The Lovely Month of May (1963), My Life to Live (1962), This So-Called Disaster (2003), F for Fake (1973), Paris Is Burning (1990), Honeyland (2019), When We Were Kings (1996), Burden of Dreams (1982) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Cinéma Vérité movies.
Storyline: Actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret narrate an introduction to springtime in Paris, as described by its citizens.
Plot Keywords: documentary, paris, 1960s, cinéma vérité, social observation, everyday life, politics ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Twelve tableaux tell the story of a Parisian (Anna Karina), separated from her husband (Monique Messine), who decides to become a prostitute.
Plot Keywords: existentialism, prostitution, black and white, paris, minimalist, philosophical, social critique ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In this documentary, filmmaker Michael Almereyda chronicles the San Francisco production of "The Late Henry Moss," a play written and directed by noted scribe Sam Shepard. The film explores Shepard's artistic inspirations as well as his working relationships with the play's cast, which includes stars such as Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Cheech Marin and Nick Nolte. Much of the film is devoted to a detailed examination of the work that goes into readying a play for opening night.
Plot Keywords: documentary, behind the scenes, theater, ensemble cast, director, creative process, performance art ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Truth and deception in art and life are explored by the filmmaker, including the work of art forger Elmyr de Hory.
Plot Keywords: documentary, mockumentary, visual style, art market, media manipulation, cinéma vérité, nonlinear narrative ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This is a documentary of 'drag nights' among New York's underclass. Queens are interviewed and observed preparing for and competing in many 'balls'. The people, the clothes, and the whole environment are outlandish.—Robbie Smith <robsmith@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: documentary, lgbtq+, new york, 1980s, african american, identity, marginalized communities ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and return the natural balance in Honeyland, when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood. This film which is filmed in Macedonia is an exploration of an observational Indigenous visual narrative that deeply impacts our behavior towards natural resources and the human condition.
Plot Keywords: documentary, rural life, nature, sustainability, tradition, modernization, conflict ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It's 1974, Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the Heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a backer in Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator of Zaire and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set. A musical festival, featuring the America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King, is also planned.—Gary Dickerson <slug@mail.utexas.edu>
Plot Keywords: documentary, boxing, sports, biography, 1970s, african culture, music ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A documentary on the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's epic Fitzcarraldo (1982), showing how the film managed to get made despite problems that would have floored a less obsessively driven director. Not only does he have major casting problems, losing both Jason Robards (health) and Mick Jagger (other commitments) halfway through shooting, but the crew gets caught up in a war between Peru and Ecuador, there are problems with the weather and the morale of cast and crew is falling rapidly.—Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: documentary, film production, behind the scenes, director's perspective, cultural clash, adventure, obsession ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A docudrama that centers on amateur grizzly bear expert Timothy Treadwell. He periodically journeyed to Alaska to study and live with the bears. He was killed, along with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, by a rogue bear in October 2003. The films explores Treadwell's compassionate life as he found solace among these endangered animals.—Sujit R. Varma
Plot Keywords: documentary, wildlife, nature, biography, adventure, ecology, conservation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Filmmakers (and brothers) Albert and David Maysles follow four employees of a company that makes expensive, ornate, illustrated bibles as they attempt to sell the items door-to-door to less-than-interested customers, who are mainly poor or lower-middle-class Catholics with little money to spend on pretty Bibles.—Gary Dickerson <slug@mail.utexas.edu>
Plot Keywords: documentary, american film, 1960s, real life, social observation, working class, american dream ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, homelessness, underground, survival, poverty, urban life, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Forty year old documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee has a penchant for filming everything around him. Following the announcement of his impending marriage to his film-making partner Marilyn Levine - marriage something that he and his family never thought would happen for him - McElwee turns on the camera to film life as it happens in respect to this new phase in his life. Both in real terms (as it applies to himself and those around him) and philosophical terms, McElwee discusses, through self-narration, life, death, love, family and babies.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: documentary, autobiographical, family, marriage, death, grief, reflection ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Maysles brothers pay visits to Edith Bouvier Beale, nearing 80, and her daughter Edie. Reclusive, the pair live with cats and raccoons in Grey Gardens, a crumbling mansion in East Hampton. Edith is dry and quick-witted - a singer, married but later separated, a member of high society. Edie is voluble, dresses - as she puts it - for combat in tight ensembles that include scarves wrapped around her head. There are hints that Edie came home 24 years before to be cared for rather than to care for her mother. The women address the camera, talking over each other, moving from the present to events years before. They're odd, with flinty affection for each other.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, true story, mother-daughter relationship, social outcasts, american culture, high society ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Some Kind of Monster is a music documentary about Metallica's making of their album St. Anger and the difficulties they had to go through in the process. The directors shot over 1200 hours and followed the band around night and day for over a year to create this documentary.—Mathias Nielsen
Plot Keywords: music documentary, creative process, therapy, music industry, verité, self-discovery, interpersonal relationships ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Based upon Peter Biskind's book of the same name, this BBC-produced documentary traces the rise of a generation of Hollywood filmmakers who briefly changed the face of movies with a more personal approach that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable on-screen. Influential directors who appear include Arthur Penn ("Bonnie and Clyde"), Dennis Hopper ("Easy Rider"), Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather"), John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy"), Bob Rafelson ("Five Easy Pieces") Martin Scorsese ("Taxi Driver"), Peter Bogdanovich ("The Last Picture Show"), and Jonathan Demme ("Crazy Mama"). Narrated by William H. Macy, the documentary features vintage clips of Coppola, Scorsese, Beatty, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, and Pauline Kael. It also includes original interview material with Penn; Roger Corman; Bogdanovich; Hopper; David Picker; writer/directors John Milius and Paul Schrader; actresses Karen Black, Cybill Shepherd, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer Salt; actors Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, and Richard Dreyfuss; producers Jerome Hellman, Michael Phillips, and Jonathan Taplin; editor Dede Allen; production designer Polly Platt; writers David Newman, Joan Tewksbury, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond; agent Mike Medavoy; and former production executive Peter Bart. Among the films discussed are "Rosemary's Baby," "The Wild Bunch," "Mean Streets," "American Graffiti," "The Rain People," "Midnight Cowboy," "M*A*S*H," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "The Last Picture Show," "Shampoo," and "Taxi Driver."—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: documentary, film history, hollywood, 1970s cinema, directors, producers, cinematography ...
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