey­day. Fea­tures The Ramones, Blondie and The Dead Boys. Mix­es live per­for­mance with short inter­view clips. (1978)
• Bob Geld­of: The Moment — Free — In a short doc­u­men­tary by Errol Mor­ris, Bob Geld­of talks about the great­est day in his life–stepping on the stage of Live Aid and rais­ing mon­ey to end the famine in Africa. (2014)
• Bowl­ing for Columbine — Free — Through his YouTube chan­nel, Michael Moore has made avail­able his Acad­e­my Award win­ning doc­u­men­tary on guns & gun vio­lence in Amer­i­ca. (2002)
• Bri­an Eno: The Man Who Fell To Earth, 1971–1977 - Free — Explores Eno’s life, career and music between those tit­u­lar years—the peri­od that some view as his gold­en age, and oth­ers as just one great era in a long and very eclec­tic career. (2012)
• Buck­min­ster Fuller: Think­ing Out Loud — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the inventor/visionary/thinker R. Buck­min­ster Fuller, pro­duced and direct­ed by four time Acad­e­my Award nom­i­nees Karen Good­man and Kirk Simon. (1996)
• Brus­sels Express - Free — Direct­ed by Sander Van­den­broucke, this 20 minute film explores the risks of cycling in mod­ern Brus­sels, one of the most con­gest­ed cities in today’s Europe. (2012)
• Car­avag­gio — Free — A doc­u­men­tary by Robert Hugh­es (cir­ca 1975)
• Chick Corea: Doc­u­men­tary of Leg­endary Jazz Great, Pianist and Com­pos­er — Free — Short doc­u­men­tary fea­tures Sting, Bob­by McFer­rin, Bela Fleck, Her­bie Han­cock, Wayne Short­er and more.
• Churchill’s Island — Free — WWII pro­pa­gan­da film chron­i­cling the defense of Great Britain. Won the very first Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject. (1941)
• City Sym­phonies — Free — Watch “city sym­phonies” filmed in the 1920s. These poet­ic, exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­taries present a por­trait of the dai­ly of cities like Berlin, Paris, Sao Paulo and New York.
• Code Rush — Free — Doc­u­men­tary fol­low­ing the lives of Netscape engi­neers in Sil­i­con Val­ley. (1998)
• Colette — Free — 90-year-old Colette Marin-Cather­ine con­fronts her past by vis­it­ing the Ger­man con­cen­tra­tion camp Mit­tel­bau-Dora where her broth­er was killed. Pre­pared to re-open old wounds, Marin-Cather­ine offers impor­tant lessons for us all. The film won the Acad­e­my Award for best doc­u­men­tary short in 2021.
• Con­fronta­tion: Paris, 1968 — Free — A doc­u­men­tary by Sey­mour Dresch­er (Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh & for­mer stu­dent of George Mosse), looks at the stu­dent and work­er upheaval in France in May, 1968.
• Con­ver­sa­tions with Myself — Free — Alan Watts walks in the moun­tains and talks about the lim­i­ta­tions of tech­nol­o­gy and the prob­lem of try­ing to keep track of an infi­nite uni­verse with a sin­gle tracked mind. (1971)
• Cre­ative Process: Nor­man McLaren — Free — This fea­ture length doc­u­men­tary is a jour­ney into Nor­man McLaren’s process of artis­tic cre­ation. (1990)
• Cry Baby: The Ped­al That Rocks the World — Free — Tells the sto­ry of the wah wah effect ped­al, from its inven­tion in 1966 to the present day. (2011)
• Curi­ous About Cuba: The Great Muse­ums of Havana — Free — This film shows a side of the island nation that we sel­dom hear about: her art, his­to­ry, and cul­ture. (2008)
• Cyber­punk — Free — Doc­u­men­tary intro­duces the cul­ture of Cyber­punk. Fea­tures vin­tage footage of William Gib­son & Tim­o­thy Leary (1990).
• David Bowie: Sound and Vision — Free — Takes you on a jour­ney through Bowie’s career. Fea­tures inter­views with Bowie, Iman his wife, his musi­cal con­tem­po­raries includ­ing Iggy Pop, Moby and Trent Reznor. (2002)
• David Bowie: The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust — Free — Film tells the sto­ry of how Bowie arrived at one of the most icon­ic cre­ations in the his­to­ry of pop music. The songs, the hair­styles, the fash­ion, etc. (2012)
• David Lynch on the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Cin­e­ma — Free — Pret­ty much what the title said. (1987)
• Day of the Dead — Free — Design­ers Charles and Ray Eames short por­trait of the Mex­i­can fes­ti­val, Day of the Dead. (1957)
• Death Mills — Free — Bil­ly Wilder’s doc­u­men­tary in Ger­man show­ing what Allies found when they lib­er­at­ed Nazi exter­mi­na­tion camps. (1945)
• Degen­er­ate Art — Free — Direct­ed by David Gru­bin, this doc­u­men­tary explores the 1937 art exhib­it under the Nazi regime, which fea­tured mod­ern art, or what the Nazis called ‘Entartete Kun­st’ or ‘Degen­er­ate Art. (1993)
• Diane Arbus: Mas­ters of Pho­tog­ra­phy — Free — The doc­u­men­tary cre­at­ed soon after the pho­tog­ra­pher’s death is based on inter­views with those who knew her best. (1972.)
• Dis­cov­er­ing Elec­tron­ic Music: Revised — Free —  Direct­ed by Bernard Wilets, the film explores this idea: “We live in an age of tech­nol­o­gy in which machines touch every part of our lives. It is not sur­pris­ing that music has also been influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy.” (1983)
• Dorothea Lange Part 1: Under The Trees — Free — Film explores the Amer­i­can doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er and pho­to­jour­nal­ist, best known for her Depres­­sion-era work for the Farm Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion. View alter­nate ver­sion here. (1965)
• Dreams Are What We Wake Up From — Free — Doc­u­men­tary about Ray­mond Carv­er was direct­ed by Daisy Good­win and includes con­tri­bu­tions from Richard Ford and Jay McIn­er­ney. (1989)
• Dream of Life — Free — Direct­ed by Steven Sebring, the film offers an inti­mate por­trait of poet, painter, musi­cian and singer Pat­ti Smith. (2008)
• Earth­lings — Free — Nar­rat­ed by Joaquin Phoenix, and with a sound­track pro­vid­ed by Moby, Earth­lings “is a fea­­ture-length doc­u­men­tary about our absolute eco­nom­ic depen­dence on ani­mals raised as pets, food, cloth­ing, enter­tain­ment and for sci­en­tif­ic research.” (2005)
• Ein­stein’s Brain — Free — A strange doc­u­men­tary that fol­lows Japan­ese schol­ar Ken­ji Sug­i­mo­to’s quest to find Ein­stein’s brain. (1994)
• Eric Hob­s­bawm: The Con­so­la­tions of His­to­ry — Free — Antho­ny Wilks traces the con­nec­tions between the events of Eric Hobsbawm’s life and the his­to­ry he told, from his teenage years in Ger­many and his com­mu­nist mem­ber­ship, to the jazz clubs of 1950s Soho and the mak­ings of New Labour…
• Europe After the Rain — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the two great art move­ments, Dada & Sur­re­al­ism, cre­at­ed by the Arts Coun­cil of Great Britain. (1978)
• Everything1017: How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­er — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary on how David Byrne and Bri­an Eno make music togeth­er. By the late visu­al artist Hill­man Cur­tis. (2012)
• Every­thing Is a Remix — Free — Kir­by Ferguson’s 4‑part video series explores the idea that  “great art doesn’t come out of nowhere. Artists inevitably bor­row from one anoth­er, draw­ing on past ideas and con­ven­tions, and then turn these mate­ri­als into some­thing beau­ti­ful and new.” (2010–14)
• Eye of the Pan­golin — Free — The sto­ry of two men on a mis­sion to share the won­der of all four species of African pan­golin on cam­era for the first time ever. (2019)
• F. Scott Fitzger­ald: Win­ter Dreams — Free — Peabody award-win­n­ing film chron­i­cles the life of Fitzger­ald, one of America’s great­est nov­el­ists, in images and ideas as lyri­cal and inven­tive as his prose. (2002)
• Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hol­ly­wood — Free — A look at “Gonzo jour­nal­ist”, Hunter S. Thomp­son with his col­lab­o­ra­tor, British illus­tra­tor, Ralph Stead­man. (1978)
