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Waltz with Bashir 2008
Documentary
A film director from Israel interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
The sides of Waltz with Bashir
- An Israeli director who can't remember his war
- Interviews with fellow veterans of Lebanon, 1982
- Animated memories that end on real footage
Good for you if
- you want to know what a war does to the memory of those who fought it.
- you like a director investigating his own past.
- you like dreamlike animated images, like soldiers rising from the sea at night.
Bad for you if
- you'd rather not see a war documentary in animation.
- you won't read subtitles. It's in Hebrew.
- you can't take a film about guilt and the dead of a war, seen through a soldier's nightmares.
About: memory · guilt · war
The Image Book 2018
Documentary
In Le Livre d’Image, Jean-Luc Godard recycles existing images (films, documentaries, paintings, television archives, etc.), quotes excerpts from books, uses fragments of music. The driving force is poetic rhyme, the association or opposition of ideas, the aesthetic spark through editing, the keystone. The author performs the work of a sculptor. The hand, for this, is essential. He praises it at the start. “There are the five fingers. The five senses. The five parts of the world (…). The true condition of man is to think with his hands. Jean-Luc Godard composes a dazzling syncopation of sequences, the surge of which evokes the violence of the flows of our contemporary screens, taken to a level of incandescence rarely achieved. Crowned at Cannes, the last Godard is a shock film, with twilight beauty.
The sides of The Image Book
- A collage of film clips, paintings and archives
- Godard's voice over fragments of music and books
- Five chapters about images and violence
Good for you if
- you like images cut, saturated and set against each other.
- you're happy to be left with ideas rather than answers.
- you enjoy working out why Godard puts two images side by side.
Bad for you if
- you need people and a story, and there are none here.
- you won't read subtitles over dense French narration.
- you can't stand archive footage of war and killing.
About: cinema · violence · memory · the Arab world
Titicut Follies 1967
Documentary
Employing methods of direct cinema–observation, limited stylization, and non-intervention–this stark look into the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts shows its denizens, who were often kept in barren cells and infrequently bathed, forced to strip naked publicly, force feeding, and the indifference and bullying by many of the hospital's staff.
The sides of Titicut Follies
- Bridgewater State Hospital in 1967
- Patients and guards with no narration
- A variety show put on by staff and inmates
Good for you if
- you want to see a real prison hospital with no narrator telling you what to think.
- you like raw black and white footage from the 1960s.
- you want to see what total power over patients looks like.
Bad for you if
- you can't watch patients stripped, mocked and force fed.
- you need some hope by the end.
About: confinement · dignity · cruelty
The Seventh Seal 1957
Film
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
The sides of The Seventh Seal
- A knight playing chess with Death
- Sweden under the plague
- A troupe of travelling actors
Good for you if
- you like questions about God that nobody answers.
- you like black and white images that stay with you, like the dance of death on the hill.
- you like long conversations about faith and fear of dying.
Bad for you if
- you find black and white films from the fifties dated.
- you won't read subtitles in Swedish.
- you need momentum, not a slow walk through the plague.
About: death · faith · the meaning of life
Fire at Sea 2016
Documentary
Capturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a frontline in the European migrant crisis.
The sides of Fire at Sea
- The island of Lampedusa
- A boy named Samuele with a slingshot
- A doctor caring for migrants rescued at sea
Good for you if
- you want to see the migrant crisis from the island where boats arrive.
- you like a documentary with no narration and long, quiet scenes.
- you like Samuele's everyday island life set beside the rescues at sea.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles for a film in Italian.
- you can't watch the dead and the dying on rescued boats.
About: migration · indifference · childhood
Nostalgia for the Light 2010
Documentary
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.
The sides of Nostalgia for the Light
- Astronomers in Chile's Atacama Desert
- Women searching the sand for their dead
- Pinochet's political prisoners
Good for you if
- you like looking at the stars and thinking about where we come from.
- you like a quiet, patient film that leaves room to think.
- you want to understand how Chile lives with the Pinochet years.
Bad for you if
- you can't face mothers still searching for the remains of their children.
About: memory · grief · the cosmos · justice
Lessons of Darkness 1992
Documentary
Shortly after the Gulf War, oil fires were raging all through Kuwait. In the week before this sea of fire would be extinguished, Werner Herzog filmed this apocalyptic landscape with its murky skies, scorched earth and capricious flames.
