Historical Documentary Movies

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

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

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

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...

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

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...

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

In an unprecedented and candid series of interviews, six former heads of the Shin Bet — Israel's intelligence and security agency — speak...

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

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

When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their...

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...

Thanks to new excavations in Mauritius and Madagascar, as well as archival and museum research in France, Spain, England and Canada, a group of...

For centuries, the Great Pyramids have fascinated Mankind. Patrice Pooyard's The Revelation Of The Pyramids reveals what lies behind the greatest of...

The first transatlantic communications cable, traversing the ocean floor from Valentia Island, County Kerry, to Newfoundland, Canada, 165 years ago...

The mass murder of Jewish people by the Nazi regime is chronicled, with a warning that anti-Semitism is on the rise and the events of the Holocaust...

A documentary on the Rolling Stones that was shot in 1965 on a two-stop tour of Ireland, just as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was becoming a...

An entertaining documentary look at dinosaurs with Emmy Award-winning special effects, feature film clips and stills, commentary by leading...

The sinking of the RMS Titanic remains one of the most enduring and mysterious tragedies of the 20th century. For decades, investigators and amateurs...