Browse Movies : Released : 2013 : Documentary (Page #4)

An animated documentary on the life of controversial MIT professor, philosopher, linguist, anti-war activist and political firebrand Noam Chomsky.

On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalated—and resulted in the tragic deaths of eleven people (including five children) and the destruction of 61 homes. It was only later discovered that authorities decided to “...let the fire burn.” Using only archival news coverage and interviews, first-time filmmaker Jason Osder has brought to life one of the most tumultuous and largely forgotten clashes between government and citizens in modern American history.

Matt Berninger, lead singer of the rock band The National, invites his metalhead younger brother, Tom, to film their biggest tour yet.

Out of the Clear Blue Sky tells the riveting, behind-the-scenes story of Cantor Fitzgerald. It’s a story of disaster without precedent. What do you when everything – and almost everyone – is gone?

On September 10, 2001, financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald was headquartered on the top 5 floors of the World Trade Center. With offices soaring 100 stories above downtown Manhattan, the Wall Street powerhouse was unknown to the public until tragedy struck. On September 11, 2001, 658 of their employees were missing – presumed dead – in the nation’s worst terrorist attacks. Overnight, Cantor became world famous for the worst of all possible reasons. One of the few who survived was their notorious CEO Howard Lutnick, who had been taking his son to his first day of kindergarten when the planes hit. On September 13th, Lutnick’s emotionally raw, tear-filled interviews transfixed the nation. His distraught television appearances struck a deep personal chord with millions of traumatized Americans reeling and shell-shocked by the unprecedented attacks. But, within a week, in a move that was to become very controversial, Lutnick stopped the paychecks of his missing employees. It was an act that has been praised by some – as a necessary decision to save the company to help the widows of his fallen friends — but severely lambasted by more — as a self-serving, heartless betrayal by a man well known for his ruthlessness. Lutnick’s prior reputation as cut-throat – even by Wall Street standards – preceded him.

The media turned on him and Lutnick went from sympathetic face-of-the-tragedy to vilified pariah over night. Then he completely withdrew from the public eye. Though Cantor suffered almost twice the casualties of the FDNY, their story soon disappeared.

Directed by a September 11th family member, “Out of the Clear Blue” tells twin stories – not only the saga of the ravaged business and surviving employees, but also an insider’s take on the unusual community of families that formed in the aftermath. Cantor’s loss was not only the largest loss by a single entity, it also created the largest single group of mourners, over 6000 people bound by their horrific common experience. This was tragedy writ large. People too young to die, all knowing each other, lost on one day. There wasn’t one memorial to attend; there were 10 a day for over two months, forcing people to choose whose funeral to go to. It wasn’t one dead per family; it was doubles or even triple losses in a family. This wasn’t a private loss; this was as public as could be, with television images played and re-played endlessly and inescapably. A true stranger-than-fiction account, from the jittery and stunned first days — a time unlike any other in American memory — then unfolding over months and years, the film captures what it’s like being caught in the crosshairs of history.

In the 30 years since The Shining's film release, a considerable cult of Shining devotees has emerged, fans who claim to have decoded the film’s secret messages addressing everything from the genocide of Native Americans to a range of government conspiracies. Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 fuses fact and fiction through interviews with cultists and scholars, creating a kaleidoscopic deconstruction of Kubrick’s still-controversial classic.

Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O. Hyde examines the inspirational life of Dayton O. Hyde as a modern-day renaissance man and one of the last old-style cowboys. Through heroic determination, he is preserving part of the American West with a breathtaking 12,000-acre prairieland Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in South Dakota that he has maintained for the last 25 years and where more than 500 mustangs now run free—all rescued from the controversial wild horse roundups in the west.

Each year, 60,000 people from around the globe gather in a dusty windswept Nevada desert to build a temporary city, collaborating on large-scale art and partying for a week before burning a giant effigy in a ritual frenzy. Rooted in principles of self-expression, self-reliance and community effort, Burning Man has grown famous for stirring ordinary people to shed their nine-to-five existence and act on their dreams. Spark takes us behind the curtain with Burning Man organizers and participants, revealing a year of unprecedented challenges and growth. When ideals of a new world based on freedom and inclusion collide with realities of the "default world," we wonder which dreams can survive.

Written and directed by Sarah Polley, the documentary weaves together home movies, interviews and narration to examine the repercussions of her family's long-held secrets that finally are coming to light.

