Leaving November 1

Directed by Jennifer Baichwal | 75 mins | 2009
Interviewing a host of individuals who’ve survived being struck by lightning—including author Paul Auster, musician Fred Frith, and a former CIA assassin—Baichwal creates a captivating, visually astonishing investigation into the ...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Philip Haas and David Hockney | 46 mins | 1988
David Hockney leads the viewer on a charming and illuminating guided tour through 17th-century China as depicted in the 72-foot scroll The Kangxi Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour (1691-1698), the work of painter Wang...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Jennifer Baichwal | 87 mins | 2019
Inspired by the work of the Anthropocene Working Group, an international organization of scientists committed to the study of humanity’s dangerous transformation of the planet since the mid-20th century, Bachwal’s four-years-in-th...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Andreis Veil | 107 mins | 2017
A rich trove of never-before-seen archival footage shows how the charismatic and controversial German artist Joseph Beuys’s teachings, installations, happenings—such as covering himself in honey and gold leaf in How to Explain Paintin...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Halina Dyrschka | 94 mins | 2019
The Swedish painter and mystic Hilma af Klint was, for decades after her death, a nearly forgotten figure, but her coterie of admirers swelled to an army after a blockbuster 2018 exhibition. Dyrschka, in her assured debut, continues...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard | 70 mins | 2014
An innovator to the end, Godard’s penultimate feature finds him experimenting with the possibilities of digital 3D, using the technology to plot the disintegration of both a couple’s relationship and the images of the relationship. ...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Sophie Fiennes | 115 mins | 2018
One doesn’t have to do much to make a film about the towering, tempestuous Jamaican-born Grace Jones visually stunning and frequently outrageous, but Fiennes goes above and beyond in this documentary portrait of the powerful and pan...

Leaving November 1

Directed by RaMell Ross | 76 mins | 2018
The results of five years of living among African American families in rural Hale County, Alabama—also the setting of Walker Evans and James Agee’s photo-essay Let Us Now Praise Famous Men—Ross’s debut feature documentary is a lyrical a...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Gero von Boehm | 93 mins | 2020
Released on the centenary of its late subject’s birth, von Boehm’s fascinating documentary investigates the German-born photographer and provocateur Helmut Newton’s complicated legacy as the maestro of “porno chic” through interviews...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Martina Kudlacek | 103 mins | 2001
Using footage from Deren’s groundbreaking experimental films of the 1940s—among them Meshes of the Afternoon and At Land—and interviews with Deren’s contemporaries, Kudlacek’s film provides penetrating insights into the mind of it...

Directed by Hsiu-Chiung Chiang and Pun-Leung Kwan | 86 mins | 2009
A tender documentary portrait of the renowned cinematographer for Hou Hsiao-hsien as well as films by Wong Kar Wai ("In the Mood for Love"), Hirokazu Kore-eda ("Air Doll"), and Tran Anh Hung ("The Vertical Ray of the Sun"). A mast...

Directed by Jeff Malmberg | 82 mins | 2010
In Malmberg’s mesmerizing, multi-award-winning portrait of healing and obsession, Mark Hogencamp recovers from a brutal assault and alcoholism by building and tending to a miniature plywood town in his backyard. Populating the diorama with dolls based on...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Alison Chernik | 72 mins | 2006
Shot during the development of Barney’s massively ambitious film Drawing Restraint 9, made in collaboration with Björk, Chernick’s behind-the-scenes documentary offers a first-hand account of the artist’s artistic process, as well as...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Angelo Madsen Minax | 84 mins | 2021
In this heart-wrenching documentary, a filmmaker returns to his Michigan hometown after his niece’s unexpected death and goes deep into reflections about his family, growing up, and trans identity. Recharging the personal-essay ...

Directed by Shirley Clarke | 85 mins | 1985
“Discovering the work of filmmaker and the Film-Makers' Cooperative co-founder, Shirley Clarke made me aware of the wide range of cinema’s possibilities. This 1985 documentary shot in collaboration with the late Ornette Coleman, using a diverse array of...

Directed by Miguel Gomes | 147 mins | 2008
Gomes’s magical mystery tour through the rich pageant of summertime Portugal blurs fiction and documentary as it chronicles a traveling family pop band, interviews with an array of folks in the country, and a fragile fictional love story. Gomes’s second ...

Directed by Shirley Clarke | 107 mins | 1967
A distillation of a single 12-hour interview in a room at the Chelsea Hotel with the charismatic Jason Holliday (“real” name Aaron Payne), a gay, African American cabaret dancer, part-time hustler, and full-time raconteur, Portrait of Jason grows from ...

Directed by Claire Simon | 121 mins | 2016
The Competition begins, significantly, with the image of a locked gate—that of La Fémis, one of the most prestigious film schools in the world, offering hands-on training from working professionals and accepting only 40 students per year from hundreds of...

Directed by Shirley Clarke | 110 mins | 1961
“Shirley Clarke’s The Connection based on and adapted by Jack Gelber is a film way ahead of its time. Arguably the first film to use the “found footage” trope to tell a fictional story. This film blew my mind when I first saw it, the direction and the ...

Directed by Peter Greenaway | 239 mins | 1980
Greenaway’s first feature, an epic mock documentary in 92 parts that catalogs the aftermath of a mysterious “Violent Unknown Event” that has killed many people, and left survivors suffering from symptoms including strange dreams and mutations into bir...

Directed by William Klein | 130 mins | 1982
“For me, this film encapsulates everything I loved and love about the tennis of that moment; and in the hands of the great and singular William Klein, it is at once a gripping sports page, a fascinating piece of reportage, and a work of art.”

—Wes Ande...

Leaving November 1

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard | 84 mins | 2019
A cinematic collage, an esoteric essay film, a wide-reaching, freewheeling ontological history of the moving image, and a sorrowful survey of the fallen world at the beginning of the 21st century, Special Palme d’Or winner The Image...

Directed by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson | 90 mins | 1978
John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, co-directors of Cannes Camera d’Or winner Northern Lights and fellow members of San Francisco’s Cine Manifest film collective, collaborated on this remarkable series of documentaries underwritten by the North Da...

Directed by Abel Ferrara | 81 mins | 2019
Ferrara’s fond, often funny portrait of Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou, a Cypriot immigrant who got his start in movie houses working in the Times Square porno theaters in the 1970s and has held on into the 21st century as an independent exhibitor in spite of ov...