• Felli­ni: A Director’s Note­book - Free — Fed­eri­co Felli­ni intro­duces him­self to Amer­i­ca in exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary aired on TV. (1969)
• Film­ing ‘The Tri­al’ — Free —  An unfin­ished mak­ing-of film by Orson Welles, made in 1981, which focus­es on the pro­duc­tion of his 1962 film The Tri­al. (1981)
• First Orbit - Free — A real time recre­ation of Yuri Gagar­in’s pio­neer­ing first orbit, shot entire­ly in space from on board the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion. (2011)
• First Per­son — Free — In this TV series, Errol Mor­ris brings his unri­valled tal­ents to the small screen for a styl­ized series of inti­mate inter­views with a unique and fas­ci­nat­ing array of peo­ple. (2000)
• Fla­men­co at 5:15 — Free — An Oscar win­ning doc­u­men­tary takes you inside a Fla­men­co dance class. The film is about dance as it is about life. (1983)
• Flâneur III — Free — An attempt at cap­tur­ing the char­ac­ter of Paris by fol­low­ing the devel­op­ment of the city’s dif­fer­ent forms through­out the 19th and 20th cen­turies, in the spir­it of the Ger­man philoso­pher Wal­ter Ben­jamin. (1998)
• For Neda — Free — An HBO doc­u­men­tary on the life of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman gunned down dur­ing the crush­ing of Iran’s Green Rev­o­lu­tion. (2010)
• Found­ing Fathers — Free — Doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Pub­lic Enemy’s Chuck D presents the true his­to­ry of hip hop.
• Frac­tals: The Col­ors of Infin­i­ty - Free — Arthur C. Clarke brings us inside the world of frac­tal geom­e­try, David Gilmour pro­vides the sound­track. (1995)
• Frames of Ref­er­ence — Free — “Direct­ed by the pio­neer­ing UK doc­u­men­tar­i­an Richard Lea­cock, Frames of Ref­er­ence is a slick and sur­re­al dive into physics fun­da­men­tals and, in par­tic­u­lar, why every­thing is indeed rel­a­tive.” (1960)
• Frank Zap­pa — Free — A Dutch doc­u­men­tary for VPRO Tele­vi­sion, direct­ed by Roelof Kiers (1971).
• From One Sec­ond to the Next — Free — Ger­man direc­tor Wern­er Her­zog presents a har­row­ing 35 minute film on the dan­gers of tex­ting while dri­ving. (2013)
• Future Shock — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary based on a book writ­ten by futur­ist Alvin Tof­fler in 1970. It’s nar­rat­ed by Orson Welles. (1972)
• Gau­guin: Sym­bol­is­m’s Prob­lem Child — Free — Art crit­ic and broad­cast­er Walde­mar Januszczak wrote and direct­ed this exam­i­na­tion of a man who was not only a great painter but sculp­tor, wood carv­er, musi­cian, print mak­er, jour­nal­ist and ceram­i­cist. (2020)
• Gente del Po — Free — Michae­lan­ge­lo Anto­nion­i’s doc­u­men­tary short on the peo­ple of the Po val­ley. (1947)
• George East­man House: Pic­ture Per­fect - Free — The urban estate of George East­man, who made pho­tog­ra­phers of us all, is a trea­sure trove of pho­tographs and one of the world’s pre­mier film archives. (2003)
• Georges Bataille: À Perte de Vues — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the sub­ver­sive French philoso­pher Georges Bataille. (1997)
• Geor­gia O’Keeffe: A Life in Art - Free - A short doc­u­men­tary on the painter nar­rat­ed by Gene Hack­man.
• Gia­comet­ti — Free — An inti­mate look at Alber­to Gia­comet­ti in his stu­dio, mak­ing his icon­ic sculp­tures (1965)
• Glass - Free — Direct­ed by Bert Haanstra, this short doc­u­men­tary about the glass indus­try won the Acad­e­my Award for Doc­u­men­tary Short Sub­ject in 1959. (1958)
• Glenn Gould — Off the Record and Glenn Gould — On the Record- Free — Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor made a pair of gor­geous­ly shot doc­u­men­taries about the Cana­di­an pianist, giv­ing view­ers insight into his life and music. (1959)
• Great Lakes, Bad Lines — Free — The sto­ry of two Michi­gan adven­tur­ers and their 500-mile, fos­­sil-free jour­ney across the Upper Penin­su­la along the route of Line 5 — a 63-year-old pipeline – that threat­ens our inland waters and Great Lakes. Brought to you by Patag­o­nia, Founders, Moose­jaw, and Cher­ry Repub­lic. (2016)
• Haru­ki Muraka­mi: In Search of this Elu­sive Writer — Free — Alan Yen­tob trav­els through Japan, from the mid­night Tokyo of After Hours to the snowed-in Hokkai­do of A Wild Sheep Chase, in a quest to find arti­facts of the novelist’s imag­i­nary world.
• Heavy Met­al Park­ing Lot — Free —  Filmed in 1986 at a Mary­land con­cert are­na park­ing lot before a heavy met­al show, this hilar­i­ous doc­u­men­tary is an unvar­nished anthro­po­log­i­cal study of Amer­i­can met­al­heads in their mid-’80s glo­ry.  You can also see the 2006 fol­lowup, “Heavy Met­al Park­ing Lot Alum­ni: Where Are They Now.” (1986)
• Hen­ri Car­ti­er-Bres­­son: The Deci­sive Moment — Free — 18-minute film fea­tures a selec­tion of Cartier-Bresson’s icon­ic pho­tographs, along with rare com­men­tary by the pho­tog­ra­ph­er him­self. (1973)
• Hen­ry Miller Asleep & Awake — Free — Tom Schiller’s 34 minute voy­age into the world of Hen­ry Miller (Trop­ic of Can­cer, Trop­ic of Capri­corn). (1975)
• His­to­ry of the Leica Cam­era — Free — The film is in Ger­man, but it’s still great to watch.
• Hof­man­n’s Potion — Free — A bal­anced look at the his­to­ry of LSD by Cana­di­an film­mak­er Con­nie Lit­tle­field. (2002)
• Hol­ly­wood: A Cel­e­bra­tion of the Amer­i­can Silent Film - Free — Epic, 13-part doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cles the ear­ly his­to­ry of cin­e­ma. (1980)
• Home — Free — Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film that will make you look at our plan­et in a new way. (2009)
• Home­made Amer­i­can Music — Free — A his­to­ry of rur­al south­east­ern tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can music, as told and played by Mike Seeger and Alice Ger­rard. (1980)
• How Build­ings Learn — Free — Stew­art Brand (cre­ator of the icon­ic Whole Earth Cat­a­log) cre­at­ed a 6‑part series on archi­tec­ture, with Bri­an Eno pro­vid­ing the music. (1997)
• How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made — Free — Dis­ney’s in-house doc­u­men­tary walks you through the stages of Snow White‘s devel­op­ment. (1939)
• Human, All Too Human — Free — A three part doc­u­men­tary on the life & thought of Niet­zsche, Hei­deg­ger and Sartre. (1999)
• Idem — Free — A short film by David Lynch on the art of mak­ing lith­o­graphs. Shot at the Idem stu­dio in Paris. (2013)
• If You Love This Plan­et — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing short film on the need for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment. (1982)
• Iggy Pop and the Stooges - Free — A doc­u­men­tary from the always good South Bank Show. (2004)
• I’ll Find a Way — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tary presents Nadia, a 9‑year-old girl with spina bifi­da. (1977)
• Images of a Vision­ary World — Free — Avant-garde author Hen­ri Michaux cre­ates film try­ing to demon­strate the expe­ri­ence of tak­ing hal­lu­cino­genic drugs. (1964)
• In a Bril­liant Light: Van Gogh in Arles — Free — This doc­u­men­tary cov­ers Van Gogh’s stay in Arles where he com­plet­ed over two hun­dred paint­ings and one hun­dred draw­ings. (1984)
• In Search of Moe­bius — Free — Doc­u­men­tary about French­man Jean Giraud, one of the most influ­en­tial com­ic strip illus­tra­tors and authors of all time.
• Inside: Dr. Strangelove — Free —  Inter­views with cast mem­bers, crit­ics, edi­tors, pro­duc­ers and oth­ers asso­ci­at­ed with the pic­ture reveal how this Cold War worst-case-sce­­nario devel­oped into some­thing so very… Kubrick­ian.
• Inside the Rhap­sody — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of Queen’s clas­sic song, ‘Bohemi­an Rhap­sody’ (2002)
• Jack­son Pol­lock 51 - Free – Short doc­u­men­tary by Hans Namuth fea­tures the abstract expres­sion­ist painter up close, paint­ing on glass. (1951)
  
