A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
Main Street Today (1944)
This patriotic short film promotes America's war effort at home. The story looks at a fictional small town's main street, seeing where additional workforce, for increased production of materials needed by the military, might come from.
Hitler Lives (1945)
This short film, produced at the end of WWII, warns that although Adolf Hitler is dead, his ideas live on.
Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse (2018)
In this highly anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking, ADVERTISING AND THE END OF THE WORLD, media scholar Sut Jhally explores the devastating personal and environmental fallout from advertising, commercial culture, and rampant American consumerism. Ranging from the emergence of the modern advertising industry in the early 20th century to the full-scale commercialization of the culture today, Jhally identifies one consistent message running throughout all of advertising: the idea that corporate brands and consumer goods are the keys to human happiness. He then shows how this powerful narrative, backed by billions of dollars a year and propagated by the best creative minds, has blinded us to the catastrophic costs of ever-accelerating rates of consumption.
A Hero's Death (2001)
It was the biggest escape in the history of the Berlin Wall: in one historic night of October 1964, 57 East-Berliners try their luck through a tunnel into West Berlin. Just before the last few reach the other side, the East German border guards notice the escape and open fire. Remarkably, all the refugees and their escape agents make it out of the tunnel unscathed, but one border guard is dead: 21-year-old officer Egon Schultz.
Space Hackers (2007)
The '60s. Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia, two amateur radio enthusiasts, listened to sound from space with home-built equipment in their hometown of Turin. But one night, they recorded something quite different from the usual static that would change their lives forever...
Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
In the 1980s U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, Texas socialite Joanne Herring and CIA agent Gust Avrakotos form an unlikely alliance to boost funding for Afghan freedom fighters in their war against invading Soviets. The trio's successful efforts to finance these covert operations contributes to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.
The Phenomenon (2020)
This documentary examines unidentified aerial phenomenon. With testimony from high-ranking government officials, and NASA Astronauts, Senator Harry Reid says it "makes the incredible credible."
Our Holy War (1942)
A documentary about World War II, also known as the "Holy War" while Romania was an ally to Nazi Germany. The propagandistic nature of the film is evident through its overt anti-semitism and ultra-nationalist tone.
Gestern und heute (1938)
Nazi propaganda film contrasting Germany in the days before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor with the Germany of "today" and how much better it is.
Atomic Pilgrimage: Ghost Towns, Nuclear Relics, and Lost Civilizations on the Road to the Trinity Site (2019)
A 40-day, 40-night road trip to the Trinity Site—where the first atomic bomb was detonated in the summer of 1945—covering many other atomic destinations and driving deep into the natural and social history of the American southwest.
The Right Stuff (1983)
As the Space Race ensues, seven pilots set off on a path to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings forth momentous challenges.
The World's Biggest Bomb Revealed (2011)
National Geographic 2011 Documentary on the World's Biggest Bomb (UK).
World Order (2015)
World Order is a nearly two-hour documentary film by documentary film director Vladimir Soloviev examining the vast political changes in the world since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. The film was first broadcast on Russian television channel Pervy Kanal on December 20.
Terror Studios (2016)
How the Islamic State has created a powerful propaganda factory that manipulates and twists at its convenience the subjects and icons of the Western popular culture in order to lure into darkness certain young people and recruit them to achieve a dreadful purpose, an industry of fear that overcomes the infamous Nazi machinery and the methods used by both sides during the Cold War.
The Liberal War (1974)
The Vietnam War during the JFK years and beyond. Made in 1972 in the filmmaker's apartment, without documentary footage of the war, metaphors are created through the animation of images and objects, and through guerrilla skits. By rejecting the authority of traditional documentary footage, the anarchist spirit of individual responsibility is established. This is history from one person's point of view, rather than a definitive proclamation.
The Codes of Gender (2010)
Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.