Documentary fans are in for a treat as renowned documentarian Louis Theroux dived into the BBC Archives and selected his favourite documentaries. Each of them had an impact on Louis. They cover a range of styles - some vérité-driven, others told more through interview - but in all of them you see life at its most raw, its most strange and therefore its most human. In Louis Theroux: Docs That Made Me Louis explains why he chose the documentaries and how they have inspired his work.
20 Days in Mariupol (2023)
As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.
Microcosmos (1996)
A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.
The Unlucky Rabbit (NaN)
A group of animators pitch “The Unlucky Rabbit” to Walt Disney, a documentary about how his earliest creation, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, was forgotten to time.
18 Years - Memories, Dreams and Violence (2022)
This documentary delves into the long history of unrest in Thailand's southernmost provinces, viewed through the lens of the youths who live there.
1940: Taking over French Cinema (2019)
Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.
Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies (2020)
The definitive documentary on the history of nudity in feature films from the early silent days to the present, studying the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped that history. Skin will also study the gender inequality in presenting nude images in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has created nude gender equality in feature films today.
Class Acts (2023)
Class Acts is a feature-length documentary tracing the genesis of Singapore's creative scene in the '90s through intimate conversations with its pioneering personalities. These are the stories of individuals who started creating with nothing, who push Singapore’s creative standards even today. The ones who went on to inspire a new generation of musicians, designers, and street artists.
Rita Dove: An American Poet (2014)
A series of in-depth conversations with Poet Laureate Rita Dove—conducted and recorded by Eduardo Montes-Bradley between September 2012, and October 2013. The film explores the poet's life, exposing fundamental facts of Dove's childhood and formative years growing up in Akron, Ohio in the 1950s and during the turbulent 1960s, supplemented by selections from hundreds of still images and several hours of home movies from the Dove family's collection.
Without A Trace (2015)
Without a trace portrays the life and work of filmmaker Quirino Cristiani, 1896 to 1984. An animator, cartoonist and italoargentino cartoonist, creator of the first feature animation world; The Apostle 1917.
The Albion Band (1979)
A rare 1979 BBC Arena documentary on the Albion Band, Ashley Hutchings and the development of English folk rock up to that time.
American Frontiers: Anthony Mann at Universal (2019)
An all-new documentary about filmmaker Anthony Mann and his time making films for Universal Studios in the 1950's.
Rest of Delirium (2019)
Maricarmen is a writer who lives with schizophrenia since she was seventeen years old. The film is a portrait of her live, her illness and her work.
The Man The Myth The Bellend (2023)
Bellend Productions'(TM) 1X Nominated Documentary "The Man The Myth The Bellend" Directed by Rhys Walkington is the first ever Bellend Productions(TM) Film and is a documentary about the Life of "The Man The Myth The Bellend."
Guide to a Midwest Hometown (2022)
Coming back during Winter, Alex Powell explores both the places and personal connections found in his hometown and how they've changed. “Guide to a Midwest Hometown” explores what makes the barren places at home feel sentimental and special, and the good and bad feelings that come when being back home. Inspired by "How To With John Wilson".
The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse (2011)
The extraordinary story of comedian Bob Monkhouse's life and career, told through the vast private archive of films, TV shows, letters and memorabilia that he left behind.
Small trades in Paris (1932)
Grinders, rag-men, China menders, mattress carders are among those small trades of yesteryear that have disappeared from our sight and fallen into oblivion. But way back in 1931 they were far from extinct and still populated and livened up the streets from dawn till dusk. The tenderness of Pierre Chenal look at them is only accentuated by the nostalgia experienced by today's viewer.