• Jacques Lacan Speaks — Free — The psy­cho­an­a­lyst gives a packed lec­ture at the Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Lou­vain in 1972, fol­lowed by a prob­ing inter­view. One of only 2 known appear­ances by Lacan on film. Shot by Bel­gian doc­u­men­tar­i­an Fran­coise Wolff. (1972)
• Jazz Hot — Free — Djan­go Rein­hardt, vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li and their band the Quin­tette du Hot Club de France per­form togeth­er in a short film designed to pro­mote a UK tour. (1938)
• John Peel’s Record Box — Free — British doc­u­men­tary explores the most prized records in John Peel’s huge record col­lec­tion, which he kept stored in a spe­cial box. (2005)
• Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on Argenti­na’s most famous and beloved lit­er­ary fig­ure. (2000)
• Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen - Free  — This Cana­di­an doc­u­men­tary cap­tures Leonard Cohen just as he was poised to begin his singer-song­writer career. (1965)
• Last Days at the Fill­more — Free — Doc­u­ments the final days of Bill Gra­ham’s Fill­more West. (1972)
• Laugh­ing and Not Being Nor­mal - Free — A doc­u­men­tary about the fem­i­nist music pro­duc­er, Grimes. (2016)
• Le dinosaure et le bébé, dia­logue en huit par­ties entre Fritz Lang et Jean-Luc Godard — Free — A 1967 TV doc­u­men­tary fea­tur­ing two great film­mak­ers (Jean-Luc Godard and Fritz Lang) in con­ver­sa­tion. (1967)
  
