Browse Movies : 2022 : NR : Documentary

Rabble rouser or activist? Opportunist or trailblazer? During his six-decade journey from pastoral prodigy to racial justice firebrand to elder media statesman, the Reverend Al Sharpton has been a polarizing figure on the national stage

Metlakatla is Alaska's last Native Indian reserve. For hundreds of years two distinct traditions have defined their community- fishing and basketball. Watch as two cousins lead their local High School team toward a shot at their first state championship in over 30 years. In the aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy, a basketball title has the ability to breathe new life back into this small town.

T.M. Landry, an unconventional prep school in Louisiana, receives national attention for sending its graduates to elite universities. When an explosive New York Times exposé rocks the school, students face uncertain futures and must decide for themselves what they are willing to do to be accepted.

Bitterbrush follows Hollyn Patterson and Colie Moline, range riders who are spending their last summer herding cattle in remote Idaho. Totally off the grid with only their dogs as companions, Hollyn and Colie brave inclement weather and perilous work conditions while pondering their futures. A portrait of friendship, life transitions, and the work of two skilled young women in the isolated and beautiful landscape of the American West, Bitterbrush is an intimate portrayal of a way of life rarely seen on film.

There is no New York without Broadway. It’s both a landmark and a community, an industry and a people. During the pandemic, over 96,000 people lost their jobs, and an entire industry was brought to a standstill. Broadway Rising tells the story of the Broadway community and its harrowing journey back to the stage following the COVID-19 shutdown. Herculean challenges are not new to Broadway. It has weathered 9/11; the arrival of the motion picture industry; and the devastation of AIDS on a generation of artists. Even amidst the pandemic, many Broadway organizations helped forge a path towards racial equity in the wake of BLM movement. But when employees whose livelihoods depend upon Broadway found themselves unemployed – it was a steep hill to climb back to opening night. This is their story, from early quiet moments of anxiety and self-reflection, to the determination that “the show must go on,” and finally the triumph of September 12, 2021; opening night.

In creating a documentary portrait of a parent, as actor Charlotte Gainsbourg does in her directorial debut, one could overly flatter the subject or iron out the tough creases. Gainsbourg avoids these traps in her film about her legendary mother, the singer and actress Jane Birkin. Consisting of several intimate conversations between parent and child, as well as footage of Birkin performing onstage, the result is a spare, loving window into the emotional lives of two women as they talk about subject matter that ranges from the delightful to the difficult: aging, dying, insomnia, celebrity, and their differing memories of their shared past, which includes Charlotte’s father and Jane’s husband, Serge Gainsbourg.

Dawn Raid is the story of two Manukau Polytechnic students, Andy Murnane and Tanielu Leaosavai'i (aka Brotha D) who turned a bootleg t-shirt business and Hip-Hop night at a local bar in Otara into the influential Dawn Raid Entertainment empire. From humble beginnings to fame and fortune, Andy, Brotha D and the Dawn Raid artists gave voice to a disenfranchised Pacific community, for which the violence of the dawn raids, twenty years previously, was still raw. But the bravado and contempt for the status quo that drove Andy and Brotha D to the top, was also the unravelling of their empire. Unpaid tax debts, rifts between artists, and a feeling of betrayal and failure underpinned the downfall of Dawn Raid Entertainment, though not before they had created an immeasurable musical legacy that would pave the way for future New Zealand artists to reach international audiences.

Steve Williams is considered a pioneer in computer animation. This intimate account examines his life story and events surrounding the historical moment when digital dinosaurs walked onto the silver screen in Jurassic Park. Steve and a chorus of expert witnesses recount a dramatic tale of rebellion and revolution at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic in the early 1990s-- a time when creating realistic creatures with a computer was considered impossible. Decades later, Steve struggles to reckon with his chaotic past.

Kai Greene is one of the biggest modern day legends in bodybuilding both on and off the stage. He's an athlete, an artist, an actor, and an entrepreneur. But his journey to greatness first started in childhood - when he chose bodybuilding as a form of survival. Growing up in Brooklyn without parents and later locked up in a juvenile correctional facility, bodybuilding became Kai’s source of hope that eventually took him to stardom. Later in life Kai became one of the most recognizable faces in the fitness industry, praised by Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. His talent was only matched by one singular opponent, his rival and Mr. Olympia champion Phil Heath. Now witness Kai Greene’s story of survival and climb to success in the first ever all-access documentary chronicling his life and career into the sport of bodybuilding and beyond.

Documents director Norman Jewison's quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in Tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic.

When Shu’aib Raheem tried to steal guns for self-defense, it sparked the longest hostage siege in NYPD history.

By the time Johnny Cash released his iconic “Man in Black” album in 1971, the international superstar was broken down, hollow-eyed, and wrung out - often torn between Jesus and the “Cocaine Blues.” Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon tells the true story of a music legend’s spiritual quest, and his ultimate return to an “unshakeable faith.”

Elon Musk and SpaceX engineers embark on a historic mission to return NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and revolutionize space travel.

As the Kalahari Desert faces a worsening dry season, prides, packs and herds of all kinds must rely on the power of family to survive.

From Antarctica to the Himalaya, the Alps, and the Andes, IMAX immerses you in an extraordinary journey to the top of Earth’s glaciers to show how rapidly they are disappearing. The 40-minute documentary captures the fragility of our natural world and brings forward a call to action from the next generation determined to reverse the climate crisis for their own future.

A feature length documentary that digs deep into the psyche of enigmatic West Australian ‘slab wave’ surfer Kerby Brown, a man whose connection with the ocean runs as deep as his love for his family. This film is far more than just a surfing story. It’s an unapologetic musing into the essence of Kerby and his family as we join them on his quest to ride a ferocious slab wave in the deep southern ocean that no one on the planet has surfed before. It’s a film about fear, addictions, and family bonds as we explore what drives Kerby, what anchors him and why he’s obsessed with pitting himself against one of nature’s most intimidating forces.

A handful of prisoners in WWII camps risked their lives to take clandestine photographs of the hell the Nazis were hiding from the world. Director Christophe Cognet retraces the footsteps of these courageous men and women in a quest to unearth the circumstances and the stories behind their photographs, composing as such an archeology of images as acts of defiance.

A young mother’s mysterious death and her son’s subsequent kidnapping blow open a decades-long mystery about the woman’s true identity, and the murderous federal fugitive at the center of it all.