Poetic Documentary Movies

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,...

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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 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...

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

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

This short documentary, shot in the glass factories of Leerdam and Schiedam, demonstrates how glass blowers do their work. But thanks to the superbly...

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...

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

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

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

A perfect, fast and hilarious montage. Using images from Artis (Amsterdam Zoo), Bert Haanstra shows that a couple of similarities can be discovered...

Before Cinema Novo revolutionized the Brazilian cinematic scenery, a young craftsman and Bahian filmmaker had already paved the way for the beginning...

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

A montage of the skyscrapers of Manhattan opens with a succession of stationary views of the upper portions of numerous buildings. This is followed...