• Le Noise — Free —  Direct­ed by Adam Vol­lick, this movie fea­tures a live per­for­mance of Neil Young’s album Le Noise. It was record­ed at the stu­dios of Daniel Lanois in LA. (2010)
• Life in a Day — Free — Film cap­tures for future gen­er­a­tions what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010. Exec­u­tive pro­duced by Rid­ley Scott and direct­ed by Kevin Mac­don­ald.
• Live at Pom­peii — Free — David Gilmour makes his Live at Pom­peii con­cert film free to watch online. (2016)
• Lost Kubrick: The Unfin­ished Films of Stan­ley Kubrick — Free — Nar­rat­ed by Mal­colm McDow­ell, this short doc­u­men­tary exam­ines the films Stan­ley Kubrick devel­oped but did­n’t live long enough to make. Fea­tures inter­views giv­en by Kubrick­’s long­time pro­duc­er Jan Har­lan, Jack Nichol­son, Syd­ney Pol­lack etc. (2007)
• Love­craft: Fear of the Unknown — Free — Named the Best Doc­u­men­tary at the 2008 Com­ic-Con Inter­na­tion­al Inde­pen­dent Film Fes­ti­val, the film revis­its the life and writ­ings of H.P. Love­craft, the father of mod­ern hor­ror fic­tion. (2008)
• Man­hat­ta — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary film direct­ed by painter Charles Sheel­er and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Paul Strand. It’s con­sid­ered Amer­i­ca’s first avant-garde film. (1921)
• M.C. Esch­er: Adven­tures in Per­cep­tion — Free — The first half of the film shows a lot of M.C. Escher’s work accom­pa­nied by a dis­so­nant score by Felix Viss­er. About halfway through, we see shots of Esch­er at work. (1971)
• Mar­cel Duchamp: Icon­o­claste et Inoxyd­able — Free — Three- part, three-hour doc­u­men­tary with inter­views about Mar­cel Duchamp, direct­ed by Fab­rice Maze. (2009)
• Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thou­sand Voic­es — Free — Doc­u­men­tary focus­es on voice artist extra­or­di­naire Mel Blanc. (2008)
  
• Mem­o­ry of the Camps — Free — An attempt to revive a World War II film meant to doc­u­ment the Holo­caust. Hitch­cock was involved with the orig­i­nal project. (1985)
• Meta­mor­phose: M.C. Esch­er, 1898–1972 - Free —  Reveals the life and work of artist M.C. Esch­er. (1999)
• Michel Fou­cault: Beyond Good and Evil — Free — Doc­u­men­tary explores the con­tro­ver­sial life and work of Michel Fou­cault. (1993)
• Min­gus — Free — A close-up of bass play­er and com­pos­er Char­lie Min­gus as he and his five-year-old daugh­ter await evic­tion by the City of New York. (1968)
• Nanook of the North — Free — The first fea­ture length doc­u­men­tary. Direct­ed by Robert J. Fla­her­ty, the film, focus­ing on an Inu­it fam­i­ly liv­ing in the Arc­tic Cir­cle, was one of the first films to be select­ed for his­tor­i­cal preser­va­tion by the Library of Con­gress. (1922)
• Nazi VR — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary on how a vir­tu­al real­i­ty mod­el of Auschwitz was cre­at­ed to suc­cess­ful­ly pros­e­cute a Ger­man SS guard sev­en decades after WWII. (2017)
• Nico-Icon — Free — Focus­es on Nico, renowned for her asso­ci­a­tions with artist Andy Warhol and the Vel­vet Under­ground. (1995)
• No Sub­sti­tute for Vic­to­ry — Free — Pro­pa­gan­da, Pro-Viet­­nam doc­u­men­tary host­ed by John Wayne. (1970)
• No Maps for These Ter­ri­to­ries — Free — Brings you on a road trip and into the mind of cyber­space vision­ary William Gib­son. (2000)
• Novem­ber 22, 1963 — Free — In a short doc­u­men­tary, Errol Mor­ris asks what we can and can­not know about the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion. (2013)
• One Way Street - Free — Explores the life and work of Ger­man Jew­ish crit­ic and philoso­pher, Wal­ter Ben­jamin. (1993)
• Oper­a­tion Con­crete (aka Opéra­tion béton) — Free — The first movie by Jean Luc Godard. It’s a short doc­u­men­tary about the build­ing of the dam. (1955)
• Our Hob­by is Depeche Mode — Free — Jere­my Deller’s and Nicholas Abra­hams’ doc­u­men­tary on Depeche Mode fans. (2007)
• Paul Klee: The Silence of the Angel — Free — A visu­al jour­ney into the work of a major painter of the 20th cen­tu­ry by Michael Gaum­nitz, an award-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tar­i­an of artists and sculp­tors. (2005)
• Paul McCart­ney: Chaos & Cre­ation at Abbey Road — Free — Sir Paul revis­its the Bea­t­les’ record­ing tech­niques and vin­tage instru­ments used by the band. (2005)
• Pen, Brush and Cam­era — Free — 50-minute doc­u­men­tary about the life and work of Hen­ri Car­ti­er-Bres­­son, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er con­sid­ered to be the father of pho­to­jour­nal­ism. (1998)
• Phi­los­o­phy: A Guide to Hap­pi­ness - Free — With Alain de Bot­ton. A doc­u­men­tary series that shows how Niet­zsche, Socrates and four oth­er philoso­phers can change your life. (2000)
• Phi­los­o­phy and the Matrix: Return to the Source — Free —  Doc­u­men­tary looks at how The Matrix dealt with ques­tions about reli­gious rev­e­la­tion and author­i­ty, para­psy­chol­o­gy, free will and deter­min­ism, and the nature of per­son­al iden­ti­ty. (2004)
• Pickin’ & Trim­min’ - Free — Award-win­n­ing short doc­u­men­tary fea­tures blue­grass musi­cians in a down-home North Car­oli­na bar­ber­shop. (2008)
  
