Best Documentary Movies of 1978

Performing at the Celebrity Star Theater in Phoenix on July 23, 1978, Carlin mesmerizes his audience in the second of his 12 HBO specials. The show was originally planned as part of a concert/sketch movie, The Illustrated George Carlin, that never came to fruition.The routines include: Death, Kids & Parents, Newscast #2, Time and Al Sleet, the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman. -- From Amazon.com

A documentary about the men who run a pet cemetery, and the men and women who bury their pets.

Martin Scorsese spends an evening with larger-than-life raconteur Steven Prince—a former drug addict, road manager for Neil Diamond, and actor—as he recounts stories from his colorful life.

Two women- one passive and resigned, the other aggressive and domineering - interact in various locations in New York city. The film explores the dynamic between them before ending with a showdown at the roller-coaster on Coney Island.

The filmed depiction of a program where convicts tell troubled kids about the horrors of prison life.

Filmed in the autumn of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour – featuring appearances and performances by Ronee Blakley, T-Bone Burnett, Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Arlen Roth, Sam Shepard, and Harry Dean Stanton – the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.

A look inside the Will Vinton Studio, with specializes in stop-motion animations with clay.

Short documentary film on the great and powerful Tom Waits, including clips from live performances and interviews.

Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, also known as Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision, is a documentary film produced by BBC in 1978 on the subject of Hunter S. Thompson, directed by Nigel Finch. The road trip/film pairs Thompson with Finch's fellow Briton the illustrator Ralph Steadman. The party travel to Hollywood via Death Valley and Barstow from Las Vegas, scene of the pair's 1971 collaboration. It contains interviews with Thompson and Steadman, as well as some short excerpts from some of his work.

Featurette documenting the making of the film "Death On The Nile".

Vertical Features Remake is a film by Peter Greenaway. It portrays the work of a fictional Institute of Reclamation and Restoration as they attempt to assemble raw footage taken by ornithologist Tulse Luper into a short film, in accordance with his notes and structuralist film theory. The footage consists mostly of vertical landscape features, such as trees and posts, shot in the English landscape.

Sepia toning lends a romantic (even wistful) quality to Larry Jordan's film Visions of a City, which he shot in San Francisco in 1957 and edited in 1978. The pace is un-irritating, in contrast to the San Francisco of today; but unlike the equal weight Helen Levill gives to all her subjects, there is an internal evolutionary development in the Jordan film that ultimately delivers a story. Until the introduction of the human protagonist, poet Michael McClure, we are treated to an extravagant display of visual delights.

An intense insider's portrait of New Orleans' street celebrations and unique cultural gumbo: Second-line parades, Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest. Features live music from Professor Longhair, the Wild Tchoupitoulas, the Neville Brothers and more. This glorious, soul-satisfying film is among Blank's special masterworks.

Grand Opera marks a stock-taking of Benning's work and his life, presenting a personal and artistic autobiography woven together with a series of events dealing with the historical development of the number pi, Benning's travels, and homages to Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, George Landow (Owen Land), and Yvonne Rainer.

Filming Othello is a 1978 documentary film directed by and starring Orson Welles about the making of his award-winning 1952 production Othello. The film, which was produced for West German television, was the last completed feature film directed by Welles.

Documentary examining the life and career of producer/director Roger Corman. Clips from his films and interviews with actors and crew members who have worked with him are featured.

A documentary with interviews of people who claimed to have died and then come back from the dead.

Documentary about the Belgian surrealist artist who died in 1967.

This experimental short consists of eight unedited rolls of super-8 film, each of which profiles an individual woman in real time. The women engage in everyday behaviour, such as playing pinball or reading a letter aloud.

The story of the genocide of the Tasmanian aborigine population by British settlers. Specifically Truganini, the last living full-blood aborigine.

The young, gifted and black generation of the '70s who started the British Reggae movement is captured in this unique documentary. Groove to the smooth sounds and see rare footage.

Mysterious Castles of Clay is a 1978 film about a termite colony; filmed in Kenya by film-makers Joan and Alan Root, and narrated by Orson Welles. (narration replaced by Derek Jacobi, in a later release titled "Castles of Clay")

Floating Free is a 1978 short documentary directed by Jerry Butts featuring images of several of the contested events at the 1977 World Frisbee Championships. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

A film cataloguing some of the world's largest catastrophes.

With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade is a 1979 documentary film directed by Lorraine Gray about the General Motors sit-down strike in 1936–1937 that focuses uniquely on the role of women using archival footage and interviews. It provides an inside look at women's roles in the strike. The film was one of the first to put together archival footage with contemporary interviews of participants and helped spur a series of films on left and labor history in the US utilizing this technique. The film was also important in helping bring into view the history of American women being active in the public sphere, particularly in union and labor actions. The film was, further, ground breaking because it was produced and directed by women. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Footage from 1964-1968 that did not find its way into the Walden reels is joined in this classic period piece. Mostly centered in New York, it also includes travel footage and appearances by David Wise, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Smith, Shirley Clarke, Jane Holzer and more. Mel Lyman plays his banjo on the roof.

