Poetic Documentary Movies

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied wo...

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem con...

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting ne...

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th...

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Gui...

What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inh...

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions a...

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Thi...

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Whe...

Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of...

Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing fo...

May Pang lovingly recounts her life in rock & roll and the whirlwind 18 months spent as friend, lover, and confidante to one of the towering figures o...

A lyrical portrait of Amsterdam and its changing appearance during a rain-shower.

This short experimental film tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood to become a star, only to fail and be dehumanized. He is identified by th...

Avant-Drag! paints portraits of ten drag artists of varying gender expressions and sexualities who take to the streets of Athens to query, problematis...

Morning reveals New York harbor, the wharves, the Brooklyn Bridge. A ferry boat docks, disgorging its huddled mass. People move briskly along Wall St....

In this short film Bert Haanstra gives his vision - from the water – of a tranquil Holland. During filming he held the camera upside down and afterwar...