• Plagues & Plea­sures on the Salton Sea — Free — Cult movie leg­end John Waters nar­rates an off­beat doc­u­men­tary on the acci­den­tal lake cre­at­ed in the desert of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. (2004)
• Plas­tic Bag — Free — Wern­er Her­zog nar­rates the exis­ten­tial jour­ney of a plas­tic bag. Direct­ed by Ramin Bahrani. (2009)
• Poor Kids — Free — Doc­u­men­tary explores what pover­ty means to chil­dren in Amer­i­ca through the sto­ries of three fam­i­lies. (2017)
• Por­trait of an Artist: Jack­son Pol­lock — Free — Doc­u­men­tary of the abstract expres­sion­ist artist nar­rat­ed by Melvyn Bragg. (1987)
• Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog — Free — A Ger­man pro­duc­tion direct­ed by Her­zog him­self, Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog shows the direc­tor in his home­land, in Munich. (1986)
• Pow­ers of Ten — Free — Famous short film depicts the rel­a­tive scale of the Uni­verse in fac­tors of ten. Made by leg­endary design­ers Ray and Charles Eames. (1977)
• Pro­file of a Writer: Jorge Luis Borges — Free — Are­na doc­u­men­tary the life and writ­ings of Argentina’s favorite son, Jorge Luis Borges. (1983)
• Queen of Code — Free — Direct by Gillian Jacobs, this short doc looks at the life and career of Grace Hop­per, who worked on the first com­put­er and head­ed the team that cre­at­ed the first com­pil­er. (2015)
• Ray Brad­bury: Sto­ry of a Writer — Free — A half-hour tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary about Ray Brad­bury. (1963)
• Red Shirley — Free — Lou Reed’s short doc­u­men­tary on his fas­ci­nat­ing 100-year-old cousin. (2010)
• Report from the Aleu­tians — Free — John Hus­ton, while a mem­ber of the U.S. Army Sig­nal Corps in 1943, cre­ates an Acad­e­my Award win­ning doc­u­men­tary about the Armed Forces’ effort to pre­vent the fall of the Aleut­ian Islands to Japan­ese troops. (1943)
• Requiem for the Amer­i­can Dream — Free — “Renowned aca­d­e­m­ic and author Noam Chom­sky elu­ci­dates 10 prin­ci­ples of con­cen­tra­tion of wealth and pow­er that have led to unprece­dent­ed inequal­i­ty and the hol­low­ing out of the Amer­i­can mid­dle class,” write IMDB. Streams only free in the Unit­ed States. (2015)
• Rick Steves Europe — Free — 11 sea­sons of Rick Steves’ pop­u­lar trav­el doc­u­men­taries.
• Road to the Stars — Free — Direct­ed by Pavel Klushant­sev, this Sovi­et doc­u­men­tary com­bines ele­ments of sci­ence edu­ca­tion films and spec­u­la­tive sci­ence fic­tion. It was ground­break­ing for its use of spe­cial effects to depict life in space. (1957)
• Room to Dream: David Lynch and the Inde­pen­dent Film­mak­er — Free — David Lynch explains how he brings his unique vision to the screen with tech­nolo­gies that are now with­in reach for inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers. (2005)
• Rus­si­a’s Open Book: Writ­ing in the Age of Putin — Free — Stephen Fry hosts a doc­u­men­tary explor­ing the vital lit­er­ary scene in con­tem­po­rary Rus­sia. (2014)
• Samu­rai Sword: Mak­ing of a Leg­end — Free — This sto­ry of the Katana sword pro­vides a unique insight into the Samu­rai mas­ters and the swords they use. (2008)
• Saul Alin­sky Went to War — Free — In this fea­ture doc­u­men­tary, Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er and writer Saul Alin­sky goes to war against the con­di­tions that keep the poor in pover­ty. (1968)
• Sea of Faith — Free — In this six-part series, Don Cupitt explores the his­to­ry of Chris­tian­i­ty in the mod­ern world, explor­ing the works of philoso­phers like Blaise Pas­cal, René Descartes, Kierkegaard, Jung, Freud, Schopen­hauer, Niet­zsche, Wittgen­stein and more. (1984)
• Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spir­it — Free — A kind of video diary of poet Allen Gins­berg’s last days. (1997)
• Sell & Spin: A His­to­ry of Adver­tis­ing — Free — Dick Cavett nar­rates the his­to­ry of adver­tis­ing, from ancient times to mod­ern. (1999)
• ¿Sería Buenos Aires? — Free — An award-win­n­ing doc­u­men­tary look­ing at Argenti­na’s response to mod­ern crises. (2006)
• She’s Nobody’s Baby: A His­to­ry of Amer­i­can Women in the 20th Cen­tu­ry — Free — Alan Alda and Mar­lo Thomas trace the evo­lu­tion of the roles and lives of women in the 20th cen­tu­ry. (1982)
• Shen­zhen: The Sil­i­con Val­ley of Hard­ware — Free — From Wired comes a doc­u­men­tary look­ing at how Shen­zen, the fre­net­ic heart of Chi­na’s tech indus­try, is becom­ing a city of the future. (2016)
• Shock of the New — Free — Art crit­ic Robert Hugh­es looks at the the devel­op­ment of mod­ern art since the Impres­sion­ists. (1980)
• Sketch­es of Frank Gehry — Free — Syd­ney Pol­lack doc­u­men­tary explores Frank Gehry’s cre­ative process, from sketch­ing to mak­ing the phys­i­cal and 3D mod­els to the con­struc­tion itself. (2005)
• Soft Self Por­trait of Sal­vador Dali — Free — French direc­tor Jean-Christophe Aver­ty trav­eled to Spain in 1970 and shot a sur­re­al bio­graph­i­cal doc­u­men­tary on the artist. (1970)
• Some Yo Yo Stuff — Free — A short film about Cap­tain Beef­heart by Anton Cor­bi­jn. (1993)
• Stravin­sky — Free — This doc­u­men­tary is an infor­mal por­trait of the great mod­ern com­pos­er Igor Stravin­sky. Direct­ed by Wolf Koenig & Roman Kroitor. (1966)
• Stress, Por­trait of a Killer — Free — Sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies in the field and in the lab prove that stress is not just a state of mind, but some­thing mea­sur­able and dan­ger­ous. Fea­tures Stan­ford neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gist Robert Sapol­sky. (2008)
• Sun Ra: A Joy­ful Noise — Free — Exper­i­men­tal jazz vision­ary Sun Ra was filmed on loca­tion in Philadel­phia, Bal­ti­more, and Wash­ing­ton, D.C. between 1978 and 1980 by direc­tor Robert Mugge. Includes pub­lic and pri­vate per­for­mances, poet­ry read­ings, inter­views and exten­sive impro­vi­sa­tions with Sun Ra and his Arkestra. (1980)
• Sym­pho­ny in Black: A Rhap­sody of Negro Life — Free — A musi­cal short that fea­tures Duke Ellington’s ear­ly extend­ed piece, “A Rhap­sody of Negro Life.” Stars 19-year-old Bil­lie Hol­i­day. (1935)
• Ten Days That Shook the World — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly called Oktyabr, Sergei Eisen­stein’s film doc­u­ments the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion of 1917. A mas­ter­piece by a pio­neer­ing film­mak­er. (1928)
• That Far Cor­ner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Ange­les — Free — Chris Hawthorne, archi­tec­ture crit­ic for the Los Ange­les Times, explores the hous­es Frank Lloyd Wright built in Los Ange­les, dur­ing a time when he was recov­er­ing from a vio­lent trag­ic episode in his life. (2018)
• The ABCs of Dada — Free — Explores the ori­gins of and con­trib­u­tors to the Dada move­ment. (2012)
• The Amer­i­can West of John Ford — Free - A doc­u­men­tary encap­su­lat­ing the career and West­ern films of direc­tor John Ford, fea­tur­ing inter­views with John Wayne, James Stew­art and Hen­ry Fon­da. (1971)
• The Artist For­mer­ly Known as Cap­tain Beef­heart — Free — Elaine Shepherd’s clas­sic BBC doc­u­men­tary, intro­duced and nar­rat­ed by John Peel. (1997)
• The Bat­mo­bile — Free — Direct­ed by Roko Bel­ic, this doc­u­men­tary explores the evo­lu­tion of the Bat­mo­bile. (2012)
• The Bat­tle of Mid­way — Free — Direct­ed by John Ford. Nar­rat­ed by Hen­ry Fon­da. On June 4–6, 1942, Japan­ese forces attempt­ed to cap­ture Mid­way Island in the North Pacif­ic, but were defeat­ed by U.S. forces. On hand was a crew of naval pho­tog­ra­phers direct­ed by John Ford. (1942)
• The Bat­tle of San Pietro — Free — John Hus­ton’s war time doc­u­men­tary. (1945)
• The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearl­man Sto­ry — Free — A YouTube Orig­i­nal doc­u­men­tary that tells the sto­ry of famed boy band impre­sario Lou Pearl­man. The film tracks his life from his child­hood in Queens, through dis­cov­er­ing mega-bands *NSYNC and The Back­street Boys, and chron­i­cles his lat­er life. (2019)
• The Church Of Saint Coltrane — Free —  Direct­ed by Gayle Gilman and Jeff Swim­mer, this film looks at The Church of Saint Coltrane in San Fran­cis­co, which has can­on­ized John Coltrane as their patron saint and on Sun­days holds five-hour jam ses­sions inter­spersed with litur­gy and fel­low­ship. (1996)
• The Com­plete Star Wars Fil­mu­men­taries — Free — Jamie Ben­ning has cre­at­ed a tril­o­gy of doc­u­­men­­tary-com­­men­­taries on the Star Wars tril­o­gy. Fea­tures delet­ed scenes, alter­nate takes and dif­fer­ent angles, bloop­ers, orig­i­nal on set audio record­ings and a huge amount of com­men­tary from cast and crew.
• The Con­fes­sions of Robert Crumb — Free — A por­trait of the artist script­ed by the under­ground comics leg­end him­self (1987)
• The Crazy Nev­er Die — Free — 30 minute shot-on-video doc­u­men­tary that looks into the more pub­licly wild and per­for­ma­tive side of Hunter S. Thomp­son’s per­son­al­i­ty. (1988)
• The Cry of Jazz — Free — Con­tro­ver­sial film by Ed Bland explores issues around African-Amer­i­­cans and jazz in the Unit­ed States. Includes inter­views with artists and intel­lec­tu­als and per­for­mances by Sun Ra and John Gilmore. In 2010, the film was select­ed for preser­va­tion in the Unit­ed States Nation­al Film Reg­istry by the Library of Con­gress. (1958)
• The Dis­tor­tion of Sound — Free — A doc­u­men­tary about the decline of sound qual­i­ty and how tech­nol­o­gy has changed the way we lis­ten to music. Fea­tures numer­ous musi­cians. (2014)
• The Duc­tu­men­tary — Free — A short film that explores surfer Joel Tudor’s “life as a surfer, his ulti­mate deci­sion to leave com­pet­i­tive surf­ing and the vision that inspired him to cre­ate the unique Duct Tape con­tests.” (2013)
