Documentary Movies 2011 List

A documentary made over the course of 15 years telling the story of Victor DeNoble's journey from research scientist to star informant against the tobacco industry.

This documentary chronicles how Hollywood writer-director producer Roger Corman created his cult film empire, one low-budget success at a time, capitalizing on undiscovered talent, and pushing the boundaries of independent filmmaking.

"Dance, dance, or we are lost." Pina Bausch's final words summarize her life and provide the inspiration for director Wim Wenders' (WINGS tribute to the legendary choreographer. The documentary features interviews with and performances by Bausch's beloved original company members, and offers an indelible image of an artist who went the full distance in her uncommonly rich creative life.

A biographical film of legendary actress Charlotte Rampling, told through her own conversations with artist friends and collaborators, including Peter Lindbergh, Paul Auster, and Juergen Teller.

An examination of a horrible crime through intimate conversations with those involved, including 28-year-old death row inmate Michael Perry, scheduled to die eight days after his interview.

The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely regarded as America's most important designers. Perhaps best remembered for their mid-century plywood and fiberglass furniture, the Eames Office also created a mind-bending variety of other products, from splints for wounded military during World War II, to photography, interiors, multi-media exhibits, graphics, games, films and toys. But their personal lives and influence on significant events in American life - from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age - has been less widely understood.

From his embed with US Marines Echo Company in Afghanistan, photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis reveals the devastating impact a Taliban machine-gun bullet has on the life of 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris. The film seamlessly transitions from st

A 3D IMAX movie about the prehistoric world inhabited by pterosaurs -- flying vertebrates with a wingspan of up to 45 feet that lived alongside dinosaurs.

Paul Goodman was once so ubiquitous in the American zeitgeist that he merited a cameo in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Author of legendary bestseller Growing Up Absurd, Goodman was also a poet, 1940s out queer and family man, pacifist, visionary, co-founder of Gestalt therapy—and a moral compass for many in the burgeoning counterculture of the '60s.

From a basketball academy in West Africa to the high-pressure world of American prep schools, the documentary follows four particularly tall West African teenagers with big hearts, open minds, and NBA dreams.

Kevin Clash, the man behind Elmo of Sesame Street, as he chases and ultimately achieves his childhood dream of working with master puppeteer Jim Henson.

Sigur Ros' November 2008 performances at London's Alexandra Palace, captured on rough, high-contrast monochrome HD.

Yeshi, who was recognized at birth as the reincarnation of a famous spiritual master, considers departing from tradition to embrace the modern world.

The story follows film footage purported to have been shot by the crew of Apollo 18. This moon mission from the early 1970s was officially canceled by NASA, but according to urban legend, it actually happened. Footage shows signs of alien life, and the events of the mission are built into a thriller storyline.

From a snowy small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, the film follows the four-year journey of childhood friends and their town, forever changed by a faraway war. At its heart a story about growing up, the film is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars, the families and town they come from, and the everyday struggles of their return.

A baby orca gets separated from his family and unexpectedly starts making contact with people along a scenic fjord called Nootka Sound.

Funnyman Kevin Hart is back and starring in the theatrical version of his 2011 LAUGH AT MY PAIN comedy tour. Catch the original, never-before-seen Raw and Uncut backstage footage, and travel back to Philly with Kevin Hart where he began his journey to become one of the funniest and most successful comedians of all time.

A story of destinies joined by Guatemala’s past, and how a documentary film intertwined with a nation’s turbulent history emerges as an active player in the present.

The film examines the personalities -- Menachem Begin, Anwar El-Sadat, and Jimmy Carter -- who drove the peace process along with the secret liaisons, communications, and third-party world leaders who played roles in forging the Camp David Accords.

Explores the visible and invisible connections linking major issues of our time—the environment, consumption, population growth, technology, human rights and global economy.

Documents story of Miami musician Clarence Reid and his alter ego Blowfly, the original dirty rapper. A major force in the Miami soul scene of the 60s and 70s, Reid wrote Top-10 songs for some of the greatest R&B acts of the era, while at the same time, his X-rated recordings and stage antics as Blowfly made him a star of the "party record" scene.

The film travels with animal research and wildlife conservatist Jane Goodall across several continents from her childhood home in England, to the Gombe National Park in Tanzania.