The sides of Lessons of Darkness
- Kuwait's oil fields burning after the Gulf War
- Firefighters capping the wells
- Werner Herzog filming Earth like another planet
Good for you if
- you like burning oil fields filmed like an alien world.
- you like images carried by Wagner and Verdi.
- you like Werner Herzog's strange, poetic way of seeing.
Bad for you if
- you need momentum. Long shots of burning wells glide by with barely a word.
- you want things explained. Herzog never lays out the war and narrates it like science fiction.
About: war · apocalypse · landscape

Blue 1993
Documentary
Against a plain, unchanging blue screen, a densely interwoven soundtrack of voices, sound effects and music attempt to convey a portrait of Derek Jarman's experiences with AIDS, both literally and allegorically, together with an exploration of the meanings associated with the colour blue.
The sides of Blue
- A single blue screen for the whole film
- Derek Jarman's voice on losing his sight
- Music and sound in place of images
Good for you if
- you like a film that is only one colour and a voice.
- you like a soundtrack of voices and music that does all the work.
- you want Derek Jarman's own account of living with AIDS.
Bad for you if
- you need images to hold your attention.
- you can't take a film about dying of AIDS.
- you need momentum. Its voices and sounds drift slowly for 79 minutes.
About: illness · death · blindness
The Salt of the Earth 2014
Documentary
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.
The sides of The Salt of the Earth
- Forty years of photographs by one man
- A gold mine crowded with thousands of workers
- A dead family farm replanted into a forest
Good for you if
- you can look at black and white photographs for nearly two hours.
- you want the man who took the pictures to tell you where he was standing.
- you like whales, glaciers and a forest growing back.
Bad for you if
- you can't look at photographs of famine and massacre.
- you won't read subtitles while the photographer speaks his own language.
About: humanity · despair · renewal
The Elephant Man 1980
Film
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity.
The sides of The Elephant Man
- A disfigured man shown as a sideshow freak
- A surgeon played by Anthony Hopkins
- Victorian London in black and white
Good for you if
- you like being moved by John Merrick's gentleness.
- you like John Hurt under heavy makeup, acting with his voice and eyes.
- you love David Lynch's black and white images.
Bad for you if
- you can't watch a man mocked and beaten for how he looks.
- you need an ending that doesn't break your heart.
About: dignity · cruelty · kindness
One More Time with Feeling 2016
Documentary
Andrew Dominik's One More Time With Feeling is a remarkable black and white documentary which chronicles the creation of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' album Skeleton Tree. Originally a performance based concept, the film evolved into something much more significant as Dominik delved into the tragic backdrop of the writing and recording of the album. The result is stark, fragile and raw, and a true testament to an artist trying to find his way through the darkness. It documents the writing, recording and performing of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree.
The sides of One More Time with Feeling
- Nick Cave recording an album after losing his son
- A studio filmed in black and white
- A family living with grief
Good for you if
- you like watching songs take shape in the studio.
- you like a film that sits quietly with real grief.
- you like stark black and white images.
Bad for you if
- a parent's grief is too much for you.
- you need some hope by the end.
About: grief · creation · fatherhood
Night and Fog 1956
Documentary
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
The sides of Night and Fog
- The grass grown back over Auschwitz ten years after
- Archive film and photographs from the camps
- A commentary written by a deported poet
Good for you if
- you want the camps documented a decade after, while the sites were still standing.
- you want the record itself, the archives and the places as they were left.
- you can face what was done there, stated plainly.
Bad for you if
- you can't look at archive images of the dead and the survivors of the camps.
- you need a film to leave you some hope, and this one closes by asking who is still keeping watch.
About: the camps · memory · war
Human 2015
Documentary
A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.
The sides of Human
- Faces talking straight to the camera
- Aerial views of the Earth
- Stories of love, war and poverty
Good for you if
- you like aerial images of the Earth that hold you still.
- you're moved by strangers telling you about love and loss.
- you like a soaring score between the voices.
Bad for you if
- you can't sit through three hours in one evening.
- you can't take testimonies of war and poverty face to face.
- you won't read subtitles in dozens of languages.
About: humanity · love · injustice
Land Without Bread 1933
Documentary
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
The sides of Land Without Bread
- Villages of Las Hurdes in 1932
- Luis Buñuel behind the camera
- Poverty filmed with a cold narrator
Good for you if
- you like Buñuel turning a documentary into something strange.
- you can take a film about misery with no comfort offered.
- you want to see rural Spain before the civil war.
Bad for you if
- you can't watch sick children and animals dying on screen.