• The Ein­stein The­o­ry of Rel­a­tiv­i­ty — Free — Einstein’s the­o­ry of rel­a­tiv­i­ty explained in one of the ear­li­est sci­ence films ever made. (1923)
• The Fight­ing Lady — Free — Direct­ed by William Wyler, this film pro­vides a por­trait of life on a World War II air­craft car­ri­er (1944)
• The Four Horse­men — Free — Direct­ed by Ross Ashcroft, the indie doc­u­men­tary is a “jere­mi­ad against the fol­ly of Neo-clas­si­­cal eco­nom­ics and the threats it rep­re­sents to all we should hold dear.” (2012)
• The Genius of Charles Dar­win — Free — A three part series pre­sent­ed by Oxford biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins. (2008)
• The Gift: The Jour­ney of John­ny Cash — Free — This doc­u­men­tary, cre­at­ed with the full coop­er­a­tion of the Cash estate and rich in recent­ly dis­cov­ered archival mate­ri­als, brings Cash the man out from behind the leg­end. (2019)
• The God Delu­sion — Free — Oxford evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins argues that the world would be bet­ter off with­out reli­gion. The film accom­pa­nied a book by the same title. (2006)
• The God­moth­er of Rock N Roll: Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe — Free — The life, music & influ­ence of African-Amer­i­­can gospel singer and gui­tar vir­tu­oso Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe. Direct­ed by Mick Csaky. Find film at bot­tom of linked page. (2014)
• The Grate­ful Dead Movie — Free — The film doc­u­ments “a tour-end­ing five night stand at the Win­ter­land Ball­room in Octo­ber 1974. These were their last shows with the Wall of Sound.” (1977)
• The Hen­ry Miller Odyssey — Free — Robert Sny­der’s doc­u­men­tary, almost entire­ly nar­rat­ed by Miller, fol­lows the author through his ear­ly years, from his child­hood in Brook­lyn to his bliss­ful exile in Paris. See more in the orig­i­nal review by The Har­vard Crim­son. (1969)
• The His­to­ry of the Type­writer Recit­ed by Michael Winslow — Free — Sound effects genius Michael Winslow per­forms the sounds of 32 type­writ­ers made between 1898–1983. (2010)
• The His­to­ry of Iron Maid­en — Free — A two-part doc­u­men­tary moves from the band’s begin­nings in London’s East End in 1975, to the Piece of Mind album and tour in 1983, and then beyond.
• The Hitch — Free — Kristof­fer Seland Helles­mark cre­at­ed an 80-minute doc­u­men­tary about the icon­o­clas­tic jour­nal­ist Christo­pher Hitchens, lov­ing­ly enti­tled The Hitch, which fea­tures clips from his speech­es and inter­views. (2014)
• The House I Live In — Free — A ten-minute short film star­ring Frank Sina­tra made to oppose anti-Semi­­tism and racial prej­u­dice at the end of World War II. (1945)
• The Gild­ed Age — Free — A PBS doc­u­men­tary that explores one of the most con­vul­sive and trans­for­ma­tive eras in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, from the 1870s-1890s.
• The Joy of Stats — Free — Hans Rosling says there’s noth­ing bor­ing about stats, and then proves it in an one-hour long doc­u­men­tary. (2010)
• The Land Where the Blues Began — Free — Alan Lomax takes you into the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta, into to the heart of the Blues. (1978)
• The Last 48 Hours of Kurt Cobain — Free — British doc­u­men­tary takes a look the final days of Kurt Cobain, the Nir­vana front­man who com­mit­ted sui­cide in 1994. (2007)
• The James Dean Sto­ry — Free — Doc­u­men­tary on the life and times of James Dean made by the great film­mak­er Robert Alt­man — MASH, The Play­er, Gos­ford Park, etc. (1957)
• The Japan­ese Sword as the Soul of the Samu­rai — Free — Obscure doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of Japan­ese swords, nar­rat­ed by George Takei, offers a fas­ci­nat­ing look at the exhaus­tive process of forg­ing samu­rai swords. (1969)
• The Love for Wood — Free — A doc­u­men­tary about well known Dutch chess play­ers, fea­tur­ing Jan Tim­man, Hans Ree, Piet Hein Don­ner, Max Euwe and oth­ers. It’s a beau­ti­ful doc­u­ment of the peri­od and the state of chess at that time. Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. (1979)
• The Mag­ic Sun — Free — Artist Phil Niblock cap­tures a brief moment of an inter­stel­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra in their prime. (1968)
• The Mak­ing of Dark Side of the Moon — Free — A look inside the cre­ation of a famous Pink Floyd album. (2003)
• The Mak­ing of Koy­aanisqat­si - Free — Direc­tor God­frey Reg­gio gives you the back­sto­ry behind his 1982 film, Koy­aanisqat­si.
• The March — Free — James Blues’s “visu­al­ly stun­ning, mov­ing, and arrest­ing doc­u­men­tary of the hope, deter­mi­na­tion, and cama­raderie” embod­ied by The Great March on Wash­ing­ton. (1964)
• The Men Who Made the Movies: Hitch­cock — Free — A look at Alfred Hitch­cock­’s films. The Mas­ter of Sus­pense him­self, who is inter­viewed exten­sive­ly here, shares sto­ries about film­mak­ing. (1973)
• The Mys­tery of Picas­so — Free — Pablo Picasso’s art emerges in front of our eyes in this remark­able film by the French mas­ter of sus­pense, Hen­ri-Georges Clouzot. (1956)
• The New Cin­e­ma — Free — Nev­er-aired TV doc­u­men­tary takes a look at the new Hol­ly­wood scene emerg­ing in 1967. Fea­tures footage of Dustin Hoff­man, Roman Polan­s­ki, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la and George Lucas. (1968)
• The Nomi Song — Free — Andrew Horn’s doc about the life of singer Klaus Nomi. Debuted at the Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val and won a Ted­dy Award for “Best Doc­u­men­tary Film. (2004)
• The Out­sider: The Sto­ry of Har­ry Partch — Free — A doc­u­men­tary about the avant-garde com­pos­er Har­ry Partch. (2002)
• The Penul­ti­mate Truth About Philip K. Dick — Free — Doc­u­men­tary about the mys­ti­cal expe­ri­ences of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. (2007)
• The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er — Free — Reveals the phi­los­o­phy, tech­niques & artistry of Edward West­on (1948)
• The Pow­er of Night­mares — Free — A three-part his­to­ry of how rad­i­cal Islamism in many ways par­al­leled the rise of Neo-Con­ser­­vatism. Though crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed, it nev­er aired in Amer­i­ca. (2004)
• The Real Bruce Lee — Free — This mar­tial arts doc­u­men­tary begins with a brief biog­ra­phy of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his child­hood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Che­ung, and The Car­ni­val, each sepia-toned and dubbed to Eng­lish. (1979)
• The Queen of Trees — Free — The remark­able sto­ry of an African fig tree and the spe­cial rela­tion­ship it has with the ani­mals who depend on it. A Peabody award-win­n­ing nat­ur­al his­to­ry doc­u­men­tary. (2005)
• The Respon­sive Eye - Free — Bri­an DePal­ma’s short film doc­u­ment­ing the open­ing night of an OP ART exhi­bi­tion at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in New York in 1966.
• The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler — Free — 1950’s tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary that includes inter­views with Hitler’s sis­ter Paula Wolf and footage from Eva Braun’s rare home movies.
• The Sim­u­la­tion Hypoth­e­sis — Free — Are we liv­ing in a vir­tu­al real­i­ty? And if so, could we ever tell? Fea­tures Appear­ances by Max Tegmark, Neil degrasse Tyson, Paul Davies and James Gates (2015).
• The Sto­ry of Fas­cism — Free — In an eye-open­ing doc­u­men­tary, Rick trav­els back a cen­tu­ry to learn how fas­cism rose and then fell in Europe — tak­ing mil­lions of peo­ple with it. (2018)
• The Space Shut­tle - Free — His­to­ry of the US Space Shut­tle pro­gram nar­rat­ed by William Shat­ner. (2011)
• The Span­ish Earth — Free — A Span­ish Civ­il War pro­pa­gan­da film writ­ten and nar­rat­ed by Ernest Hem­ing­way. (1937)
• The Strange Case of the Cos­mic Rays — Free — Pup­pets of Dos­to­evsky, Dick­ens and Poe star in an edu­ca­tion­al sci­ence film cre­at­ed by Frank Capra. (1957)
• The Sto­ry of Fas­cism — Free — Rick Steves presents a thought-pro­­vok­ing doc­u­men­tary that revis­its the rise of fas­cism in Europe, remind­ing us of how charis­mat­ic fig­ures like Ben­i­to Mus­soli­ni and Adolf Hitler came to pow­er by promis­ing to cre­ate a bet­ter future for their frus­trat­ed, eco­nom­i­­cal­­ly-depressed coun­tries. (2018)
• The Sto­ry of the Gui­tar — Free — A three part doc­u­men­tary reveals how the gui­tar came to “dom­i­nate the sound­track of our lives.” (2008)
• The Sto­ry of Wish You Were Here — Free — Takes you inside the mak­ing of Pink Floy­d’s 1975 album. (2012)
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead — Free — Nar­rat­ed by Leonard Cohen and fea­tur­ing the Dalai Lama, the film explores an essen­tial teach­ing in the Bud­dhist cul­tures of the Himalayas. (1994)
• The Tony Alva Sto­ry — Free — A doc­u­men­tary that cov­ers the rise, fall and rise of the leg­endary skate­board­er. (2019)
• The Unchained God­dess — Free — After win­ning three Oscars for best direc­tor, Frank Capra pro­duced a sci­ence edu­ca­tion film on the weath­er that made one of the first argu­ments for tak­ing action against cli­mate change. (1958)
• The World of Buck­min­ster Fuller — Free — Direct­ed by Robert Sny­der, this doc­u­men­tary trans­ports you into Fuller’s mind and soul. It’s told entire­ly in his own words. (1974)
• Tri­umph of the Will — Free — (1935) The major Nazi pro­pa­gan­da work by Leni Riefen­stahl. With sub­ti­tles.