Admit it: you don’t really read the endless terms and conditions connected to every website you visit, phone call you make or app you download. But every day, billion-dollar corporations are learning more about your interests, your friends and family, your finances, and your secrets, and they’re not only selling the information to the highest bidder, but also sharing it with the government. And you agreed to all of it. This disquieting exposé demonstrates how every one of us is incrementally opting-in to a real-time surveillance state, click by click- and what, if anything, you can do about it.

This chilling and inventive documentary examines a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love.

When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time gangster Anwar Congo and his friends went from selling movie tickets on the black market to leading anti-communist death squads in the mass murder of over a million people. Anwar boasts of killing hundreds with his own hands, but he's lived in his country with impunity ever since. When approached to make a film about their role in the genocide, Anwar and his friends eagerly comply-but their idea of being in a movie is not to provide reflective testimony, but to dance their way through musical numbers, twist arms in film noir gangster scenes, and gallop across the prairies as yodeling cowboys.

The epic rivalry between half-pipe legends Kevin Pearce and Shaun White is documented in this exhilarating ride into the world of extreme snowboarding. With both practicing more and more breathtaking and dangerous tricks leading up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, everything suddenly changes for Kevin when a horrific crash leaves him fighting for his life. When he recovers, all he wants to do is get on his snowboard again, even though medics and family fear it could kill him.

A multi-layered tale about transparency in the information age and our ever-elusive search for the truth. Detailing the creation of Julian Assange’s controversial website, which facilitated the largest security breach in U.S. history, the film charts the enigmatic Assange’s rise and fall in parallel with that of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the brilliant, troubled young soldier who downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from classified U.S. military and diplomatic servers.

The unconventional feature documentary invites audiences into Al Pacino’s private world, as he explores the complexities of Oscar Wilde’s acclaimed play Salome, Wilde himself and the birth of a rising star, in actress Jessica Chastain.

A reality-based (documentary) comedy debunking aliens, psychics and all things paranormal. The film follows Blake Freeman, who takes a 69-year-old man named LeRoy on a cross-country journey in search of the truth. LeRoy has spent his life savings on trying to protect himself from aliens and paranormal ghosts by buying gimmicks and entrusting psychics. Upon discovering LeRoy’s plight, Blake Freeman, with LeRoy in tow, decides to put these beliefs and so-called "experts" to the test.

After Tiller explores the highly controversial subject of third-trimester abortions in the wake of the 2009 assassination of practitioner Dr. George Tiller. The procedure is now performed by only four doctors in the United States, all former colleagues of Dr. Tiller, who risk their lives every day in the name of their unwavering commitment toward their patients.

Mark Mori’s Bettie Page Reveals All is an intimate look at one of the world’s most recognized sex symbols, featuring Bettie Page herself telling her story for the first time in her own words. In Mori’s documentary, the real Bettie Page emerges from the veil of myth and rumor via interviews Mori taped a decade prior to her death in 2008.

The film documents the daily lives of David Kato - the first openly gay Ugandan man - and three fellow "kuchus", culminating in a murder.

This star studded documentary takes us on a thought provoking and humorous journey to explore the evolution of disability portrayals in film and television. From the early days of silent films to present day, from Chaplin to X-Men, disability portrayals are ever changing. This dynamic documentary takes a detailed look at the evolution of "disability" in entertainment.

Calvin & Hobbes dominated the Sunday comics in thousands of newspapers for over 10 years, having a profound effect on millions of readers across the globe. When the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, retired the strip on New Year’s Eve in 1995, devoted readers everywhere felt the void left by the departure of Calvin, Hobbes, and Watterson’s other cast of characters, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement.

It has now been more than a decade since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has kept an extremely low profile during this time, living a very private life outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Despite his quiet lifestyle, Mr. Watterson is remembered and appreciated daily by fans who still enjoy his amazing collection of work.

Mr. Watterson has inspired and influenced millions of people through Calvin & Hobbes. Newspaper readership and book sales can be tracked and recorded, but the human impact he has had and the value of his art are perhaps impossible to measure.

This film is not a quest to find Bill Watterson, or to invade his privacy. It is an exploration to discover why his 'simple' comic strip made such an impact on so many readers in the 80s and 90s, and why it still means so much to us today.