Docs

A film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.

TCM original documentary looks at the life & career of the celebrated director from the viewpoint of his daughter, Lupita Peckinpah. Thirty-five years after her father's death, she travels for the first time to his last home in Livingston, Montana, to search for clues about his life and work.

A documentary that takes a look inside the "Church of Satan", founded in California in the 1960s by Anton Szandor LaVey, a former circus lion tamer.

A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Sphere Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.

The highlights of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.

Created under the guidance of jazz impresario and Verve Records founder Norman Granz, this short captures the spontaneity of a jam session and is one of few film records of black jazzers of the day including tenor sax legend Lester Young.

In this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle.

A look at the spirit of New Orleans. First a funeral: Allen Toussaint explains that you arrive slow and cut up afterwards. Then it's food, with a lesson in eating crayfish at Frankie and Johnny's. Next, a St. Patrick's Day party: New Orleans celebrates holidays on the streets. Then it's preparation for Mardi gras, with roots in slave days, when slaves gathered on Sundays to prepare for the one holiday they could celebrate. The Wild Tchoupitoulas society makes Indian costumes to honor the help Indians gave slaves. At Mardi gras, we're with this society parading, singing, and partying. We end with the annual parade for St. Joseph, the saint of the people. More music, dance and ritual.

A documentary following German auteur Werner Herzog as he deals with difficult actors, bad weather and getting a boat over a mountain, all in an effort to make his film Fitzcarraldo (1982).

A documentary on the history of garlic. Blank interviews chefs, garlic lovers, and historians about the their love of the 'stinking rose.'

A short documentary in which directors Werner Herzog and Errol Morris make a bet which results in Herzog being forced to eat his own shoe.

A deeply moving tribute to the Texas songster, Mance Lipscomb, considered by many to be the greatest guitarist of all time.

The filmed account of The Beatles' attempt to recapture their old group spirit by making a back-to-basics album, which instead drove them further apart.

Documentary covering Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England, which includes appearances by Joan Baez and Donovan.

A Technicolor travelogue of the islands in the Indian Ocean east of Africa.

This Traveltalks visit to Japan starts with a look at the country's cherry blossom trees, tulips, and ubiquitous gardens. We then see the proper manner for preparing a woman's hair and wearing a kimono.

Literary icon Joan Didion reflects on her remarkable career and personal struggles in this intimate documentary directed by her nephew, Griffin Dunne.

An RKO Sportscope entry that is about the sport of speedway, a type of motorcycle racing, in post-World War II Vienna.

A Traveltalk visit to Hawaii's capital city in the 1930s.

The strange case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once believed to be the wealthiest man in Russia, who rocketed to prosperity and prominence in the 1990s, served a decade in prison, and became an unlikely martyr for the anti-Putin movement.

A visit to Rocky Mountain and Grand Teton National Parks and a nearby dude ranch in Colorado.

The Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942, filmed as it happened.

"Strange Victory" is about racial bias in post World War II America. Folowing "Native Land" in Leo Hurwitz' filmography, it uses some of the same techniques: dramatized scenes interspersed with scenes of compilation news reel footage, and scenes of evocative imagery. An epilogue about the civil rights movement, added in 1964 makes the arc of the film more complete.

A documentary inquiry into the strange but true collaboration of Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton.

In this Traveltalk series entry, we visit Madeira Island, the largest of the Madeira Islands group in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the filming takes place in Funchal, the capital of the islands. There are flowers everywhere. The influence of Portuguese explorers is evident in the architecture and dress. Christopher Columbus was married here and lived on the island several years. Narrator FitzPatrick takes a ride in the local mode of transportation: a large basket sledge on wooden rails. A small coastal fishing village is also featured.