• The Ten-Year Lunch — Free — Oscar-win­n­ing film about the writ­ers who sat at the Algo­nquin Round Table in New York dur­ing the 1920s. (1986)
• The Think­ing Game — Free — The Think­ing Game fol­lows Demis Has­s­abis and his Deep­Mind team as they pur­sue arti­fi­cial gen­er­al intel­li­gence, cul­mi­nat­ing in the pro­tein fold­ing prob­lem break­through with AlphaFold that earned a Nobel Prize. (2024)
• The True Glo­ry — Free — War time pro­pa­gan­da doc­u­men­tary direct­ed by Car­ol Reed, with Gen­er­al Dwight D. Eisen­how­er and Gen­er­al George S. Pat­ton. (1945)
• The True His­to­ry Of The Trav­el­ing Wilburys — Free —  A short doc­u­men­tary on the mak­ing of the 1980s super group. (2007)
• The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans - Free — 1966 doc­u­men­tary takes you inside the cre­ative process/world of jazz pianist Bill Evans.
• The Vel­vet Under­ground: A Sym­pho­ny of Sound — Free - Pro­duced by Andy Warhol, the film shows VU per­form­ing a 67-minute instru­men­tal impro­vi­sa­tion. (1966)
• The Way of the Flesh — Free — Direct­ed by Adam Cur­tis this doc­u­men­tary on Hen­ri­et­ta Lacks won the Best Sci­ence and Nature Doc­u­men­tary at the San Fran­cis­co Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. Find an alter­nate ver­sion on Archive.org. (1998)
• The Weight of a Nation — Free — The Emmy-nom­i­­nat­ed HBO Doc­u­men­tary Films series on obe­si­ty, cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the NIH (2012).
• The World At War — Free — Acclaimed 26-episode WWII doc­u­men­tary “The World at War” was pro­duced by Thames Tele­vi­sion and aired in 1973–1974.
• The Wreck­ing Crew — Free — A doc­u­men­tary film direct­ed by Den­ny Tedesco, son of gui­tarist Tom­my Tedesco, cov­ers the sto­ry of the Los Angeles–based group of ses­sion musi­cians known as The Wreck­ing Crew. (2008)
• There is No Author­i­ty But Your­self — Free — Fea­ture doc­u­men­tary about sem­i­nal anar­­cho-punk band Crass, direct­ed by Dutch film­mak­er Alexan­der Oey. (2006)
• They Were There — Free — Errol Mor­ris, the acclaimed direc­tor, was hired to make a film for an “in house” con­fer­ence of IBM employ­ees. The 30-minute film notably fea­tures music by Philip Glass.
• This is Mar­shall McLuhan: The Medi­um is the Mes­sage — Free — “Mar­shall McLuhan dis­cuss­es his con­tro­ver­sial com­mu­ni­ca­tions the­o­ries in this exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary pro­duced by Oscar-win­n­er Ernest Pintoff and Guy Frau­meni.” Came out the same year as his book: The Medi­um is the Mas­sage. (1967)
• This is Ska — Free — Filmed on loca­tion in Kingston, Jamaica, this doc­u­men­tary fea­tures per­for­mances by a who’s who of up-and-com­ing ska artists, includ­ing Prince Buster, Jim­my Cliff and The May­tals. (1964)
• Thomas Pyn­chon: A Jour­ney Into the Mind of P. — Free — A doc­u­men­tary, writ­ten & direct­ed by Donatel­lo Dubi­ni & Fos­co Dubi­ni, on the reclu­sive nov­el­ist. (2008)
• To Hear Your Ban­jo Play — Free — 16-minute intro­duc­tion to Amer­i­can folk music, writ­ten & nar­rat­ed by Alan Lomax and fea­tur­ing rare per­for­mances by Woody Guthrie, Bald­win Hawes, Son­ny Ter­ry. (1946)
• Tokyo Girls — Free — A can­did jour­ney into the world of 4 young Cana­di­an women who work as well-paid host­esses in exclu­sive Japan­ese night­clubs. These mod­­ern-day geisha find them­selves caught up in the mizu shobai — the com­plex “float­ing water world” of Tokyo clubs and bars. (2000)
• Tol­stoy Remem­bered — Free —  Doc­u­men­tary fea­tures Tol­stoy’s daugh­ter. Direct­ed by Michael Rabiger. (1970)
• Tom Pet­ty, Some­where You Feel Free – The Mak­ing of Wild­flow­ers — Free — The film was shot while Tom was on a pro­lif­ic song­writ­ing streak for years mak­ing what he intend­ed to be a dou­ble album called Wild­flow­ers. (2021)
• Tom Waits: A Day in Vien­na — Free — Tom Waits sings and tells sto­ries in film that orig­i­nal­ly aired on Aus­tri­an TV. (1979)
• Toute la mémoire du monde (All the World’s Mem­o­ries) — Free — Alain Resnais’s short doc­u­men­tary looks at the inner work­ings of the Bib­lio­thèque nationale de France in Paris. It’s “a med­i­ta­tive piece about the fragili­ty of human mem­o­ry and the ways in which we try to shore it up.” (1956)
• Trapped: Andy Warhol’s Ami­ga Exper­i­ments — Free — Short film doc­u­ments how Carnegie Mel­lon experts recov­ered lost paint­ings that Andy Warhol made on the Com­modore Ami­ga com­put­er dur­ing the 1980s.
• Tune Out the Noise — Free — Errol Mor­ris takes a look at the finan­cial rev­o­lu­tion that trans­formed invest­ing. (2023)
• Tunisian Vic­to­ry — Free — World War II doc­u­men­tary direct­ed by Frank Capra and nar­rat­ed by Burgess Mered­ith. (1944)
• UFOs: It Has Begun - Free — Doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Rod Ser­ling explores the exis­tence of UFOs and extra-ter­res­tri­al beings. (1979)
• Uni­verse — Free — A 1960 doc­u­men­tary that inspired the visu­al Effects of Stan­ley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and gave the HAL 9000 com­put­er its voice (1960)
• Unguid­ed Tour AKA Let­ter from Venice — Free — Susan Son­tag adapt­ed the Ital­ian-lan­guage fea­ture from her sto­ry of the same name, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 1977 in the New York­er. (1983)
• Urban Strug­gle: The Bat­tle Of The Cuck­oos Nest — Free — Doc­u­ments the hard­core punk scene at the Cuck­oo’s Nest night­club. Fea­tures per­for­mances by T.S.O.L., Cir­cle Jerks and Black Flag, and shows ear­ly slam danc­ing. (1981)
• Van Gogh: Paint­ed with Words — Free — Writ­ten and direct­ed by Andrew Hut­ton, this dra­­ma-doc­u­­men­­tary about Vin­cent Van Gogh fea­tures Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch in the lead role. (2010)
• Veg­e­tar­i­an World — Free — “William Shat­ner walks us through the his­to­ry, ben­e­fits, and mis­con­cep­tions of adher­ing to a veg­e­tar­i­an diet.” (1982)
• Ver­meer: Mas­ter of Light — Free — Explores Ver­meer’s com­po­si­tion­al meth­ods and tech­niques. Nar­rat­ed by Meryl Streep. (2001)
• Vic­to­ry at Sea — Free —  Award-win­n­ing, 26 episode TV series chron­i­cling naval war­fare dur­ing WWII. (1953)
• Viet­nam! Viet­nam! - Free — The last film pro­duced by the leg­endary John Ford was a work of pro­pa­gan­da com­mis­sioned by the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment in sup­port of the Viet­nam War. (1971)
• Vir­ginia Woolf: A Nov­el­ist - Free — Draws on old maps, con­tem­po­rary draw­ings and paint­ings, por­traits and oth­er archive mate­r­i­al to present an out­line of Vir­ginia Woolf’s life and to con­vey a pic­ture of the social and his­tor­i­cal back­ground to her writ­ing.
• Vis­it to Picas­so - Free Part 1 — Free Part 2 — Bel­gian film­mak­er Paul Hae­saerts cap­tures Picas­so’s cre­ative process. (1949)
• Viva Joe Strum­mer — Free — A doc­u­men­tary look at the great front­man of The Clash. (2005)
• Wait­ing for Beck­ett — Free — Rare fea­­ture-length doc­u­men­tary on the Nobel Prize-win­n­ing writer Samuel Beck­ett. (1993)
• Warhol’s Cin­e­ma — A Mir­ror for the Six­ties — Free ‑This 64 minute doc­u­men­tary from 1989 exam­ines Andy Warhol’s films from the 1960s. (You can view sev­er­al of these films — Eat, Sleep, and Kiss — here.)
  (1989)
• Watch­ing My Name Go By — Free — A short doc­u­men­tary about the ear­ly days of graf­fi­ti cul­ture in New York City. (1976)
• Wattstax — Free — Doc­u­ments the “Black Wood­stock” con­cert held 7 years after the Watts Riots. (1973)
• We Were There to Be There — Free — A doc­u­men­tary revis­its The Cramps famous punk con­cert at the Napa State psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal. (2021)
• Wern­er Her­zog Eats His Shoe - Free — Her­zog los­es a bet to Errol Mor­ris and eats a shoe with the help of chef Alice Waters. (1980)
• Who’s Out There? — Free — Orson Welles nar­rates a doc­u­men­tary ask­ing whether there’s extrater­res­tri­al life in the Uni­verse. (1975)
• Who is Afraid of Ai Wei­wei? — Free — A short PBS Front­line doc­u­men­tary on the dis­si­dent Chi­nese artist. (2011)
• Who’s Afraid Of Machi­avel­li — Free — This doc­u­men­tary asks how rel­e­vant Machi­avel­li’s book, The Prince, is 500 years after its pub­li­ca­tion. (2013)
• Why We Fight — Free — A sev­en part series of WWII pro­pa­gan­da films direct­ed by Frank Capra. (1943)
• What the Future Sound­ed Like? -Free — From Dr Who to The Dark Side of the Moon, “the pio­neer­ing mem­bers of the Elec­tron­ic Music Stu­dios rad­i­cal­ly changed the sound-scape of the 20th Cen­tu­ry. What the Future Sound­ed Like tells this fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of British elec­tron­ic music.” (2007)
• Will Self­’s Kaf­ka Jour­ney: A Prague Walk­ing Tour — Free — Will Self vis­its Prague for a walk­ing tour in search of Franz Kafka’s genius loci. (2015)
• William S. Bur­roughs: 100 Years — Free — A short fea­ture on the life of writer William S. Bur­roughs by the LA Review of Books. (2014)
• William S. Bur­roughs & Lawrence — Free — William S. Bur­roughs and his years in Lawrence, Kansas. He lived in Lawrence longer than in any oth­er place and chose to spend the last sev­er­al years of his life here. (2014)
• WikiRebels — Free — Doc­u­men­tary by Swedish pub­lic tele­vi­sion chron­i­cles his­to­ry of Wik­ileaks. (2010)
• Wittgen­stein: A Won­der­ful Life — Free — About the remark­able life of the Aus­tri­an philoso­pher Lud­wig Wittgen­stein. (1989)
• Woody Guthrie - Free — Cov­ers the life of Woody Guthrie, Amer­i­ca’s great trav­el­ling singer-song­writer. (1988)
• You Don’t Know Jack — Free — Mor­gan Spurlock’s short doc­u­men­tary on the 15-year-old who invent­ed a new way to detect ear­ly stage pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. (2013)

