1. Straight from the Heart
Parents talk about their gay and lesbian children, and how they came to accept their lifestyle.
It has an average vote of 4.5 on TMDB.
2. Jim Dine: A Self-Portrait on the Walls
Jim Dine: A Self-Portrait on the Walls is a 1995 American short documentary film about artist Jim Dine produced by Nancy Dine and Richard Stilwell. The film follows Dine as he produces an exhibition by drawing in charcoal directly on the walls of a German museum. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
3. Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien
Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien is a 1996 American short documentary film directed by Jessica Yu. Mark O'Brien was a journalist and poet who lived in Berkeley, California. The documentary explored his spiritual struggle coping with his disability; he had to use an iron lung much of the time due to childhood polio. O'Brien died on 4 July 1999, from post-polio syndrome. It won an Oscar at the 69th Academy Awards in 1997 for Documentary Short Subject.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
4. A Story of Healing
In January, 1997, a team of five nurses, four anesthesiologists, and three plastic surgeons arrive in Vietnam from the United States for two weeks' of volunteer work. They operate on 110 children who have various birth defects and injuries. They also talk to the film crew about why they've made this trip and what it means to them. We watch them work, and we see the children, their families, and their surroundings in the Mekong Delta. Over the closing credits, Dionne Warwick sings Bacharach and David's "What the World Needs Now Is Love".
It has an average vote of 6.4 on TMDB.
5. Family Video Diaries: Daughter of the Bride
Pearl Randall, a 66-year-old widow, announces that she is planning to remarry, but her three grown children express conflicting emotions. Daughter Terri captures on tape the family's attempts to come to grips with Pearl's new romance.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
6. The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years
Documentary about a Jewish senior citizens' acting group on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The film covers both the progress and impediments of a play the group is mounting about senior citizens looking for love and the life/love stories of the players.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
7. Big Mama
Eighteen months in the life of 89 years old Viola Dees as she tries of persuade Los Angeles authorities that she can care for her grandson, 9-year-old Walter.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
8. Sing!
Sing! is a 2001 American short documentary film about the Los Angeles Children's Chorus, directed by Freida Lee Mock. How do squeaky-voiced 8 year olds become amazing singers? Sing! tells the story of how a community group, amid severe cutbacks in the arts, is able to develop a children's chorus that is one of the best in the country. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
9. The Collector of Bedford Street
The Collector of Bedford Street is a 2002 documentary film about director Alice Elliott's neighbor, Larry Selman, a community activist and fundraiser who had an intellectual disability. When Larry's primary caregiver becomes unable to care for him, his New York City neighborhood community rallies together to protect his independent lifestyle by establishing an adult trust fund in his behalf. The film was nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
10. Asylum
Baba, a young Ghanaian woman, goes in search of her father for his blessing on her impending marriage. This turns to a nightmare as he insists she a different man, and that she undergo female genital mutilation as is the custom in his tribe. She is forced to flee her father's village, seeking refugee status in the U.S. Instead she becomes enmeshed in the U.S. immigration system.
11. Ferry Tales
A documentary that focuses on the daily meetings between a group of commuters in the women's room of the Staten Island Ferry.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
12. Winter adé (Winter adé)
A locomotive journey traversing the North to the South of the German Democratic Republic on the eve of its dissolution. Labourers, punks, mothers, intellectuals, young and old are implored to reflect on their life choices, the sacrifices they've made, and their place in the world. Despite everything, hope persists.
It has an average vote of 7.6 on TMDB.
13. The Breidjing Camp (Le Camp de Bredjing)
Claire Denis goes to Eastern Chad to the Breidjing camp, the home of 40,000 refugees from Darfur. With great humility, she tells the stories of these men and women, victims of one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes that this century has seen so far.
14. Momentum
In Finland, a small child is waiting for his time to begin. His heart is broken. A major heart surgery is expected. There is a fight against time. The boys parents are wandering in the corridors of the hospital. The heart is stopped during the surgery operation. Le Locle, a village in Switzerland acts as the heart of watch industry. Narrow streets of the village carry vital parts to watches and nowdays also into human bodies, for example pacemakers. Village is formed as a big factory line and appears as a time-twisting machine. There pieces are refined and workers hands turns the time on and off.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
15. Air Guitar Nation
If your bedroom has become too small a stage for your air guitar antics, take inspiration from the competitors featured here as they battle their way from the inaugural U.S. Air Guitar Championship to the world championship in Oulu, Finland. Along the way, filmmaker Alexandra Lipsitz documents the fierce rivalries that develop as would-be rock legends vie for top honors in technical accuracy, stage presence and "airness."
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
16. The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger
The Ways of Seeing writer is celebrated by Tilda Swinton and her fellow admirers in an unorthodox four-part documentary that visits him at his Alpine home
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
17. Tell Me Something About Yourself - Pavlína (Pavlína)
Pavlina is a drug addict imprisoned, as well as her boyfriend, for illegal drug manufacturing. They meet again after the amnesty and the vicious circle of drugs starts rolling again.
18. Tell Me Something About Yourself - René (René)
René has been in prison since he was 16. He is sick of life and doesn’t care about his parents ; he doesn’t even know how many more children they had. After the general amnesty, René just hangs around, not satisfied in any job, and with his younger brother he starts stealing. In no time he is back in prison, this time joined by his brother who is still a youth. History repeats itself and René’s life philosophy seems to be confirmed: You enjoy your freedom for a while, then go to prison and the same thing happens all over again.
19. Tell Me Something About Yourself - Láda (Láďa)
Lada is a product of "educational“ or "corrective“ institutions. Not only is he not educated or corrected, he simply does not understand anything about life. He solves his problems in his own way – by swallowing sharp objects.
20. Joe Leahy's Neighbors
Joe Leahy and his complicated relationship with the Guniga people in the Papua New Guinea highlands.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
