Browse Movies : 2021 : Documentary (Page #2)

Many know the name Alvin Ailey, but how many know the man? Ailey’s commitment to searching for truth in movement resulted in pioneering and enduring choreography that centers on African American experiences. Director Jamila Wignot’s resonant biography grants artful access to the elusive visionary who founded one of the world’s most renowned dance companies, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Lily Topples The World follows 20-year-old sensation Lily Hevesh as she rises as an artist, role model, and young woman. Filmed for over 3 years across countless cities and featuring appearances by Jimmy Fallon, Katy Perry, Will Smith, YouTuber Casey Neistat, and a steady stream of Gen-Z creators, Lily Topples The World is a coming-of-age story cloaked within a unique portrait of an artist, a story of how passion and artistry can make dreams come true, and an unlikely American tale of a quiet Chinese adoptee who transforms into a global artistic force with over 1 billion YouTube views.

The iconic Mister Kelly’s, once called a “supernova in the local and national night life firmament,” illuminated legendary Chicago’s Rush Street, and the entire country, by launching talent like Barbra Streisand, Richard Pryor, Bob Newhart, Bette Midler and Steve Martin. Its visionary owners George and Oscar Marienthal smashed color and gender barriers to put unknown, controversial voices on stage and transform entertainment, as America knew it in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ’70s. Now, with the club long gone, and its star talent reaching its golden years, George’s son David and director/screenwriter, Theodore Bogosian, go on a quest to collect the memories of the clubs before they are lost.

Over twenty years ago, rival nations put aside political and cultural differences and came together in a demonstration of international co-operation to create something unique—the International Space Station. For the first time in history, driven by his innate impulse to explore, man had a permanently inhabited foothold in the heavens. The Wonderful draws together personal stories from men and women from around the world who have been a part of this extraordinary endeavor, providing a fascinating insight into human nature and our relationship with planet Earth. These testimonials bring an intimacy and uniqueness to the story—bringing life in space alive, yet showing the strong emotional ties that bind these astronauts to the earth—and we are left not only with a sense of the vast 'velvet bottomless bucket' of the universe, but also the remarkable resilience and potential of mankind.

An experiment in documentary and narrative storytelling sheds light on one of Mexico and the world's most controversial institutions, the police force and the causes of the impunity crisis plaguing the justice system.

A coming of age documentary following Maryland School for the Deaf high school athlete Amaree McKenstry and his close friends as they face the pressures of senior year and grappling with the realities of venturing off into the hearing world. Amaree and his teammates take out their frustrations on the football field as they battle to protect an unprecedented winning streak, while coming to terms with the tragic loss of a close friend. This is a story about kids who stand up to adversity. They face conflict, but approach the future with hope – shouting to the world that they exist and they matter.

For 30 years, Lynn Davis has photographed the magnificent icebergs of Greenland. Davis returned recently with climate change expert Tony Leiserowitz, where they take in the meltdown, and explore the implications for the planet.

Based on newly discovered and declassified files, the film documents the extent of the FBI’s surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A Crime on the Bayou is the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teenager from Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans. In 1966, Duncan tries to break up an argument between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. The boy recoils like a snake. That night, police burst into Duncan’s trailer and arrest him for assault on a minor. A young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, leaves his prestigious D.C. firm to volunteer in New Orleans. With his help, Duncan bravely stands up to a racist legal system powered by a white supremacist boss to challenge his unfair arrest. Their fight goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and their lifelong friendship is forged.

Summer 1969. The astronauts of Apollo 11 successfully land and walk on the moon. The crew will now quarantine for 21 days following contact with lunar material. The clock starts when the hatch is closed on the lunar surface. 3 days later they return to Earth…

Mesmerizing in its imagery and shot in 51 locations across the country, ‘Ascension’ is a cinematic exploration of China’s industrial supply chain that reveals the country’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. The film ascends through the levels of the capitalist structure: workers running factory production, the middle class selling to aspirational consumers, and the elites reveling in a new level of hedonistic enjoyment. In traveling up the rungs of China’s social ladder, we see how each level supports and makes possible the next while recognizing the contemporary ‘Chinese Dream’ remains an elusive fantasy for most.

Blood Brothers tells the extraordinary and ultimately tragic story of the friendship between two of the most iconic figures of the 20th century: Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer of all time, and Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam’s - and black America’s - most incendiary and charismatic leader.

Join The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson on an intimate journey through his legendary career as he reminisces with Rolling Stone editor and longtime friend, Jason Fine.

With his signature blend of scientific acumen, candor and integrity, Dr. Anthony Fauci became America’s most unlikely cultural icon during COVID-19. A world-renowned infectious disease specialist and the longest-serving public health leader in Washington, D.C., he has valiantly overseen the U.S. response to 50 years’ worth of epidemics, including HIV/AIDS, SARS and Ebola. FAUCI is an unprecedented portrait of one of our most vital public servants, whose work saved millions while he faced threats from anonymous adversaries.

Fifteen years before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat, a full decade before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned separate-but-equal legislation, Pauli Murray was already knee-deep fighting for social justice. A pioneering attorney, activist, priest and dedicated memoirist, Murray shaped landmark litigation—and consciousness— around race and gender equity. As an African American youth raised in the segregated South— who was also wrestling with broader notions of gender identity—Pauli understood, intrinsically, what it was to exist beyond previously accepted categories and cultural norms. Both Pauli’s personal path and tireless advocacy foreshadowed some of the most politically consequential issues of our time.

For anyone who loves theater, this contemporary history of Broadway is a pure joy! As audiences prepare for the return of live theater after an unprecedented absence of 18 months, an all-star cast tells the inside story of the last time Broadway came back from the brink. On Broadway shows how this revival helped save New York City, thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion, and the sometimes uneasy balance between art and commerce.

STRAY explores what it means to live as a being without status or security, following three strays as they embark on inconspicuous journeys through Turkish society. Zeytin, fiercely independent, embarks on adventures through the city at night; Nazar, nurturing and protective, easily befriends the humans around her; while Kartal, a shy puppy living on the outskirts of a construction site, finds companions in the security guards who care for her. The strays’ disparate lives intersect when they each form intimate bonds with a group of young Syrians with whom they share the streets. Director Elizabeth Lo’s award-winning film is a critical observation of human civilization through the unfamiliar gaze of dogs and a sensory voyage into new ways of seeing.

A cinematic quest to find the “52 Hertz Whale,” which scientists believe has spent its entire life in solitude calling out at a frequency that is different from any other whale. As the film embarks on this engrossing journey, audiences will explore what this whale’s lonely plight can teach us — not just about our changing relationship to the oceans, but to each other.

In the fall of 1971, tensions between inmates and guards at the Attica Correctional Facility are at an all-time high. On the morning of September 9, it all comes to a head when inmates erupt into one of the largest U.S. prison riots ever witnessed.

Tells the story of the legendary cookbook author and television superstar who changed the way Americans think about food, television, and even about women. Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's surprising path, from her struggles to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, to her empowering story of a woman who found fame in her 50s, and her calling as an unlikely television sensation.