For a full line­up of great movies, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Download De La Soul’s Hip Hop Albums for Free — Until Noon Saturday

in Music | February 14th, 2014

25 years ago, the hip hop trio De La Soul released its debut album 3 Feet High and Ris­ing (above). Robert Christ­gau, the self-pro­claimed “Dean of Amer­i­can Rock Crit­ics” and long-time music edi­tor for the Vil­lage Voice, declared that it was “unlike any rap album you or any­body else has ever heard.” And it wound up 23rd on The Source Mag­a­zine’s list of The 100 Best Rap Albums.

To cel­e­brate the anniver­sary of this release, De La Soul has gone over and beyond and made all (but one) of their stu­dio albums free to down­load until noon tomor­row (Sat­ur­day). Head over to the band’s web site, select the albums that you want to down­load,  enter your name and email address, click “Sub­mit for Sounds” and then wait until you receive an email con­tain­ing the down­load links. It’s as sim­ple as that. Hap­py lis­ten­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The “Amen Break”: The Most Famous 6‑Second Drum Loop & How It Spawned a Sam­pling Rev­o­lu­tion

The Great­ness of Charles Dar­win Explained with Rap Music

The Large Hadron Col­lid­er Rap, Yo

A Brief His­to­ry of Sam­pling: From the Bea­t­les to the Beast­ie Boys

Paul McCartney’s Conceptual Drawings For the Abbey Road Cover and Magical Mystery Tour Film

in Art, Music | February 14th, 2014

The web­site of Abbey Road stu­dios has an Earth­Cam trained on the inter­sec­tion of Abbey Road and Grove End Road, right out­side its state­ly Geor­gian Town­house. You can mon­i­tor the site all day and night if you like, and the prospect of doing so seems no cra­zier to me than indulging a fix­a­tion with Paul is dead con­spir­a­cies. It’s a mag­i­cal place, as like­ly to inspire awe as blind obses­sion. Although it has record­ed artists from Paul Robe­son to Lady Gaga, the his­toric stu­dio acquired its shrine sta­tus from one moment only—The Bea­t­les final record­ed album, Abbey Road, and its infa­mous cov­er shot.

See­ing the sausage of that cov­er made in the alter­nate takes post­ed at the Bea­t­les Bible site (two of which have Paul wear­ing san­dals) doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly dis­pel the mys­tique, but it does dis­abuse one of illu­sions of total spon­tane­ity. Even more so does the draw­ing at the top, which Paul McCart­ney made for pho­tog­ra­ph­er Iain Macmil­lan, who had 10 min­utes to get the hand­ful of shots he cap­tured with his Has­sel­blad. In the top right-hand cor­ner, you can see a small draw­ing added by Macmil­lan which adds depth to McCartney’s rudi­men­ta­ry com­po­si­tions. These sketch­es show McCart­ney and Macmil­lan care­ful­ly visu­al­iz­ing the sym­me­tries, strides, and even shad­ows of the cross­walk pho­to. (See the land­mark above, emp­ty, in a pho­to tak­en that same day.)

Sketch­ing out impor­tant shots like these is com­mon prac­tice. For exam­ple, above you can see Peter Blake’s 1967 out­line for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band cov­er art. But the Abbey Road sketch is fur­ther evi­dence of McCartney’s guid­ing hand in The Bea­t­les’ image-mak­ing. Of Sgt. Pepper’s, John Lennon went on record as say­ing of the con­cept that “Sgt Pep­per is Paul.” In this case, McCartney’s idea for the cov­er was instru­men­tal in Blake’s even­tu­al design: “a pre­sen­ta­tion fea­tur­ing a may­or and a cor­po­ra­tion, with a flo­ral clock and a selec­tion of pho­tographs of famous faces on the wall behind The Bea­t­les.” McCart­ney cir­cu­lat­ed a list among the band mem­bers, ask­ing them to list their choice of celebri­ties. Many of the sug­gest­ed fig­ures end­ed up on the cov­er.

Of their sub­se­quent con­cept album, The Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour, Ringo like­wise claimed “it’s Paul’s idea real­ly, he came up with this.” When­ev­er McCart­ney for­mu­lat­ed his ideas—for album struc­tures, cov­er designs, or movies—he says in this video (which we can’t embed, unfor­tu­nate­ly) that he would “draw some­thing out.” Above, see his con­cep­tu­al map for the Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour film (click to enlarge). It may only be a coin­ci­dence that it looks some­thing like a dream­catch­er. Maybe it’s more of a pie chart. In any case, McCart­ney describes it in fair­ly mat­ter-of-fact terms as “vir­tu­al­ly a script” that allowed him to “focus his thoughts.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

John, Paul and George Per­form Duel­ing Gui­tar Solos on The Bea­t­les’ Farewell Song (1969)

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with a Funny Medley of Male Pain, Selected By Musical Collective “Cadenza”

in Comedy, Music | February 14th, 2014

“If my Valen­tine you won’t be,

I’ll hang myself on your Christ­mas tree.”

― Ernest Hem­ing­way, 88 Poems

Strange­ly, that’s one activ­i­ty that did­n’t make Men’s Health reporter Markham Hei­d’s  list of 10 Valen­tine’s Day dis­trac­tions for the new­ly dumped. Yoga class­es and Sin­gles Fun Runs do sound health­ful, but many will find sug­ges­tion num­ber 10—wallowing in it—the most viable option.

Musi­cal exper­i­men­tal­ists Col­lec­tive Caden­za­’s Valen­tine’s Day Spe­cial “A His­to­ry of Men Mov­ing On” is to wal­low­ing as speed dat­ing is to courtship.

It’s a five minute med­ley of male roman­tic pain that takes us all the way from Roy Orbison’s 1960 “Only the Lone­ly” to Cee­Lo Green’s point­ed “Fuck You.”

Vocal­ist For­est Van Dyke exhibits con­sid­er­able dex­ter­i­ty, nav­i­gat­ing these styl­is­tic switch­backs. A shame he was direct­ed to deliv­er so much of this choice mate­r­i­al to a framed pho­to, awk­ward­ly posi­tioned on an upstage music stand. I know that the room was crowd­ed, but I would’ve liked to see his feet, too. A man who can dance is some­thing to see.

Kudos to musi­cal direc­tor Michael Thurber for mak­ing explic­it the sim­i­lar­i­ties between Gotye’s “Some­body That I Used To Know” and Ush­er’s “Papers” (as cov­ered by a goat). As with Hem­ing­way’s cou­plet, the lat­ter failed to make the round up. Does the heart­break ever cease?

Hap­py Valen­tine’s Day!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Lover’s Spat Set to the Lyrics of 17 Bea­t­les Songs

Tom Waits Shows Us How Not to Get a Date on Valentine’s Day

Bar­ry White’s Phi­los­o­phy of Music and Mak­ing Love, Ani­mat­ed

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is sta­pling up a new issue of her zine, The East Vil­lage Inky. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life: The Oscar-Winning Film About Kafka Writing The Metamorphosis

in Film, Literature, Radio | February 13th, 2014

Peter Capal­di is best known in the States for being the most recent actor to play Doc­tor Who. But did you know that he is also an Oscar-win­ning film­mak­er? His bril­liant short film Franz Kafka’s It’s a Won­der­ful Life took the prize for Best Short Film in 1995.

The movie shows Kaf­ka, on Christ­mas Eve, strug­gling to come up with the open­ing line for his most famous work, The Meta­mor­pho­sis.

As Gre­gor Sam­sa awoke one morn­ing from uneasy dreams he found him­self trans­formed in his bed into a gigan­tic insect.

Capal­di wrings a lot of laughs out of Kafka’s inabil­i­ty to fig­ure out what Sam­sa should turn into. A giant banana? A kan­ga­roo? Even when the answer is lit­er­al­ly star­ing at him in the face, Kaf­ka is hilar­i­ous­ly obtuse.

Richard E. Grant stars as the tor­tured, tight­ly-wound writer who is dri­ven into fits as his cre­ative process is inter­rupt­ed for increas­ing­ly absurd rea­sons. The noisy par­ty down­stairs, it turns out, is pop­u­lat­ed by a dozen beau­ti­ful maid­ens in white. A lost deliv­ery woman offers Kaf­ka a bal­loon ani­mal. A local lunatic search­es for his com­pan­ion named Jiminy Cock­roach.

You can see the film above, help­ful­ly sub­ti­tled in Ger­man. Also find it in our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More, plus our list of 33 Free Oscar Win­ning Films Avail­able on the Web.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Find Works by Kaf­ka in our lists of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks

Watch Franz Kaf­ka, the Won­der­ful Ani­mat­ed Film by Piotr Dumala

The Art of Franz Kaf­ka: Draw­ings from 1907–1917

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.