1. Land Without Bread (Las Hurdes)
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
It has an average vote of 7.081 on TMDB.
2. Railway Station (Dworzec)
Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.
It has an average vote of 4.8 on TMDB.
3. The Brainwashing of My Dad
A filmmaker examines the rise of right-wing media through the lens of her father, whose immersion in it radicalized him and rocked the foundation of their family. She discovers this political phenomenon recurring in living rooms everywhere, and reveals the consequences conservative media has had on families and a nation.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
4. Rok stalinské epochy (Rok stalinské epochy)
(Rok stalinské epochy)
5. Le Parti du cinéma (Le Parti du cinéma)
(Le Parti du cinéma)
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
6. Children of the Revolution
Inspired by the student revolutions of 1968, two women in Germany and Japan set out to plot world revolution as leaders of the Baader Meinhof Group and the Japanese Red Army. What were they fighting for and what have we learned?
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
7. An Ordinary Country (Zwyczajny kraj)
The story of what daily life was like in Poland under communism: private conversations, cruel interrogations, recruitment attempts, recorded and filmed with hidden devices; of how the secret services spied on every activity of ordinary citizens: nothing escaped the brutal system of control developed by the Soviets in the name of freedom.
It has an average vote of 4.5 on TMDB.
8. High Noon on the Waterfront
An inventive remembrance of the impact of the Hollywood blacklist on two American classics, rendered as a visually mesmerizing dialogue between Carl Foreman and Elia Kazan.
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
9. The Silent Village
The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.
It has an average vote of 6.8 on TMDB.
10. Like Stone Lions in the Gateway into Night (Comme des lions de pierre à l'entrée de la nuit)
Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.
11. Wanda Gosciminska – A Textile Worker (Wanda Gosciminska - wlókniarka)
The life of a female weaver is thrown onto the socio-political canvas of pre-war and post-war communist Poland through the use of expressive allegorical and symbolic imagery in this imaginative take on the documentary form.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
12. Stalin In Color
March 9th, 1953, 5 million people attend Stalin’s funeral. A revolutionary lacking in both charisma and stature, Stalin came to power almost by chance, and his 30-year reign saw him become the most Machiavellian and bloodthirsty of dictators. The man who insisted on being called “The Father of the People” massacred his own countrymen, and was responsible for the death of some 20 million people. Soon forgetting his former ideological stance, he mercilessly crushed anyone who opposed him, in both word and deed. His camps for reform through hard labor – known as “gulags” – turned 18 million Russians into slaves. He not only murdered his opponents but his best friends too, and even sometimes members of his own family. His cruelty knew no bounds. Through colorized archive material rich in previously unseen footage, and many accounts from the period including some from Stalin himself, this documentary tells the story of a man who turned a dream into a nightmare.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
13. The Distant Drummer: A Movable Scene
Robert Mitchum narrates an anti drug propaganda film.
It has an average vote of 3.5 on TMDB.
14. Balaton retró (Balaton retró)
Scenes from holiday life at Lake Balaton in Hungary during the communism.
It has an average vote of 7.7 on TMDB.
15. The astonishing destiny of General Luo (L'étonnant destin du général Luo)
Born in Austria in 1903, Jacob Rosenfeld was imprisoned in Dachau. He manages to flee and takes refuge in Shanghai, like 30,000 other people. He exercised his profession there and sought to get involved in 1941 alongside the revolutionaries of the Chinese Communist Party. Rosenfeld becomes a surgeon on the war front between China and Japan. Thanks to his talents as a doctor and an organizer, he soon became close to Mao Tsé-Toung. In 1945, he was appointed general, responsible for the health of the armies and the entire liberated area. He is now called General Luo. Later, he became the Minister of Health of the first communist government. Thanks to his journal found in 2001, this documentary traces its extraordinary destiny.
16. Life Goes On
The absurd and often surrealistic story of the last propaganda film of the Third Reich.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
17. Congrès de Tours 1920: The Birth of the French Communist Party (Congrès de Tours. 1920 : La Naissance des deux gauches)
(Congrès de Tours. 1920 : La Naissance des deux gauches)
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
18. 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.
19. The Diary of Florica S. (Jurnalul Floricăi S)
Director Eugenia Gutu offers a feminist critique of gender equality under socialism in this documentary portrait of an industrializing town and its model citizen, Florica S.
20. Hitler Lives
This short film, produced at the end of WWII, warns that although Adolf Hitler is dead, his ideas live on.
It has an average vote of 4.727 on TMDB.
