Browse Movies : 2022 : Documentary

Inspired by her own life experiences best-selling and award-winning author, researcher and now filmmaker Sarah Hinze set out to uncover whether what had occurred in her life was unique. After three decades of exhaustive investigation, including hundreds of interviews and meticulous research into the origins of the human soul, Hinze partnered with top independent film distributor Purdie Distribution to present her findings in the ground-breaking film Remembering Heaven.

This extraordinary documentary follows opera singer Nelly Mousset-Vos and writer Nadine Hwang, who met and fell in love while imprisoned in Ravensbrück, a German concentration camp, in 1944. Despite being separated in the last months of the war, they later reunite and spend the rest of their lives together. All that is left of the unlikely love story — kept secret for decades — are photos, letters, and Super-8 film reels kept in boxes. Stumbling upon these years later, Nelly’s granddaughter Sylvie begins piecing together Nelly and Nadine’s legacy and uncovering the records of their remarkable love.

The documentary chronicles Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s iconic careers and decades-long partnership. Director Ethan Hawke brings life and color to this definitive history of their dedication to their art, philanthropy and each other. Through long lost transcriptions of interviews with Paul, Joanne and those close to them, brought to life by the voices of contemporary actors, we’re given an intimate front row seat to the lives and careers of the couple that would go on to forge an unmatched cultural legacy.

One of the best trans films you’ve likely never heard of, Antonio Giménez-Rico’s landmark 1983 documentary Dressed in Blue (Vestida de Azul) explores the lives and loves of a group of six transgender women living in Madrid in the years following Spain’s transition to democracy.

From documentarian Chris Smith (American Movie) comes a lovingly irreverent portrait of the life, career, and last days of maverick filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., whose rebellious spirit infused decades of counterculture movie-making. “Sr.” widens the lens from Downey's art to the life with which it was deeply intertwined, including an intimate examination of his relationship with son Robert Downey, Jr. Shot over the course of three years, the film truly honors Senior's nonlinear, outlaw-like approach, including capturing his decision to embark on his own concurrent and final film project. Smith’s portrait of a family and an artist is a meditation on life that’s as surreal as it is sentimental, a celebration of making art with no rules that tosses out its own rulebook along the way.

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel sets the music world afire with his original interpretations of the greatest symphonic works. He is named one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People” and serves as music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Amidst social unrest in his native Venezuela, he devises an innovative concert that celebrates the power of art to renew and unite.

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.

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.

Minnesota is the heartland of US hockey, creating more skaters—on the local rinks and in the NHL—than any other state. Here, the senior boys of rival towns—one an emerging dynasty, the other with a fabled past—face down uncertain futures as they skate for a last chance to etch their names into local lore. Where Texas football has Friday Night Lights, Minnesota high school hockey has Hockeyland.

Enthralling and intimate, director Daniel Roher’s NAVALNY unfolds with the pace of athriller as it follows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in his quest to identify the men who poisoned him in August 2020. Shot in Germany as the story unfolded and offering extraordinary access to the investigation, Navalny is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that is also a study of Navalny the man—a portrait of a leader intent on reform who will not be cowed by anything, including his own poisoning.

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.

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.

He’s the original computer genius gone rogue, inventor of one of the most successful (and most hated) pieces of software of all time: McAfee Anti-Virus. At his peak, John McAfee was worth $100 million. But when his neighbour was murdered, McAfee went on the run – and invited a film crew with him. With access to hundreds of hours of never-before-broadcast footage of McAfee as he’s pursued by the authorities, this is the definitive story of a larger-than-life character, a man who ran for President, escaped from prison multiple times, and claimed to have hacked the world.

An inspiring documentary about the role of Saint Michael in Scripture and in our lives. Various religious experts from different parts of the world, discuss Saint Michael from a religious, historical, and cultural angle and present the most sacred Churches and sanctuaries associated with Saint Michael. Audiences will experience powerful testimonies of faith, riveting Church history, and beautiful architecture and art in Christian culture that will bring everyone closer to the extraordinary figure of Archangel Michael, a friend, and warrior for today.

Best-selling author and investigative journalist Lee Strobel explores the evidence for the afterlife in order to address man’s biggest fear: death. Inspired by his own brush with death, Strobel searches for answers to the most profound questions we all have, about heaven, hell, and Near-Death Experiences.

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.

Using unprecedented Olympic footage and behind-the-scenes material, The Redeem Team tells the story of the US Olympic Men’s Basketball Team’s quest for gold at the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 following the previous team’s shocking performance four years earlier in Athens.

Posing as a wealthy, jet-setting diamond mogul, he wooed women online then conned them out of millions of dollars. Now some victims plan for payback.

An inspiring documentary from the filmmakers of School Life, Young Plato charts the dream of Elvis-loving school headmaster Kevin McArevey – a maverick who is determined to change the fortunes of an inner-city community plagued by urban decay, sectarian aggression, poverty and drugs. The all-boys primary school in post-conflict Belfast, Northern Ireland, becomes a hot house for questioning violence, as the headmaster sends his young wards home each day armed with the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers. The boys challenge their parents and neighbors to forsake the prejudice that has kept this low-level civil war on the boil for decades.

When a-ha's breakthrough hit "Take on Me" shot to #1 on the Billboard charts in 1985, it turned its three young band members into global superstars overnight. While the iconic song and its groundbreaking music video remain ubiquitous to this day, the story of a-ha didn't end there. After 35 years, a deep catalog of 11 studio albums and 55 million units sold – despite controversies and disagreements – a-ha continues to record music and play to packed arenas around the world.