1. The Centuries Surround Me with Fire
A documentary, originally produced for Dutch television, on the life and works of Osip Mandelstam , the groundbreaking Soviet poet and dissident.
2. Cycling the Frame
In 1988, Tilda Swinton toured round the Berlin Wall on a bicycle - starting and ending at the Brandenburg Gate - accompanied by filmmaker Cynthia Beatt. As Swinton travels through fields and historic neighborhoods, past lakes and massive concrete apartment buildings, the Wall is a constant presence.
It has an average vote of 7.1 on TMDB.
3. The Atomic Cafe
A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
It has an average vote of 7.284 on TMDB.
4. Silenced
Three National Security whistleblowers fight to reveal the darkest corners of America's war on terror, challenging a government that is increasingly determined to maintain secrecy.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
5. When the Mountains Tremble (When the Mountains Tremble)
A documentary on the war between the Guatemalan military and the Mayan population, with first hand accounts by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
It has an average vote of 9.5 on TMDB.
6. Man with a Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом)
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
It has an average vote of 7.854 on TMDB.
7. Your Neighbour's Son (Your Neighbour's Son)
The film documents the conversion of young Greek Military Police recruits into torturers and touches on the subject of the power of the institution to compel otherwise moral human beings to torture. The documentary examines the processes and methods of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.
8. Anniversary of the Revolution (Годовщина революции)
A chronicle of the Russian Revolution of 1917, from the bourgeois democratic February Revolution to the great socialist October Revolution and the final triumph.
It has an average vote of 6.8 on TMDB.
9. The Wall
Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
10. :03 from Gold
The 1972 Olympic men's basketball final, in which Team USA was accorded their first ever loss since the sport was adopted in competition, was one of the most controversial events in history the history of the Games.
11. Ukraine on Fire
Ukraine in Flames is a documentary produced by Oliver Stone that reveals American and NATO participation in the 2014 coup d'état in Ukraine and its aftermath. The renowned American director, who in recent years has made several productions within the genre of political cinema, investigates the origins of the current conflict that currently keeps the entire European continent and the entire planet in suspense. In the film, Stone interviews, among others, the former president of Ukraine, Víktor Yanukovych; Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitali Zajarchenko.
It has an average vote of 6.1 on TMDB.
12. K-19: Doomsday Submarine
The disastrous first combat patrol of the K-19, the Soviet Union's first atomic-powered nuclear missile submarine.
13. The El-Masri Case (Der Fall el-Masri)
A documentary about the life of a German citizen abducted by the CIA in 2003.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
14. Mission to Mir
This film shows how far we have come since the cold-war days of the 50s and 60s. Back then the Russians were our "enemies". And to them the Americans were their "enemies" who couldn't be trusted. Somewhere in all this a young girl in Oklahoma named Shannon set her sights on becoming one of those space explorers, even though she was told "girls can't do that." But she did.
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
15. Soviet Bus Stops
“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.
16. Police State
Dinesh D'Souza claims federal organizations like the FBI, CIA, and DOJ are corrupt and are unfairly and selectively targeting Christians and conservatives/Republicans.
It has an average vote of 7.6 on TMDB.
17. The Jump (Šuolis)
In the Cold War years of the 1970s, an American patrol boat meets a Soviet ship off the east coast of the United States for talks about fishing rights in the Atlantic. In the midst of this, while Russian commanders are aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel where the talks are being held, a Lithuanian sailor jumps across the ten feet of icy water separating the boats. Crash-landing on the deck of the American ship, he desperately begs for asylum. Though they try, the Americans ultimately fail to provide protection and the Soviets are allowed to capture him and brutally return him to their vessel. Thus begins a stranger-than-fiction story of imprisonment, discovery, fame, and freedom. Through rare archival footage and a dramatic first-person re-enactment of that fateful day by Simas Kudirka, the would-be defector himself, this tale of one of the biggest Cold War muddles takes us on a journey of uncanny twists of fate, and the emotional sacrifices of becoming a universal symbol of freedom.
It has an average vote of 7.286 on TMDB.
18. Russen und Deutsche - Sieben historische Wendepunkte (Russen und Deutsche - Sieben historische Wendepunkte)
(Russen und Deutsche - Sieben historische Wendepunkte)
19. People of Russia
This FitzPatrick Miniature visits the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , the largest geographically unbroken political unit in the world, covering one-sixth of the world's land mass.
20. Barbarossa: Hitler Turns East (Barbarossa: Hitler Turns East)
Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.