Best Documentary Movies of 1969

This short film by Les Blank with Skip Gerson features the charismatic legendary blues icon Lightnin' Hopkins sing a beautiful song about a stuttering boy who learns that he can communicate through singing. Also features Billy Bizor on harmonica.

The adventures of a cat who endures the indignation of a busy family and the dangers of being lost in a big city.

Constructed around a found soundtrack in which a strict female voice delivers a test of perception and comprehension, Institutional Quality’s sound and image relationship become detached as the filmmakerloses interest in his subject.

Documentary about Polish-American pianist, Arthur Rubinstein.

Experimental film woven around a poem about Chicano culture in the U.S.

Light begins to illuminate the small, nipple-like end of a lemon on the right edge of the frame and gradually spreads until the entire lemon is clearly visible. Then the light recedes across the frame.

John and Yoko in the presidential suite at the Hilton Amsterdam, which they had decorated with hand-drawn signs above their bed reading "Bed Peace." They invited the global press into their room to discuss peace for 12 hours every day.

Part of BFI collection "Shadows of Progress."

A sequel of his previous 1967 homonymous experiment, Doppler Effect II moves one step forward in the mission of organising seemingly random stock footage along a rhythmical axis. By using found footage of diverse origin - political announcements, animal life, porn - and intertwining it with images recorded by Agnew himself - cityscapes, abstract light essays -, the film abandons any attempt of evoking meaning of any sort and focuses on a strictly formal exercise centred on time intervals and micro-relations between small sets of images. The soundtrack, recorded by Duane Hitchings (known for his collaborations with Miles Davis and Hendrix, but also for his Flashdance OST) on a Moog synth, is an engaging exercise in abstract sonic dynamics and an essential part of the Doppler experiment in that it not only provides different aural settings for the diverse footage presented throughout the film, but also aptly sets the pace for the fast succession of synched images.