Pearl Jam Twenty chronicles the years leading up to the band's formation, the chaos that ensued soon-after their rise to megastardom, their step back from center stage, and the creation of a trusted circle that would surround them-giving way to a work culture that would sustain them.

Exploration into the life of America's controversial former CIA Director William Colby told through the eyes of his wife and filmmaker son, Carl.

Thunder Soul tells the true story of Conrad O Johnson and the Kashmere Stage Band, a mediocre jazz band into a legendary funk powerhouse.

A documentary about legendary NYC nightclub owner Peter Gatien. Profiles Gatien’s rise and fall in the world of nightspot dominance as owner of Limelight, Tunnel, Palladium and Club USA.

A documentary on Sarah Palin that speaks with school friends, family and Republican colleagues of the former governor of Alaska.

Senna's remarkable story, charting his physical and spiritual achievements on the track and off, his quest for perfection, and the mythical status he has since attained, is the subject of SENNA, a documentary feature that spans the racing legend's years as an F1 driver, from his opening season in 1984 to his untimely death a decade later. Far more than a film for F1 fans, Senna unfolds a remarkable story in a remarkable manner, eschewing many standard documentary techniques in favor of a more cinematic approach that makes full use of astounding footage, much of which is drawn from F1 archives and previously unseen.

A new breed of crime-fighter now stalks the urban landscape: the anti-graffiti vigilante. These dedicated blight warriors stop at nothing to rid their neighborhoods and cities of street art, stickers, tags, and posters. Yet several of these vigilantes have become the very menace they set out to eliminate. In their relentless attempt to stamp out graffiti, they have turned to illegally and destructively painting other people's property.

Explores the alleged usage of subliminal messaging in advertising, music, film, television, anti-theft devices, political propaganda, military psychological operations, and advanced weapons development, to determine if such tactics have succeeded.

The true-life tale of investigator Harry Markopolos' meticulous, decade-long fight to reveal Madoff's widely destructive Ponzi scheme.

When two friends tape-recorded the fights of their violently noisy neighbours, they accidentally created one of the world’s first ‘viral’ pop-culture sensations.

Focuses on a group of students who discover what they believe is a government conspiracy to keep the existence of trolls in the north of Norway hidden from the general public.

Documentary on the legal battle to free Debbie Peagler, a woman imprisoned for over a quarter century due to her connection to the murder of the man who abused her. She finds her only hope for freedom when two rookie attorneys with no background in criminal law step forward to take her case.

Five different relationship stories: high school sweethearts, octogenarian lovebirds, the divorced father of two teenagers, a gay single man and a traditional Indian wedding.

The life of a chimpanzee who was raised like a human child as part of a pioneering 1970s experiment. The film combines interviews with participants in the experiment and archival footage to depict the chimpanzee's experience.

Documentary on the legal battle to free Debbie Peagler, a woman imprisoned for over a quarter century due to her connection to the murder of the man who abused her. She finds her only hope for freedom when two rookie attorneys with no background in criminal law step forward to take her case.

Documents the inner workings and behind-the-scenes drama that follow the band, A Tribe Called Quest, even today and explores what’s next for a group many claim are the pioneers of alternative rap. Having helped to pave the way for innovative hip hop artists, A Tribe Called Quest has kept a generation hungry for more of its groundbreaking music since the group’s much-publicized breakup in 1998

The salacious adventures of a beauty queen with an IQ of 168, whose single-minded devotion to the man of her dreams leads her on a labyrinthine crusade for love. Down a surreal rabbit hole of kidnapping, masochistic Mormons, risque photography, magic underwear, celestial sex, jail time and a cloning laboratory in South Korea, Joyce's fantastic exploits were constant headlines.

Her father ends up in one of Stalin's prison camps and then young Svetlana experiences the German invasion. In order to survive she learns German at home in Kiev and gets work as a translator before ending up in a German camp in 1943. Now, 65 years later, she is a renowned translator who in her twilight years has translated the great works of Dostoevsky. For the first time in all these years, she returns to Kiev together with her granddaughter.

For six months of the year, renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria closes his restaurant El Bulli -- repeatedly voted the world's best -- and works with his culinary team to prepare the menu for the next season.

Shot by filmmakers all around the world, the documentary aims to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the July 24, 2010.

