Our Nixon
Essential Documentaries
•
1h 24m
Leaving November 1
Directed by Penny Lane | 85 mins | 2013
Using an array of archival materials including television interviews, Nixon’s secretly recorded White House tapes, and more than 500 reels of long-out-of-circulation Super 8 home movies by presidential aides Dwight Chapin, John Ehrlichman, and H.R. Haldeman, Lane’s film offers an unusually intimate, candid look at the 37th President, found bidding a sentimental farewell to aides after firing them, ranting against homosexuality, nervously awaiting reviews of his “Silent Majority” speech, and enduring an unexpected antiwar protest from the supposedly square Ray Conniff singers. A portrait of the President as star in the movie of his life, blissfully unaware he’s been cast as the villain.
Up Next in Essential Documentaries
-
Portrait of Jason
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 ... -
The Competition
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... -
The Decline of Western Civilization
Directed by Penelope Spheeris | 100 mins | 1981
Without doubt one of the great rock docs, Penelope Spheeris’s headily discordant portrait of West Coast punk—her directorial debut—showcases such hardcore luminaries as X, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Germs. As pure and pungent a time capsule as th...
