observational documentary
395 movies and shows
Sicko
Fri, 18 May 2007
A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States whose main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance, the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.
HyperNormalisation
Tue, 25 Oct 2016
We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Fri, 06 Jun 2025
As Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, primary schools across Russia’s hinterlands are transformed into recruitment stages for the war. Facing the ethical dilemma of working in a system defined by propaganda and violence, a brave teacher goes undercover to film what’s really happening in his own school.
Gallant Indies
Wed, 23 Jun 2021
Stéphane Lissner, director of the Paris Opera, entrusts the staging of the opera-ballet Les Indes galantes to the visual artist Clément Cogitore. Based on the experience of his short film Les Indes galantes, the artist updates Jean-Philippe Rameau's baroque masterpiece (1735) by bringing together lyric song and urban dance. The choreography is entrusted to Bintou Dembélé who supervises dancers from krump, popping, voguing or even experimental hip hop. From rehearsals to the Premiere, Philippe Béziat films the meeting of urban dancers with the lyric institution and invites the spectator to share a human and artistic experience.
Sharks Up Close with Bertie Gregory
Sat, 05 Jul 2025
Bertie heads to South Africa for his most audacious mission yet. The wild waters here are a hotspot for one of the ocean’s most famous and feared predators, the great white shark. Diving in the shallows without a cage, Bertie will attempt to film these huge sharks. By entering their domain, he discovers the challenges they face on our rapidly changing planet.
Adolescents
Wed, 09 Sep 2020
Emma and Anaïs are best friends and yet everything in their life seems to set them apart, their social backgrounds but also their personalities. From the age of thirteen to eighteen, Adolescentes follows the two teenagers during these years where radical transformations and first times punctuate daily life. Through their personal stories, the film offers a rare portrait of France and its recent history.
Baraka
Tue, 15 Sep 1992
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Milano 2015
Mon, 12 Oct 2015
Six Italian directors explore contemporary Milan in a rich and eclectic portrait of urban life and spaces—both rooted in history and bursting with a diversity of architecture and humanity.
Pop & Passion
Fri, 12 Aug 2022
The two-part documentary Pop & Passion tells of power and magic, but also of the pressure and excess that prevails in the pop business.
Home
Wed, 03 Jun 2009
In 200,000 years of existence, man has upset the balance on which the Earth had lived for 4 billion years. Global warming, resource depletion, species extinction: man has endangered his own home. But it is too late to be pessimistic: humanity has barely ten years left to reverse the trend, become aware of its excessive exploitation of the Earth's riches, and change its consumption pattern.
Christspiracy
Wed, 20 Mar 2024
The moral dimension of humanity's interaction with nonhuman animals and the industries that profit from their exploitation, as informed by world religions. A historical explanation of how the current global situation came to be.
Tiger
Sun, 21 Apr 2024
Journey alongside a young tigress raising her cubs in the fabled forests of India.
But Beautiful
Thu, 14 Nov 2019
In his new film, Erwin Wagenhofer is looking for the good and beautiful in this world.
An Inconvenient Truth
Wed, 24 May 2006
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
The Salt of the Earth
Fri, 29 Aug 2014
During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.
Atlantis
Wed, 21 Aug 1991
Atlantis is filmmaker Luc Besson's celebration of the beauty and wonder of the world beneath the sea, expanding upon themes touched on in his film The Big Blue. Combining stunning underwater cinematography and a hypnotic score by Eric Serra, Besson's singular vision defies dialogue or narrative structure to explore ocean life as you've never seen it before. Following the colossal success of The Big Blue, Luc Besson crisscrossed the world's seas and oceans to film the beauty and diversity of marine life: from the giant octopuses of Vancouver to the manta rays of the Pacific (New Caledonia), and the grey sharks of Tahiti. A film with no actors or sets other than the underwater world. A breathtaking view of marine species: sharks, dolphins, manatees, octopuses. An exploration of the seabed in the Bahamas, the Galapagos, Vancouver, and Tahiti.
After Porn Ends 2
Tue, 28 Mar 2017
After Porn Ends 2 picks up where its predecessor left off and not only turns back the clock to meet the oldest living stars in adult film's history, but goes in depth with some of Its most current retirees and juxtaposes their experiences in a life after porn. Delving deeper into society's ongoing stigmas of race, misogyny, and the reality of decreasing opportunities for these former VHS box cover stars. For some, their careers in adult entertainment is accepted proudly and without regret. In fact, it seems to have proven to be the pathway to their current happiness and inner peace. For others, however, a career in porn has proven to be a conduit to certain despair as they struggle to find a way to bury their past and emerge with a new career or calling.
Citizenfour
Fri, 10 Oct 2014
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
Koyaanisqatsi
Wed, 27 Apr 1983
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 contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
Notre-Dame on Fire
Wed, 16 Mar 2022
A film relating from the inside the Notre-Dame de Paris fire of April 2019.