Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to…

An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of…

Chao-Li Chi shadow boxes indoors and practices with a sword outdoors. Theoretically, the film describes in a single continuous movement three degrees of traditional Chinese boxing, Wu-tang, Shao-lin, and Shao-lin…

The research, development, and deployment of the first atomic bomb, as well as the bombing of Hiroshima, are detailed in this docudrama.

The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film…

A propaganda short film produced by the US Navy in 1945 about the naval engagements of the invasion of Okinawa.

The movie follows the clock round as music hall clown Beby takes off his make up, goes home for a meal, looks at photos and goes to bed to rise,…

A World War II drama-documentary showing the struggles of Merchant Navy seamen following an attack by a U-Boat. Western Approaches is a vast area of ocean control covering thousands of…

World War II propaganda film.

Oscar winner William Wyler directed this 1944 “newsdrama,” narrated by Lieut. Robert Taylor, USNR (Bataan), and photographed in zones of combat by the U.S. Navy. The film follows one of…

This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the…

The fifth film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World…

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are stopped by narrator Pete Smith for the purpose of showing the audience how much wood and wood by-products the average person carries.

1943 documentary with Ingrid Bergman.

A documentary short detailing the life of Italians living on the Po River in the 1940s.

A short history of movie music is presented, from silent films accompanied by a single piano, to the elaborate song scores for musicals (with scenes from MGM’s musicals) and background…

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American…

Major real-life air disasters are depicted in this series. Each episode features a detailed dramatized reconstruction of the incident based on cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control transcripts, as…

This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

Dateline NBC, or simply Dateline, is a weekly American television newsmagazine series. It was previously the network’s flagship newsmagazine, but now focuses mainly on true crime stories with only occasional…

A prescient documentary about city planning, which presents idyllic suburbs and nuclear families as a solution to the chaos, poverty and social decay of industrialized inner cities.

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Where the two-part epic’s first half, Festival…

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film…

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings

The 400 million people of China are heirs to a great civilization, as their pagodas and stone lions can attest. But they are under attack from the Japanese. Civilian refugees…

A propaganda film made during the Spanish Civil War in support of the Republican government against the rebellion by Gen. Francisco Franco’s forces who were backed by Nazi Germany and…

Expeditions in Borneo by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson show the terrain, flora, fauna and lifestyle of Borneo as the Johnsons search for a huge orangutan.

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to…

Filming of the performance show the Deutsche Wehrmacht (German Army) made during the Reichsparteitag of the NSDAP in Nurnberg 1935. Showing the readiness and the will of the newly build…

A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

This documentary, made up of 3 episodes, is based on three songs sung by anonymous people in Soviet Russia about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

The film is a documentary portraying a struggle as man tries to subdue nature. To prevent flooding and for purposes of land reclamation, the people of the Netherlands struggle and…

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant…

The film explores the story of the Bounty and is based on the 1932 novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.

Short silent documentary from 1931 about those working on the River Douro in Oporto.

A lyrical documentary on the lives of Coal miners in the Donbass who are struggling to meet their production quotas under the Five Year Plan.

A dramatized re-enactment and documentary of the Battle of Verdun as seen by both French and German soldiers, shot on site of the actual battle.

Bold and exhilarating documentary account of the building of the Turkestan-Siberian railway, presented as a heroic triumph of Soviet progress over natural adversity.

A lyrical portrait of Amsterdam and its changing appearance during a rain-shower.

A silent film by John Grierson. It tells the story of Britain’s North Sea herring fishery.