Part documentary/part dramatization, this film details several of the highest-profile unsolved cases of disappearances, mysterious changes in personality and other strange occurrences related to the Bermuda Triangle.

Filmmaker Barry Braverman's documentary about his father, Murray.

The very first full-length documentary on Scorsese offers an invaluable look at how he was perceived by his colleagues, and himself, in 1977. Catching Scorsese while he was in post-production on New York and editing The Last Waltz, British filmmaker Peter Hayden gets the manically hyper Scorsese to comment on his youth, his relation to his lead characters, and most importantly, his approach to direction. The doc doesn’t quite move at the pace of Scorsese’s revved-up speed-talking, but it does offer some real insight into his productivity in the 1970s, thanks to an impressive array of talking heads. Included are Scorsese’s collaborators Jay Cocks, Mardik Martin, Brian De Palma, Steven Prince (who co-produced this doc), and his mentor John Cassavetes. Also the performers, who discuss his working methods in detail — Jodie Foster, Liza Minnelli, and, of course, Robert De Niro.

In this fifth part, Norman McLaren deals not with motion (if motion is defined as a change of location in two- or three-dimensional space) but with change--change in the amount and color of light within an otherwise static screen. Normally, the animator combines such change with motion, but here it is studied in isolation.

1. Symptom Of The Universe 2. War Pigs 3. Snow Blind 4. Never Say Die 5. Black Sabbath 6. Dirty Women 7. Rock And Roll Doctor 8. Electric Funeral 9. Children Of The Grave 10. Paranoid Recorded live in 1978, Never Say Die is a defining moment in Black Sabbath's history. This unique concert is one of Sabbath's final performances with the original line-up of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.

Spectrum and prism divide the screen; whites and light, etc. "Out of this purity comes all colors. I've always been attracted to refracted light and prismatic phenomena" says Bernard. For Richard Devereaux. Super 8, silent, non-narrative.

A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV-material to home-made super-8 movies. The common factor is death by some means.

A short promotional film on the making of “The Wiz” (1978). Includes a brief history of Oz portrayals in film and behind the scenes interviews.

Every year, a ritual known as ida is performed by the Umeda people, who inhabit the dense primary forest of the Waina-Sawanda district of West Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Ida, the central social and cultural drama of the Umeda, is a fertility ritual, in which a dominant theme is the metamorphosis of the cassowaries. An ethnography by anthropologist Alfred Gell, Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries, complements the film.

Italian and Austrian mountaineers Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler become the first humans to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen.

SINAI FIELD MISSION shows the routine activities of the diplomats and electronics technicians who operate the U.S. Sinai Field Mission, the early warning system established in 1976 to help facilitate the disengagement between Egypt and Israel after the 1973 war. The major purpose of the Mission is to monitor the approaches to strategic passes and to verify the operations of the Egyptian and Israeli surveillance stations in the Sinai Buffer Zone.

1978 French documentary film directed by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Luiz Carlos Saldanha on the life of Raoni Metuktire. The film portrays issues surrounding the survival of the indigenous Indian tribes of north central Brazil.

A feminist documentary about female relationships, especially between mother and daughter.

A pseudo-documentary about the processes involved in putting together and casting actors and actresses for a porn film. Although several actual porn stars are in the film, it is not a porn film itself.

This documentary explores the growth and development of black theatre from its earliest roots, also examining its close ties with the civil rights movement. Included are interviews with veterans of the theatrical world such as James Earl Jones and Ed Bullins.

Documentary about actor and director Charles Laughton, produced for British television.

The first account on film of the growth of multinational corporations, their impact on people at home and abroad, and their influence on U.S. foreign policy. This is the film that helped kick-off the anti-globalization movement. Upon its release, CONTROLLING INTEREST quickly became a standard "audio-visual text" for those concerned about the growing impact of multinational corporations on global affairs. The film examines how the ever-increasing concentration and velocity of capital affect employment in the U.S., shape patterns of development in the Third World, and influence our nation's foreign policy.

Henry Fonda is honored for his career in theater, television and film by friends, family, and co-workers.

A documentary illustrating the black community's understanding of, and response to, racism in Britain. It presents from a black working class perspective, an analysis of racism within the context of British history and the post-war crisis of the British economy. At the same time the film reflects the increasingly militant response within the black community to the continuing attacks upon it, both by organised fascist elements on the streets, and by the state itself.

Bing Crosby profiled through music and witnesses, including Fred Astaire, Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Dean Martin and James Van Heusen.

Presents evidence that visitors from other galaxies shared their advanced knowledge with ancient man.

Within the assertive climate of the years after the restoration of democracy in 1974, a fringe group, the blind, many of them beggars, protested by demanding Bread and Education and not Beggary.

The film documents the places where the Portuguese painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992), and Hungarian Arpad Szenes were born, met, and lived together, painting, and living to each other.