Children who work as many as 12 hours a day, six months a year in the scorching hot sun, without the protection of child labor laws. These children are not toiling in the fields in some far away land. They are working here, in our back yard, in America.

The stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed.

Starting from its roots in 1960s antiwar and civil rights protests, the film details major developments in women's art through the 1970s and explores how these pioneering artists resulted in what is now widely regarded as the most significant art movement of the late 20th century.

A documentary that traces the evolution of Gospel through its many musical styles – the spirituals and early hymns, the four-part harmony-based quartets, the integration of blues and swing into Gospel, the emergence of Soul, and the blending of Rap and Hip Hop elements.

Jack Cardiff's career spanned an incredible nine of moving picture's first ten decades and his work behind the camera altered the look of films forever through his use of Technicolor photography. Craig McCall's film about the legendary cinematographer reveals a unique figure in British and international cinema.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America's struggle to balance its energy needs and environmental concerns, so the daring solution proposed by this small Appalachian community takes on national significance when Bobby Kennedy, Jr. joins the Appalachian families to fight the extraordinary and insidious power of Big Coal.

The documentary film uproots the widely held misconception that Arabs have no sense of humor - when in fact they laugh, and are, just like us. The documentary features Egyptian-American comedian Ahmed Ahmed, in his directorial debut, along with a host of critically acclaimed international stand-up comedians.

A documentary that traces the evolution of Gospel through its many musical styles – the spirituals and early hymns, the four-part harmony-based quartets, the integration of blues and swing into Gospel, the emergence of Soul, and the blending of Rap and Hip Hop elements.

Focuses on a group of students who discover what they believe is a government conspiracy to keep the existence of trolls in the north of Norway hidden from the general public.

Focuses on a group of students who discover what they believe is a government conspiracy to keep the existence of trolls in the north of Norway hidden from the general public.

A living legend in the horse world, Buck Brannaman was the inspiration for The Horse Whisperer. For this true cowboy, horses are a mirror of the human soul. Reared by an abusive father, Buck eschews violence. By teaching people to communicate with horses through instinct, not punishment, he frees the spirit of the horse and its human comrade. Crisscrossing the world with Zenlike wisdom, Buck promulgates grace in the bond between man and horse.

In the tradition of fly-on-the-wall documentaries, the film gains unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom and the inner workings of the Media Desk. With the Internet surpassing print as the public's main news source and newspapers all over the country going bankrupt, Page One chronicles the transformation of the media industry at its time of greatest turmoil.

Follows Earth Liberation Front group member Daniel McGowan, who in December 2005, was arrested by Federal agents and faced life in prison.

Turtle: The Incredible Journey is an award-winning film that follows the life and migration of a loggerhead turtle from hatching to maturity and a return to its original Florida nesting grounds. The loggerhead turtle, a threatened species, has one of the longest and most difficult migratory patterns of any marine animal: Sea turtles newly hatched on the East Coast of the United States (usually in Florida) make their way from the sand into the ocean, and then begin a voyage that can span the entire Atlantic Ocean, only to return decades later to that same beach.

An experimental documentary that contemplates the signs of loss and change in the American South as potent metaphors of personal and collective destiny.

Examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.

A documentary about the world’s only comedic, singing, yodelling lesbian twin sisters, Lynda and Jools Topp, whose political activism and unique brand of entertainment has helped change New Zealand’s social landscape.

The true story of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar (The Arbor, Rita, Sue and Bob Too) and her daughter Lorraine.

In Make Believe, director J. Clay Tweel follows six adolescent outsiders who all share an extraordinary passion: the art of magic. Armed with great skill and a dazzling array of illusions, these teenagers embark from the varied hometowns of Malibu, California; Chicago, Illinois; Capetown, South Africa; Littleton, Colorado; and Kitayama, Japan to attend the annual World Magic Seminar in Las Vegas, where they each hope to be named Teen World Champion by master magician Lance Burton. The film's six subjects are remarkably assured and dedicated entertainers. Offstage, however, they face the diverse obstacles of adolescence: loneliness, high parental expectations, the pressures of impending stardom, abject poverty, and the deep desire to fit in. With great humor, honesty, and heart, Make Believe reveals an enduring world that audiences know little about while it also explores a time of life no one ever forgets.

Examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.