- you can't take a narrator's dry irony over real people's suffering.
- you find films from the 1930s dated.
About: poverty · isolation · the gaze of outsiders
NAZA 2026
Documentary
Filmed at night from Tel Aviv rooftops, this investigative documentary examines the civilian casualties of Israel's military operations in Gaza and the systems behind targeted killings of Palestinians.
The sides of NAZA
- Night footage from Tel Aviv rooftops
- Anonymous testimonies from former soldiers
- Civilian deaths in Gaza
Good for you if
- you want firsthand testimony about real lives lost in Gaza.
- you want to understand how a war is waged from the inside.
- you want to look at the systems behind targeted killings.
Bad for you if
- you can't bear accounts of civilian deaths.
- you need some hope at the end of a film.
About: war · responsibility · testimony
Shoah 1985
Documentary
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single frame of archival footage. Dividing Holocaust witnesses into three categories – survivors, bystanders, and perpetrators – Lanzmann presents testimonies from survivors of the Chelmno concentration camp, an Auschwitz escapee, and witnesses of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as a chilling report of gas chambers from an SS officer at Treblinka.
The sides of Shoah
- Survivors, bystanders and perpetrators interviewed
- The sites of the camps filmed decades later
- No archive footage at all
Good for you if
- you want the Holocaust told by those who were there.
- you can sit with long silences and slow train journeys.
- you can be moved to tears by a barber breaking down as he recalls Treblinka.
Bad for you if
- you can't give more than nine hours to one film.
- you won't read subtitles, and the film moves between many languages.
- you can't hear first-hand accounts of mass murder.
About: memory · testimony · genocide
Time 2020
Documentary
Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
The sides of Time
- A wife fighting for her husband's release
- Home videos filmed over two decades
- Six sons growing up without their father at home
Good for you if
- you want a true story about a family and the prison system.
- you like Fox Rich holding her family together for twenty years.
- you like black and white images that make home videos feel like memory.
Bad for you if
- you need momentum more than a patient portrait.
- you find black and white hard to sit through.
About: waiting · love · justice
Love Meetings 1965
Documentary
Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where babies come from; asks old and young women if they support gender equality; asks both sexes if a woman's virginity still matters, what do they think of homosexuality, if divorce should be legal, or if they support the recent abolition of brothels. He interviews blue-collar workers, intellectuals, college students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and every other kind of people, painting a vivid portrait of a rapidly-industrializing Italy, hanging between modernity and tradition — toward both of which Pasolini shows equal distrust.
The sides of Love Meetings
- Pasolini with a microphone across Italy
- Children asked where babies come from
- Questions on divorce, virginity and homosexuality
Good for you if
- you like ordinary people answering questions they never get asked.
- you want to see Italy in the sixties, torn between old and new.
- you like interviews where the hesitations say as much as the answers.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles.
- you find black and white documentaries dated.
About: sexuality · tradition · modernity · morality
Caesar Must Die 2012
Documentary
Inmates at a prison in Rome rehearse for a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
The sides of Caesar Must Die
- Prisoners rehearsing Julius Caesar
- A high-security prison in Rome
- Shakespeare's lines in real inmates' mouths
Good for you if
- you like real inmates playing Brutus and Caesar with everything they have.
- you like stark black and white images of prison corridors turned into a stage.
- you want to see how Shakespeare's betrayals echo the lives of men serving long sentences.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles for an Italian film.
- you find black and white images dated.
About: freedom · betrayal · art
Return 2023
Documentary
"Behind every strong man is a strong woman!", Mumine shouts as her husband is arrested. She has 4 children, she's in her mid-30s, and she's the wife of a Crimean Tatar political prisoner. Muslim Crimean Tatars have been oppressed for a long time. They were deported under Stalin, allowed to return under Gorbachev, and since the occupation of Crimea in 2014 under Putin, they are being persecuted again. "Return" is a portrait of Mumine and Maye, two strong women struggling with the consequences of oppression. Their traditional understanding of their role as women does not stand in the way of their dedication. They possess strength, beauty and dignity. Only in their most intimate moments, they are overwhelmed by desperate helplessness.
The sides of Return
- Wives of Crimean Tatar political prisoners
- A mother of four after her husband's arrest
- Life in Crimea after 2014
Good for you if
- you want to see a persecution the news rarely shows.
- you like a portrait of mothers holding a family together.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles.
- you can't stand watching arrests and the despair of the families left behind.
About: oppression · dignity · motherhood