Best Documentary Movies of 1948

Seal Island is a 1948 American documentary film directed by James Algar. It won an Academy Award in 1949 for Best Short Subject (Two-Reel).

Strange Victory" is about racial bias in post World War II America. Folowing "Native Land" in Leo Hurwitz' filmography, it uses some of the same techniques: dramatized scenes interspersed with scenes of compilation news reel footage, and scenes of evocative imagery.

Images of street life in New York's Spanish Harlem during the 1940s.

This documentary, filmed entirely by military photographers, recounts the U.S. Navy's 1946-47 expedition to Antarctica, known as Operation High Jump. The expedition was under the overall command of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, no stranger to the Antarctic. This was a large undertaking involving 13 ships and over 4000 thousand men. The fleet departed from Norfolk, Virginia traveling through the Panama canal and then southward to their final destination. The trip through the ice pack was fraught with danger and forced the submarine that was part of the fleet to withdraw. The trip was a success meeting all of its scientific goals.

A documentary covering the 1948 Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and London, England.

This Theatre of Life series short, produced with the cooperation of the Los Angeles Fire Department, emphasizes fire safety and fire prevention. It gives a behind-the-scenes look at the switching system used to dispatch the proper equipment to fires, as well as a look at life in the fire station and fire fighter training. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-Reel.

How, in November 1945, after the end of the World War II and the fall of the Third Reich, the international prosecutors participating in the first Nuremberg trial —formally, the International Military Tribunal— built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the films and records produced by the own regime, obsessed with documenting everything in its long path of infamy and crime.

Toward Independence is a 1948 American short documentary film about the rehabilitation of individuals with spinal cord injuries.

Lindsay Anderson's first feature, a documentary about the origin and processes of the Richard Sutcliffe Limited underground-conveyor company.