1. The Big One
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
It has an average vote of 6.691 on TMDB.
2. Trap Diary (Diario di tonnara)
From the book by the same name by Ninni Ravazza, "Diario di Tonnara" tells the story of the towns, villages, communities and adventures that dictate the daily lives of the tuna fishermen in Italy.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
3. The words of Ventotene (Le parole di Ventotene)
The film focuses on Ernesto Rossi , who was imprisoned by the fascist regime between 1930 and 1943 for his political ideas. Exiled on the island of Ventotene, he co-authored the Ventotene manifesto.
4. The Eyes of Dante (Gli Occhi di Dante)
He is considered the greatest European poet of the Middle Ages and his work unfolds the whole panopticon of occidental education – theology, philosophy, sciences, politics and literature. But who has really read it, the “Divine Comedy”? Who knows more of its creator Dante Alighieri than that he had an eagle-like profile and was in love with a woman named Beatrice? 700 years after Dante’s death, the filmmaker Adolfo Conti travels through Italy with Dante’s words in mind and eyes to see the world as Dante did. As the film encounters the beauty of arts and the Tuscan landscape, the forces of nature, a dramatic life story is unfolded.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
5. Benghazi: Beyond the Frontline
Beyond the hostilities of the Libyan civil upheaval rose one of the most compelling expressions of the Arab awakening: an unarmed front. For a full year we follow the peaceful battle that began during the first days of the uprising. We see artists, intellectuals, ex-military, and young Libyans who sought to lead a different kind of revolution, one of ideas. Beyond the Frontline is an intimate and humane story. It explores the contradictions that coexist within Libyan society, in their struggle for justice and liberty.
6. The Italian Character: The Story of a Great Italian Orchestra (Die italienische Art)
The Italian Character: a film within music and about music. The Italian character is the story of one of the most renowned orchestras in the world, enriched by archive material of the last thirty years about the great conductors who have been performing on the most famous rostrum in Rome.
7. The Lost World Cup (Il mundial dimenticato)
The film reconstructs the mysterious story of the 1942 Patagonia World Soccer championship, never acknowledged by the official sports organizations, and which for decades have remained shrouded in legend without the winner ever being known.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
8. How Magic Changed TV
The story of magic on TV, the challenges of performing illusions in front of the television cameras, the performers who inspired some of the most successful modern magicians and the celebrity magic fans.
9. The Man Who Wanted to See It All (The Man Who Wanted to See It All)
Heinz Stücke left Germany in 1962 with a bike, a tent and a goal: to see everything in the world. Now for the first time in 50 years, he's come home.
It has an average vote of 7.3 on TMDB.
10. Solitary
There are 100,000 US citizens in solitary confinement across the country, a staggering number prompting comment from both President Obama and the Pope. Situated in rural Virginia, 300 miles from any urban center, Red Onion State Prison is one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold prisoners in eight-by-ten-foot cells for 23 hours a day. Filmed over the course of one year, this eye-opening film braids stark prison imagery, stories from correction officers, and intimate reflections from the men who are locked up in isolation. The inmates share the paths that led them to prison and their daily struggles to maintain their sanity.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
11. Near Light
A young man, convicted murderer, has a chance of redemption when he enters the best Italian university of economics, going back and forth from prison to university every day.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
12. Women's Bodies (Il corpo delle donne)
The representation of women in contemporary Italian media
It has an average vote of 7.7 on TMDB.
13. The Flawed Genius of Jan Smuts
Jan Smuts is a foremost political figure in South African 20th Century History, and is recognised today by two of the world's leading historians as being at the very centre of the vision for a new world order that emerges from the League of Nations and the United Nations.. Yet, he is virtually persona non grata in his own country.... and largely ignored in school history books.</p><p> This one hour drama-documentary, with its dramatised cameo scenes in which his look-alike grandson takes on the role of Jan Smuts, battle re-enactments, historical archival footage, comments from historians, political analysts, and South African political struggle heroes, looks back on his life and the circumstances that shaped it in search of some answers.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
14. A Day in Barbagia (Un giorno in Barbagia)
Against the background of flocks of sheep at pasture, mules walking down unpaved roads, tractors in the fields, and isolated figures in a deserted village, a caption explains that Barbagia is a vast region in Sardinia; Orgosolo, Oliena and Mamoiada are villages of shepherds and the men spend most of the year far away, with their flocks. This is why the houses and the children are entrusted to the women, who cut the wood, work the fields and prepare bread, shepherds’ bread.
It has an average vote of 6.386 on TMDB.
15. The Little Church That Could
Amidst a mostly Catholic community, a small tiny Anglican church offers more to the community of Placentia than people may think, and holds many connections and history to the rest of the world.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
16. Prince Consort (Prinzgemahle - Im Schatten der Krone)
(Prinzgemahle - Im Schatten der Krone)
17. Here I Am...Here You Are (ها أنا ... ها أنت)
Eccomi ... Eccoti unfolds as a virtual road trip navigating between Italy and Lebanon. Conditioned to live in a long-distance relationship with his partner because of strict European visa regulations, the director patches together the shared moments in an attempt to create a possible day-to-day reality for their couple. With a lyrical, ambient soundscape set atop a dreamy, atmospheric visual style that oscillates between still photography and moving images, the film explores what it means to be gay in contemporary Beirut and existential discomfort that blocks one from reaching a sense of complete-ness. Does such in-completeness have to do, in particular, with being gay? Or is it related to a grander malaise endemic to the human condition?
18. They Call Us Monsters
Behind the walls of the Compound, LA’s most violent juvenile offenders await their trials. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults. To their victims, they’re monsters. Who are they to you?
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
19. Criminal Injustice: Death and Politics at Attica
Forty years after the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War, the dead remain buried along with the truth. Until now. Based on interviews with eyewitnesses who just now are telling their stories, as well as access to newly discovered documents, the film sheds new light on exactly what happened at Attica between September 9-13, 1971. Criminal Injustice raises compelling new questions about the 39 deaths at Attica, White House involvement, and the corrupting influence of Nelson Rockefeller’s political aspirations before, during, and long after the deadly retaking of the prison. Former hostage Michael Smith said that “the cover up started as soon as the shooting stopped.” This film reveals that the truth actually may have been concealed long before that.
20. Pull of Gravity
North Philadelphia, PA – Kev, El and Andy are three men united by one struggle: they are trying to defy gravity. As part of the 700,000 prisoners released into society every year, they find themselves faced with a chilling outlook: 67% of ex-offenders re-offend within three years. What explains this invisible force that keeps former inmates in a seemingly unending cycle of incarceration? Filmed on the street over the course of two years, Pull of Gravity is an intimate portrait of these three men that confronts head-on the gritty details of lives cut short by poverty and drugs, where dealing is seen as the only route to economic prosperity, where using offers an escape from powerlessness, and where prison is too often the next stop. The film’s unfiltered lense captures its subjects as they lay bare their stories, fears, and tentative dreams.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
