Best Documentary Movies of 1972

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "church tent" Revivalist circuit, commenting on the showmanship of Evangelism and "the religion business", prior to the start of "televangelism".

Concert footage and offstage documentary of singer Elvis Presley.

A look at the many attractions, resort hotels, and other amusements at Walt Disney World in its first year of operation.

5 years in the life of a rural French farmer.

For three days in 1971, former US soldiers who were in Vietnam testify in Detroit about their war experiences. Nearly 30 speak, describing atrocities personally committed or witnessed, telling of inaccurate body counts, and recounting the process of destroying a village.

This French war film barely made it past the censors as it is not entirely complimentary about how the French handled themselves in the Algerian War. Four commandos are disciplined for failure to follow orders by being assigned to an especially dangerous and disagreeable mission. Their job is to capture enemy Algerian soldiers.

A surreal, half-fiction, half real life footage of a day in the life of John lennon and Yoko Ono, composed to music from John's historic 'Imagine' album and Yoko's 'Fly'.

Eat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of the United Kingdom with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary Dont Look Back chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour. The film was originally commissioned for the ABC television series Stage '66. Though shooting had completed for the film, Dylan's July 1966 motorcycle accident delayed the editing process. Once well enough to work again, Dylan edited the film himself. ABC rejected the film as incomprehensible for a mainstream audience.