Historical Documentary Movies

A century after Shackleton's Endurance sank beneath the ice, explorers uncover the legendary shipwreck and an amazing tale of survival.

What happened after Einstein fled Nazi Germany? Using archival footage and his own words, this docudrama dives into the mind of a tortured genius.

Using original footage and interviews, this documentary tells the nail-biting story of Apollo 13 and the struggle to bring its astronauts safely home.

Using archival footage, cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the 85-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from...

This documentary delves into the mysteries surrounding the Neanderthals and what their fossil record tells us about their lives and disappearance.

Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years on this sprawling documentary about the Holocaust, conducting his own interviews and refusing to use a single...

In 1968, art students Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell made a trippy photo collage for their musician friends Syd, David and...

On January 6, 2021, Americans witnessed an attack on the U.S. Capitol without precedent in our history. Armed militiamen and QAnon followers made...

A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of...

Thirty years after the release of his film JFK (1991), filmmaker Oliver Stone reviews recently declassified evidence related to the assassination of...

Working from the text of James Baldwin’s unfinished final novel, director Raoul Peck creates a meditation on what it means to be Black in the...

Tells the story of the greatest natural disaster of the ancient world, an event that experts believe inspired the legend of Atlantis.

The story of one of the great environmental disasters to befall the United States, and the terrible movie that helped bring the catastrophe to light.

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic...

She's been around for so many decades but hasn't aged a day. She's had more than 180 different jobs; she's been president, she's been to the moon,...

27 Olympic and Paralympic champions, aged 20 to 100, share their stories in this Mickaël Gamrasni documentary narrated by actress Marion...

The moral dimension of humanity's interaction with nonhuman animals and the industries that profit from their exploitation, as informed by world...

Egyptian archeologists dig into history, discovering tombs and artifacts over 4,000 years old as they search for a buried pyramid in this documentary.

Explores the Pyramids of Giza as Egyptologists try to unravel the mysteries and decipher the clues behind these stone giants built over 4,500 years...