Browse Movies : Released : 2014 : Documentary

Captured with IMAX 3D cameras, Island of Lemurs: Madagascar takes audiences on a spectacular journey to the remote and wondrous world of Madagascar. Lemurs arrived in Madagascar as castaways millions of years ago and evolved into hundreds of diverse species but are now highly endangered.

An cinematic experience covering 12 years in the life of a family. At the center is Mason, who with his sister Samantha, is taken on an emotional and transcendent journey through the years, from childhood to adulthood.

Bears showcases a year in the life of two mother bears as they impart life lessons to their impressionable young cubs. Set against a majestic Alaskan backdrop teeming with life, their journey begins as winter comes to an end and the bears emerge from hibernation to face the bitter cold. The world outside is exciting—but risky—as the cubs’ playful descent down the mountain carries with it a looming threat of avalanches. As the season changes from spring to summer, the brown bear families must work together to find food—ultimately feasting at a plentiful salmon run—while staying safe from predators, including an ever-present wolf pack. “Bears” captures the fast-moving action and suspense of life in one of the planet’s last great wildernesses—where mothers definitely know best and their cubs’ survival hinges on family togetherness.

Academy Award®-nominated directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water; co-producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 & Bowling for Columbine) follow the money behind the rise of the Tea Party. Citizen Koch investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations and billionaires on the electoral process, featuring stories of life-long Republicans whose loyalty is tested when their families become collateral damage in the GOP fight to take organized labor out at the knees.

Featuring the voice performances of international stars Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Sebastian Koch, Thomas Kretschmann, Gustaf Skarsgård and Josh Radnor, this film interweaves an unsolved 1930s murder mystery with stories of present day Galapagos pioneers (a handful of Europeans, Americans and Ecuadoreans who settled idiosyncratically on the Islands between the 1930s and 1960s).

The film follows a group of obsese children for more than two years as they try to lose weight.

he story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.

Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

Tim Jenison, a Texas based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in all art: How did 17th century Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer ("Girl with a Pearl Earring") manage to paint so photo-realistically -- 150 years before the invention of photography? The epic research project Jenison embarks on to test his theory is as extraordinary as what he discovers. Spanning a decade, Jenison's adventure takes him to Delft, Holland, where Vermeer painted his masterpieces; on a pilgrimage to the North coast of Yorkshire to meet artist David Hockney; and eventually even to Buckingham Palace, to see the Queen's Vermeer.

America is more important to the world than we could ever imagine. A story that imagines that the United States lost the Revolutionary War and therefore never existed.

When Paleontologist Peter Larson and his team from the Black Hills Institute made the world’s greatest dinosaur discovery in 1990, they knew it was the find of a lifetime: the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. But during a ten-year battle with the U.S. government, powerful museums, Native American tribes and competing paleontologists, they found themselves not only fighting to keep their dinosaur but fighting for their freedom as well.

In 1975, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose films El Topo and The Holy Mountain launched and ultimately defined the midnight movie phenomenon, began work on his most ambitious project yet. Starring his own 12 year old son Brontis alongside Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, featuring music by Pink Floyd and art by some of the most provocative talents of the era, including HR Giger and Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, Jodorowsky's adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel DUNE was poised to change cinema forever.

For two years, Jodo and his team of "spiritual warriors" worked night and day on the massive task of creating the fabulous world of DUNE: over 3,000 storyboards, numerous paintings, incredible costumes, and an outrageous, moving and powerful script.

In 1991, music manager Shep Gordon held Mike Myers over a barrel a few weeks before shooting “Wayne’s World” regarding an Alice Cooper song Myers wanted to use in the film. They have been close friends ever since. Twenty-two years later, the story of Gordon’s legendary life in the uber fast lane is now told in Myers’ directorial debut. And this time it’s Myers who has Gordon over a barrel.

Capitalist, protector, hedonist, pioneer, showman, shaman . . . Supermensch.

Shep Gordon is the consummate Hollywood insider. Though he isn’t a household name, Gordon has become a beacon in the industry, beloved by the countless stars he has encountered throughout his storied career. Shep is known for managing the careers of Alice Cooper as well as stints with Blondie, Luther Vandross and Raquel Welch, among others – a career that began with a chance encounter in 1968 with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. He even found time to invent the “Celebrity Chef.” Though the chef as star is part of the culture now, it took Shep's imagination, and his moral outrage at how the chefs were being treated, to monetize the culinary arts into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. Personal friends with the Dalai Lama through his philanthropic endeavors with the Tibet Fund and the guardian of four children, Gordon’s unlikely story told by those who know him best, his pals, including Alice Cooper, Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Emeril Lagasse and more.

The takes a riveting inside look at the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that overturned Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage. Five years in the making, the film chronicles the struggle that changed history and paved the way for marriage equality battles nationwide. With exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the powerhouse legal team of conservative Ted Olson and liberal David Boies, who previously faced off as opposing counsel in Bush v. Gore, along with the four plaintiffs in the suit, the film provides a definitive account of the battle that effectively ended marriage discrimination in California.

A documentary about humanity’s influence on the world’s most vital resource, water.

The film takes an intimate look at the world of Burt Shavitz, the face and co-founder of Burt’s Bees, exploring his fascinating and unique life. Wise and wry, ornery and opinionated, the reclusive Shavitz is committed to living off the land and keeping true to his humble beginnings despite his celebrity status. The film chronicles Burt’s life as a photographer, beekeeper, and brand spokesman, following his complicated relationship with the company, his fans, and the world around him.

A 40-year-old father of two, still finds life very complicated. When the mother of his children moves to New York, he can't bear them growing up far away from him and so he decides to move there as well.

Renowned ball-room dancer, Pierre Dulaine takes his belief that dance can overcome political and social differences and applies it to eleven-year-old Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.

More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation’s top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, Divorce Corp. uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people’s lives while enriching their friends. This documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional fiefdoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts - and their associates - drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence. Solutions to the crisis are sought out in countries where divorce is handled in a more holistic manner.

Finding Vivian Maier unearths the mysteries behind Vivian Maier, who was a nanny in the wealthy North Shore suburbs of Chicago. Maier’s secret world is unraveled slowly through her photo collections and interviews with those who knew her, from the parents who hired her and the children she cared for to store owners, movie theater operators, and neighbors.