David Lynch: The Art Life (2016), Arthur Miller: Writer (2017), Uncle Howard (2016), Prodigal Sons (2008), Tyson (2008), Another Road Home (2004), The Beaches of Agnès (2008), Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (2012) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Personal History movies.
Storyline: The life and career of iconic director David Lynch are explored in more than 20 conversations recorded with him at his home.
Plot Keywords: documentary, artist, biography, filmmaking, artistic creation, director, personal history ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Filmmaker Rebecca Miller presents a portrait of her father, the prolific American playwright Arthur Miller.
Plot Keywords: biography, documentary, writer, literature, 20th century, theater, creative process ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Director Howard Brookner's body of work is rediscovered 30 years after his death.
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, new york, filmmaking, 1980s, archival footage, family ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: When filmmaker Kimberly Reed left her small Montana hometown, she was a man. Returning years later for her high school reunion, Reed is a transgendered woman. She seeks to reconnect with her estranged adopted brother, Marc McKerrow, who was permanently disabled in a car crash, and might be related to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. Exploring identities, rivalries and family, Reed embarks on a personal journey that begins with her hometown and leads all the way to Croatia.
Plot Keywords: documentary, family, identity, siblings, reconciliation, memory, trauma ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Interviews, archival footage and photographs help illustrate a biography of the life of former boxer Mike Tyson, in and out of the ring.
Plot Keywords: biography, documentary, boxing, sports, personal history, interview, true story ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Danae Elon's highly educated parents, noted Israeli author Amos Elon, and former correspondent and literary agent Beth Elon, hired a Palestinian man named Musa, the father of eleven children, to take care of their six month old daughter on a daily basis. It was a job he would continue for the next twenty years until she was grown and he was able to save enough money to send all eight of his sons to America for education and career opportunities. The last time Danae saw Musa, in 1991, he proudly showed her the house he constructed in the Palestinian village of Battir. Then, against the mounting tensions of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Intifada, the two families lost track of each other. During that time Danae began to realize how much of an influence Musa had on her life and sought to reconnect with him. Her quest led her from her home in New York to Paterson, New Jersey, then to Battir in the occupied territories, and back to her birthplace in Jerusalem. As they carefully break the silence, the encounters between Danae and Musa's sons, and eventually Musa himself, bring to the surface an emotionally complex story that is ultimately heartwarming and optimistic.—Another Road Home publicist Mickey Cottrell or Sarah Greenberg or Michelle Fox
Plot Keywords: documentary, family, history, immigration, war, memory, identity ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: At nearly 80, Agnès Varda explores her memory - growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember? Memory, she says, is like a swarm of confused flies. She envisions hers for us.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, french cinema, memory, art, filmmaking, experimental film, personal history ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This feature-length documentary film follows the artist as she prepares for what may be the most important moment of her life: a major retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. To be given a retrospective at one of the world's premiere museums is, for any living artist, the most exhilarating sort of milestone. For Marina, it is far more - it is the chance to finally silence the question she has been hearing over and over again for four decades: 'But why is this art?'—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: documentary, art, performance art, artist, retrospective, emotion, time ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Gloria Vanderbilt and her son Anderson Cooper discuss their notable family's history.
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, family, mother-son relationship, interview, personal history, celebrity ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Filmmaker Guy Maddin was born, raised and has always lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a town where he says everyone sleepwalks through life. He is trying to escape Winnipeg, but isn't sure how as he isn't sure what's kept him there in the first place. Perhaps his parent's month long 65th wedding anniversary celebration (despite his father being dead for some years) where he will reenact his childhood (with actors playing his family, except his mother who plays herself) in the old family home at 800 Ellis Avenue, which was above the family's hair salon business, will provide some answers. He recounts some civic events which have affected him and the life of Winnipegers: the 1919 general strike, the destruction of the Wolseley Elm in 1957, and the replacement of the iconic Eaton's building for the new hockey arena in favor of the old Winnipeg Arena. The latter has an especially close connection to him because of a family tie and the rich history of hockey in the city (discounting what he considers the failure of the NHL experiment). As he is on the train leaving the city, he hopes that the page 3 "Citizen Girl" will be the panacea for all Winnipeg's issues.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: experimental film, documentary, autobiographical, surrealism, memory, nostalgia, black comedy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In this inspired, genre-twisting new film, Oscar®-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley discovers that the truth depends on who's telling it. Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. She playfully interviews and interrogates a cast of characters of varying reliability, eliciting refreshingly candid, yet mostly contradictory, answers to the same questions. As each relates their version of the family mythology, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of their mother, who departed too soon, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. Polley unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving. Stories We Tell explores the elusive nature of truth and memory, but at its core is a deeply personal film about how our narratives shape and define us as individuals and families, all interconnecting to paint a profound, funny and poignant picture of the larger human story.—The National Film Board of Canada
Plot Keywords: documentary, family, memory, secrets, identity, truth, autobiographical ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Martin Scorsese interviews his mother and father about their life in New York City and the family history back in Sicily. These are two people who have lived together for a long time and know each other very well. They have retained individual identities and differing opinions, yet have found a way to live with each other, and both are fascinating story-tellers.—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: documentary, family, oral history, culture, immigration, new york, interview ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Documentary filmmaker Doug Block had every reason to believe his parents' 54-year marriage was a good one. But when his mother dies unexpectedly and his father swiftly marries his former secretary, he discovers two parents who are far more complex and troubled than he ever imagined. 51 Birch Street is a riveting personal documentary that explores a universal human question: how much about your parents do you really want to know?—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: documentary, family, personal history, marriage, secrets, archival footage, interviews ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: From the first time he performed Swimming to Cambodia - the one-man account of his experience of making the 1984 film The Killing Fields - Spalding Gray made the art of the monologue his own. Drawing unstintingly on the most intimate aspects of his own life, his shows were vibrant, hilarious and moving. His death came tragically early, in 2004; this compilation of interview and performance footage nails his idiosyncratic and irreplaceable brilliance.—Edinburgh International Film Festival
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, monologue, actor's life, personal history, memoir, art ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The city of Porto viewed by the intimate eye of Manoel de Oliveira.
Plot Keywords: drama, biography, history, childhood, memories, coming of age, family ...
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