Historical Documentary Movies

A film about the gold panning adventures of Hans Söderström, an indigenous Swede. The story stretches from Scandinavia to Africa, via Asia...

This comedic retrospective mixes archival footage and scripted sketches as it revisits all the dread — and occasional delight — that 2021...

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the...

Ireland, June 1944. The crucial decision about the right time to start Operation Overlord on D-Day comes to depend on the readings taken by Maureen...

Former corporate whiz kid Robert McNamara was the controversial Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, during the height of...

Thirty years after the release of his film JFK (1991), filmmaker Oliver Stone reviews recently declassified evidence related to the assassination of...

What happened after Einstein fled Nazi Germany? Using archival footage and his own words, this docudrama dives into the mind of a tortured genius.

This documentary delves into the mysteries surrounding the Neanderthals and what their fossil record tells us about their lives and disappearance.

The story of the American Founding, the greatest political achievement in history. The American colonists had developed a unique way of life as they...

In 1975, as America faced social and political upheaval, filmmakers turned chaos into art.

Egyptian archaeologists dig into history, discovering tombs and artifacts over 4,000 years old as they search for a buried pyramid in this...

Archival film maestro Göran Hugo Olsson has assembled—from a vast catalogue of footage in the vaults of Sweden’s national television...

The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to...

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single...

A collection of restored prints from the Lumière Brothers.

Marijuana is the most controversial drug of the 20th century. Smoked by generations to little discernible ill effect, it continues to be reviled by...

In 1968, art students Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell made a trippy photo collage for their musician friends Syd, David and...

A century after Shackleton's Endurance sank beneath the ice, explorers uncover the legendary shipwreck and an amazing tale of survival.

A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of...