Documentary Movies

Harold Russell, an American soldier who lost his hands in a training accident, tells the story of his medical rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, how…

This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the…

This short film focuses on a day in the life of a Hollywood talent scout assigned to cast animals.

Oscar winner William Wyler directed this 1944 “newsdrama,” narrated by Lieut. Robert Taylor, USNR (Bataan), and photographed in zones of combat by the U.S. Navy. The film follows one of…

This WW2 documentary centers on the crew of the American B-17 Flying Fortress Memphis Belle as it prepares to execute a strategic bombing raid on Nazi submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven,…

Documentary focusing on the contributions to the American war effort of African-American soldiers.

The invention and use of a jeep are described, from the viewpoint of one of the vehicles.

The fifth film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World…

1943 documentary with Ingrid Bergman.

The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.

A training film for OSS agents who are to be dropped behind enemy lines.

The second film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the…

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are stopped by narrator Pete Smith for the purpose of showing the audience how much wood and wood by-products the average person carries.

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American…

A short history of movie music is presented, from silent films accompanied by a single piano, to the elaborate song scores for musicals (with scenes from MGM’s musicals) and background…

An informational film produced to encourage farmers to grow hemp for the war effort during WW2. The film details the many industrial uses of hemp, including cloth and cordage, as…

This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.

The Legend of the Luftwaffe began in Poland, the first victim of Hitler’s blitzkrieg. Combat cameramen filmed the aerial campaign, showing preparations for flight, massive air strikes, and the appalling…

A prescient documentary about city planning, which presents idyllic suburbs and nuclear families as a solution to the chaos, poverty and social decay of industrialized inner cities.

The 400 million people of China are heirs to a great civilization, as their pagodas and stone lions can attest. But they are under attack from the Japanese. Civilian refugees…

This film is less a typical musical short and more like an educational film. It consists of a narrator describing the music, composition and style of a big band.

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. Where the two-part epic’s first half, Festival…

Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film…

One of Joseph Cornell’s funniest films, Thimble Theater is structured like a vaudeville variety show about nature.

Documentary short by Humphrey Jennings

Expeditions in Borneo by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson show the terrain, flora, fauna and lifestyle of Borneo as the Johnsons search for a huge orangutan.

A propaganda film made during the Spanish Civil War in support of the Republican government against the rebellion by Gen. Francisco Franco’s forces who were backed by Nazi Germany and…

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to…

Filming of the performance show the Deutsche Wehrmacht (German Army) made during the Reichsparteitag of the NSDAP in Nurnberg 1935. Showing the readiness and the will of the newly build…

A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

This Traveltalk series short visits Los Angeles, California. In one of the highlights of the film, narrator James FitzPatrick visits the Disney cartoon studio and shakes hands with Walt Disney.

This documentary, made up of 3 episodes, is based on three songs sung by anonymous people in Soviet Russia about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant…

The film is a documentary portraying a struggle as man tries to subdue nature. To prevent flooding and for purposes of land reclamation, the people of the Netherlands struggle and…

One of the short little films featuring Don Aspiazu of his own orchestra, a good example of the style of Cubano jazz in the 1920’s and 1930’s, combined with some…

The film explores the story of the Bounty and is based on the 1932 novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.

This is a documentary of Captain R.F. Scott’s second Antarctic expedition, begun in 1910. The British, under Scott, attempted to reach the South Pole before Roald Amundsen’s Norwegians. Scott’s writings…

Arrival in the Bronx is shown with a view from an elevated train as it enters the city. Then follows a montage of sights from the Bronx. Many typical neighborhood…

Short silent documentary from 1931 about those working on the River Douro in Oporto.

An industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower…