1. Winter
A journey through North Russia and Siberia where people have to cope with one of the world’s harshest climates, Zima portrays a reality where the boundary between life and death is so thin that it is sometimes almost nonexistent. In these remote places, civilization constantly fights and embraces nature and its timeless rules and rites. People, animals and nature become elements of a millennial existence cycle where physical and mental endurance are as important as chance and where life and death constantly meet each other.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
2. Banaz: A Love Story
This is a documentary film chronicling the brutal Honour Killing of Banaz Mahmod, a young British Kurdish woman in London, killed by her own family for choosing a life for herself.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
3. Like
In our current world, where worth is often gauged by online popularity, an economy has developed for paying for followers and likes. Through access inside the “click-farms” of Bangladesh, Like explores the multi-million dollar industry that grows social media followings for celebrities and brands alike.
It has an average vote of 5 on TMDB.
4. Obit
How do you put a life into 500 words? Ask the staff obituary writers at the New York Times. OBIT is a first-ever glimpse into the daily rituals, joys and existential angst of the Times obit writers, as they chronicle life after death on the front lines of history.
It has an average vote of 6.4 on TMDB.
5. The Ride
The end of the Indian Wars in the US concluded with the horrific events at Wounded Knee in December, 1890. After Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn and Chief Sitting Bull's subsequent surrender and execution, the Lakota Sioux set out on a 300-mile walk southward through South Dakota. Along the way they were joined by Chief Big Foot's band of Minneconjou Lakota and pursued by the Calvary, ending up at Wounded Knee where 350 Lakota were massacred. In The Ride we are witness to the annual Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride, a tradition since 1986 where young Lakota retrace part of the route on a 300-mile horse ride in late December.
It has an average vote of 8.5 on TMDB.
6. 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.
7. Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
In 1994, four women were accused, tried, and convicted of the heinous sexual assault of two young girls—as one newscaster puts it, “the modern version of the witchcraft trials.” Twenty years later, the four women have maintained their innocence, insisting that the accusations were entirely fabricated, and borne of homophobic prejudice and a late-’90s mania about covens, cults, and child abuse.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
8. Everybody Knows... Elizabeth Murray
This tribute to the dynamic artist Elizabeth Murray, an intrinsic figure in New York's contemporary art landscape from the 1970s until the early 2000s, highlights her struggle to balance personal and family ambition with artistic drive in a male-dominated art world. It also addresses her later battle with cancer, at the peak of her career.
9. Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back
An art world upstart, provocative and elusive artist Maurizio Cattelan made his career on playful and subversive works that send up the artistic establishment, until a retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2011 finally solidified his place in the contemporary art canon. Axelrod's equally playful profile leaves no stone unturned in trying to figure out: who is Maurizio Cattelan?
It has an average vote of 6.667 on TMDB.
10. Neither Allah, Nor Master! (Laïcité, Inch'Allah!)
Filmmaker Nadia el Fani explores secularism in the predominantly Muslim country of Tunisia before and after the fall of Ben Ali.
It has an average vote of 3.5 on TMDB.
11. Prison Dogs
Prison Dogs is a story of redemption, strength, fear, love, and dedication. In this wonderfully human tale, prison inmates, along with veterans suffering with PTSD, find a path to a second chance at life through their love and care of a puppy.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
12. Light Years (Light Years)
A collage film and a journey through the Swedish landscape, traversing stellar distances in units of 5878 trillion miles. It is a film acutely in the present reflecting our temporal existence ... continuous and imperfect.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
13. Snow Beard
A moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco
14. Memories of a Penitent Heart
Twenty five years after Miguel died from AIDS, his niece, filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo, embarks on an excavation into a quagmire of unresolved family drama. Like many gay men in the 1980s, Miguel moved from Puerto Rico to New York City; he found a career in theater and a rewarding relationship. Yet, on his deathbed he grappled to reconcile his homosexuality with his Catholic upbringing. Now, decades after his death, Cecilia locates Miguel’s lover Robert, who has been shunned and demonized by the family, in order to understand the whole story.
It has an average vote of 5.6 on TMDB.
15. The Return
In 2012, California voters approved Proposition 36, effectively repealing the state's notoriously harsh three-strikes law that had sentenced thousands of nonviolent offenders to a lifetime behind bars. But what does it mean to be released from prison after being sentenced to life? How does one begin to reintegrate into society? The Return depicts the struggles of two newly released former lifers as they deal with restoring relationships, avoiding personal triggers, finding meaningful employment, and managing the mental health problems which had previously contributed to their imprisonment.
It has an average vote of 5.7 on TMDB.
16. Tickling Giants
The Arab Spring in Egypt: From a dictator to free elections, back to a dictatorship. One comedy show united the country and tested the limits of free press. This is the story of Bassem Youssef, a cardiologist turned comedian, the Jon Stewart of Egypt, and his show "The Show".
It has an average vote of 7.574 on TMDB.
17. Bad Rap
The lives and careers of four Asian-American rappers trying to break into a world that often treats them as outsiders. Sharing dynamic live performance footage and revealing interviews, these artists will make the most skeptical critics into believers.
It has an average vote of 6.3 on TMDB.
18. Mom n' Me
The filmmaker traces the loss of her ancestral language over three generations of her family, and her own desire to recover it.
19. Abel Gance et son Napoléon (Abel Gance et son Napoléon)
This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon showcased Gance's talents with the camera, his use of multiple-images , and his handling of crowded action scenes -- all brought forward in this documentary by his later assistant, Nelly Kaplan. While Gance was shooting Napoleon in 1925-26, he and his crew were also being filmed for a documentary titled Autour de Napoleon. The only extant reels from that documentary are included in this film, as well as views of Gance's unique "triptychs" -- three different scenes lined up side-by-side across a super-wide screen to convey the effect of a panorama, or of three separate interludes. Nelly Kaplan put together this documentary using old footage, such as Gance filming the famous snowball fight at the Brienne military school and still photographs and excerpts from Gance's production diaries.
It has an average vote of 5.3 on TMDB.
20. À ciel ouvert (À ciel ouvert)
On the Franco-belgian border, there's a unique place that takes in children with mental and social problems. Day after day, the adults try to understand the enigma that each one of them represents and, without ever imposing anything on them, invent the solutions that will help them to live in peace, case by case. Through their stories, 'Like an Open Sky' reveals their singular vision of the world to us.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