The public life of Yves Saint Laurent was an extravagant spectacle, as a design prodigy and then the grand coutourier of a fashion empire, he influenced fifty years of style and was an icon to millions -- but few are familiar with the private life of the legend. In Pierre Thoretton's L'Amour Fou, Pierre Berge, the man with which YSL shared four decades of his life, reflects on the equally extravagant history of their personal relationship.

Jack Cardiff's career spanned an incredible nine of moving picture's first ten decades and his work behind the camera altered the look of films forever through his use of Technicolor photography. Craig McCall's film about the legendary cinematographer reveals a unique figure in British and international cinema.

Mary Murphy, who wrote the book, "Scout, Atticus and Boo: A Celebration of 50 Years of To Kill A Mockingbird"—reflects upon the impact of Harper Lee’s classic masterpiece with such personalities as Tom Brokaw, Mary Badham, Oprah Winfrey and James Patterson.

A documentary about the world’s only comedic, singing, yodelling lesbian twin sisters, Lynda and Jools Topp, whose political activism and unique brand of entertainment has helped change New Zealand’s social landscape.

Examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.

The docudrama explores the political unrest of 1960s Japan, when mass student uprisings coincided with the beginnings of the far-left United Red Army group, which tortured and murdered its “deviant” members during a 1972 training session.

Set within a century-old traveling circus, a Mexican family struggles to stay together despite mounting debt, dwindling audiences, and a simmering family conflict that threatens this once-vibrant family tradition.

A disparate crew of renegade filmmakers who emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history.

This film documents orphaned orangutans and elephants and the extraordinary people who rescue and raise them--saving endangered species one life at a time.

Set within a century-old traveling circus, a Mexican family struggles to stay together despite mounting debt, dwindling audiences, and a simmering family conflict that threatens this once-vibrant family tradition.

In February 2009, documentary filmmaker Janus Metz accompanied a group of Danish soldiers at Armadillo, an army base in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Metz and cameraman Lars Skree spent six months following the lives of young soldiers situated less than a kilometer away from Taliban positions.

A documentary about Miami's pot smuggling culture in the 1970s and 1980s through three colorful stories of marijuana smugglers.

Two cat families in East Africa teach survive on their power and their cunning, while they protect and teach their cubs the ways of the wild.

The true story of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar (The Arbor, Rita, Sue and Bob Too) and her daughter Lorraine.

Follows Phil Rosenthal as he travels to Russia to meet about doing a local version of "Everybody Loves Raymond."

For decades, the Schwinn-riding Bill Cunningham, cultural anthropologist, has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirées for the New York Times Style section.

Five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times, from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia.

Every day, nuclear power plants place large amounts of high-level radioactive waste in interim storage that is vulnerable to natural disasters, man-made disasters, and societal changes. In Finland, the world’s first permanent repository is hewn out of solid rock. It is a huge system of underground tunnels that must last 100,000 years.

Justin Bieber will play himself in his life story. The pic will be sprinkled with performances from his current concert tour.

Mercedes Alvarez was three years old when her parents left La Aldea, a village in the barren Northern Spanish Soria region. She was the last child born in La Aldea. Now, only fourteen people live there. Soon this village, like so many other rural communities all over the world, will be deserted. Alvarez returns for the first time to her ancestral home and makes a film about memory and the terrifying passing of time.

An optimistic, solutions-based, non-preachy, non-partisan, big tent film that shows tackling climate change boosts the economy, increases national and energy security and promotes health and a clean environment.

The documentary traces the life of a self-made man whose passion and perseverance took him from a Jewish orphanage in London to the absolute pinnacle of hairdressing.

A first person documentary of Tom Shadyac (helmer of bigscreen comedies including "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "Bruce Almighty") on his unusual journey of self-discovery. Film includes interviews with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Desmond Tutu, among others.

Dereck and Beverly Joubert examine the dramatic decline in the number of lions in Africa and the moral duty to protect them.

Features Fran Lebowitz expressing insights on social issues in an onstage discussion with longtime friend Toni Morrison, and on the streets of New York.

Justin Bieber will play himself in his life story. The pic will be sprinkled with performances from his current concert tour.

Reveals the far-flung reaches of our plastic problem with interviews with the world’s foremost experts in biology, pharmacology, and genetics shed light on the perils of plastic to our environment and expose the truth of how plastic affects our bodies and the health of future generations.