First person view of a man, seen only in shadow, attempting to connect with the world around him. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.
Social & External
Produced by the Army Pictorial Service, Signal Corps, with the cooperation of the Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and released by Warner Bros. for the War Activities Committee shortly after the surrender of Japan. Follow General Douglas MacArthur and his men from their exile from the Philippines in early 1942, through the signing of the instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri on September 1, 1945. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.
A description and enactment of the discovery of gold by James Marshall, and the role played by John Sutter. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Documentary examining the steel industry in Youngstown, Ohio during World War II. Focuses on steel production, including the smelting process, slagging and the blast furnace. Workers reflect upon their lives and the importance of their jobs. Emphasizes the importance of teamwork in the mills and on the plant's labor relations committee to help win the war. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary, filmed and released while the Vietnam War was still under way, juxtaposing interviews with military figures like U.S. Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland with shocking scenes of violence and brutality.
The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.
Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter) directed this 53-minute documentary about movie tycoon Joseph E. Levine (1963). Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.
One of Les Blank's industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms "broiler" chicken from factory incubation to the county fair barbecue pit. A hilarious, disturbing and surreal look at a large-scale chicken farm producing 156 million chickens a year! Film includes lots of chicken songs and music recorded live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.
Short film made up of various clips showcasing the Cinecolor process, including a visit to a Marx Brothers film set. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation.
Kavery Kaul’s engaging documentary traces the history of calypso and soca music from their birth in the African-East Indian traditions of Trinidad and Tobago through its worldwide diaspora, including its popularization in the 1950s by Harry Belafonte and the new independent distribution networks that arose to serve the expatriate community in the 1980s. North American restoration premiere at To Save and Project: The 19th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation on January 27 and 31, 2023. Digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film & Television; courtesy of Riverfilms.
Documentarian Jon Boorstin follows architect Frank Gehry and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, as they attempt a new method of teaching elementary school children in Los Angeles. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the siblings work together on a pilot program of “design-based learning” that would restructure the typical classroom curriculum, replacing rote math or civics lessons with an imaginary city designed and built entirely by the students themselves. Restored in 2018 by the Academy Film Archive.
Chick Strand's SOFT FICTION is a personal documentary that brilliantly portrays the survival power of female sensuality. It combines the documentary approach with a sensuous lyrical expressionism. Strand focuses her camera on people talking about their own experience, capturing subtle nuances in facial expressions and gestures that are rarely seen in cinema. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2015.
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with New York Women in Film & Television in 2004.
Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "church tent" Revivalist circuit, commenting on the showmanship of Evangelism and "the religion business", prior to the start of "televangelism". Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
This Oscar-winning documentary tells the story behind Japanese daredevil Yuichiro Miura's 1970 effort to ski down the world's tallest mountain.
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
A historical film contrasting the two Germanies – the good and the evil – which struggled for power between the two world wars.
This is a film made in Toronto, in memoriam, so to speak - a memory piece, a "piecing-together" of the experience of living there. The consciousness of the maker comes to sharply focused visual music - not to arrive at snapshots, as such, but rather to "sing" the city as remembered from daily living...complementary, then, to an earlier film, "Unconscious London Strata." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.
A film's art director is in charge of the set, from conception to construction to furnishing. This short film walks the viewer through art directors' responsibilities and the demands on their talents. They read a script carefully and design a set to capture the time and place, the social strata, and the mood. They must be scholars of the history of architecture, furnishings, and fashion. They choose the colors on a set in anticipation of the lighting and the mood. Their work also sets styles, from Art Deco in the 20's to 30s modernism. Then it's on to the next project. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
A portrait of artist, actress, poet and occultist Marjorie Cameron, it shows images of her paintings and recitations of her poems. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.
In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.
A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.
Whilst vacationing in the Carpathian Mountain, two couples stumble across the remains of Count Dracula's castle. The Count's trusted servant kills one of the men, suspending the body over the Count's ashes so that the blood drips from the corpse and saturates the blackened remains. The ritual is completed, the Count revived and his attentions focus on the dead man's wife who is to become his partner; devoted to an existence of depravity and evil.
After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.
101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.
Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate, who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski…
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently -- and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.
An insurance salesman begins to suspect that his whole life is actually some sort of reality TV show.
When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.
An ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning.
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of Rome's most capable generals who Marcus preferred. Eventually, Maximus is forced to become a gladiator and battle to the death against other men for the amusement of paying audiences.
