Documentary: 40

An Israeli man, born Shimon Hayut, travelled around Europe, presenting himself as the son of Russian-Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev aka the Diamond King. He used the dating app Tinder to contact women as Simon Leviev, and tricked them into lending him money that he would never repay. He would charm women with lavish gifts and take them to dinners on private jets using money he borrowed from other women he had previously conned. He would later pretend he was being targeted by his “enemies”, often sending the same messages and images to each woman, indicating that he had just been attacked with a knife, but that his bodyguard had saved him and was hurt.

Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts is a 2022 television special of the Harry Potter film series that was released on HBO Max on New Year’s Day. It marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the series’ first instalment, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001). It is produced by Warner Bros. Unscripted Television in association with Warner Horizon and executive produced by Casey Patterson. The reunion features clips of and pays tribute to cast members who have since died, including Helen McCrory,

In June and July 2018, a junior association football team and their assistant coach were rescued from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand. Twelve members of the team, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach entered the cave on 23 June after a football practice session. Shortly thereafter, heavy rainfall partially flooded the cave system, blocking their way out, and trapping them deep within. Efforts to locate the group were hampered by rising water levels and strong currents; and no contact was made for nearly two weeks. The cave rescue effort expanded into a massive operation amid intense worldwide public interest and involving ...

The Velvet Underground was an influential band that arose from the music, art, and film avant-gardes of early-1960s New York City. Although not a commercial success at the time, it had a significant impact on underground, experimental, and alternative music and the development of punk and new wave music. Its core members were Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, John Cale, Doug Yule and Maureen Tucker. Artist

Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali is a 2021 American documentary film made for Netflix and directed by Marcus A. Clarke. The film is based on the book Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith. It tells the story of the friendship and deterioration thereof between American boxer Muhammad Ali and human rights activist Malcolm X, which is depicted through ...

The Sparks Brothers is a 2021 documentary film directed by Edgar Wright. The film is about Ron and Russell Mael, members of the pop and rock duo Sparks. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021, and was theatrically released in North America on June 18, 2021, by Focus Features. The documentary features lengthy interviews with Ron Mael and Russell Mael, along with short interviews with musicians such as Beck,

Everybody’s Everything is a 2019 documentary film about the life of Gustav Elijah Åhr, the American rapper, singer, and songwriter known professionally as Lil Peep. The film was directed by Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan, produced by Benjamin Soley and executive produced by Terrence Malick, Liza Womack and

The film was co-commissioned by 14–18 NOW and Imperial War Museums in association with the BBC, who approached Jackson in 2015 for the project. According to Jackson, to make the film, the crew of They Shall Not Grow Old reviewed 600 hours of interviews from the BBC and the IWM and 100 hours of original film footage from the IWM. The interviews came from 200 veterans, with the audio from 120 of them being used in the film. After receiving the footage, Jackson decided that the film would not feature traditional narration and that it would instead only feature audio excerpts of the soldiers talking about their war memories, in order to make the film about the soldiers themselves; for the ...

Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge revisits such pivotal articles as: Michael Hastings’ piece that brought down Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan; Lawrence Wright’s intriguing insight into the rise and fall of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and Jann Wenner’s poignant day-after-the-election interview with Barack Obama in 2016. Along with the authors’ words are previously unheard audio recordings, including an interview with then-President Bill Clinton, and interviews with such world-renowned musicians and writers as John Lennon, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, The Sex Pistols, Elvis, The Clash, Ice-T, Bob ...

Voyage of Time is a 2016 American IMAX documentary film written and directed by Terrence Malick. The film is said to be an examination of the birth and death of the known universe. Malick had been working on the film for over forty years and it has been described by Malick himself as “one of my greatest dreams”. Voyage of Time was released in two versions: a forty-minute IMAX version with narration by Brad Pitt, and a 35-millimetre feature-length edition (also known as Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey) narrated by

The film examines the ten televised debates between Buckley and Vidal in August 1968 that were moderated by anchorman Howard K. Smith during ABC News coverage of the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It especially focuses on a specific incident of on-air insults exchanged by Vidal and Buckley during the Democratic convention, and follows their subsequent thoughts and actions, including articles each wrote for Esquire magazine and the years-long litigation that resulted. It also expands on the impact of these debates on the beginning of modern American punditry.

De Palma is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow about the director and screenwriter Brian De Palma. It had its world premiere at the 72nd edition of the Venice Film Festival, where it screened out of competition. The documentary has the archive footage presences of various De Palma’s collaborators like Al Pacino, John Lithgow, Tom Cruise, ...

In January 2013, Laura Poitras, an American documentary film director/producer who had been working for several years on a film about monitoring programs in the United States that were the result of the September 11 attacks, receives an encrypted e-mail from a stranger who calls himself “Citizenfour”. In it, he offers her inside information about illegal wiretapping practices of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies. In June 2013, accompanied by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill, she travels to Hong Kong with her camera for the first meeting with “Citizenfour” in a ...

The film opens with the 1996 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, where Martin Brundle survived a spectacular crash at turn 3. After receiving clearance from race doctor Sid Watkins, Brundle hopped into a spare car to finish the race. The film then takes a brief look at the early days of Formula One racing in the 1950s, which was essentially a resumption of prewar Grand Prix racing. In 1958, the year world champion Juan Manuel Fangio retired, the FIA announced the Formula One World Constructors’ Championship for the makers of the winning car. This led to a wave of British privateer teams, nicknamed “Garagistas” by Enzo Ferrari, dominating the Championship. Most ...

Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick (director of American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute) began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham co-wrote the script. The documentary miniseries for Showtime had a working title Oliver Stone’s Secret History of America. Kuznick objected to the working title “Secret History”, claiming that “the truth is that many of our ‘secrets’ have been hidden on the front page of The New York Times. If people think the secrets will be deep, dark conspiracies, they’ll be disappointed. We’ll be drawing on the best recent scholarship”. It was ...

Prohibition is a 2011 American television documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick with narration by Peter Coyote. The series originally aired on PBS between October 2, 2011 and October 4, 2011. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It draws heavily from the 2010 book Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent. Prohibition describes how the consumption and effect ...

George Harrison: Living in the Material World is a 2011 documentary film directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the life of George Harrison, musician and former member of the Beatles. It earned six nominations at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special. A companion book was released alongside the film, as well as an album of Harrison’s demo recordings called Early Takes Volume 1. The film currently holds an 86% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 37 professional ...

Hubble 3D is an IMAX and Warner Bros. Pictures production, in cooperation with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The film reunites the 2002 documentary Space Station 3D film making team, led by producer/director Toni Myers. Hubble 3D opened at IMAX and IMAX 3D theaters on March 19, 2010. The film takes the viewer past Saturn’s aurora, the Helix Nebula in the constellation of Aquarius, the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Butterfly Nebula. The HST has provided data and imagery so detailed that scientists and film ...

The film begins with Senna’s arrival into Formula One during the 1984 season, briefly covering his time at Toleman and Lotus before concentrating on his time with the British team McLaren – the association that brought his rise to global fame – and becoming a World Champion. The drama of this period of his career centers on his rivalry with his team mate Alain Prost, and his political struggles with the then head of FISA Jean-Marie Balestre, climaxing during the 1989 and 1990 seasons, when Senna and Prost were involved in controversial clashes which decided the drivers’ world championship title, in 1989 for Prost and in 1990 for Senna.

Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the late-2000s financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008, says the film is about “the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption”, amongst them conflicts of interest of academic research which led to improved disclosure standards by the American Economic Association. In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis. It ...