Best Documentary Movies of 1982

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

Now, for the first time, you can re-live the Beatles legends with this stunning 2-hour musical “Rockumentary”. It’s all there from the wild exuberance of the early Cavern Club days through eight incredible years, to the grim finality of “Let It Be”. See John, Paul, George and Ringo in performance, on tour, in films, recording with George Martin and in rare footage never before seen. Narrated by Malcom McDowell.

A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.

The Concerts in China was a concert tour by Jean Michel Jarre, notable for marking the opening of post-Mao Zedong China to live Western music, in 1981. Five concerts were held in the two biggest cities, for an estimated audience of 120,000 spectators, on October 21 and 22 in Beijing, and on October 26 through 28 in Shanghai.

Freddie and co perform a blistering set of hits, including We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody, in front of an 18,000 strong crowd at Montreal's Forum, in this stunning concert film.

A series of anecdotes and monologues by County Durham comedian Bobby Thompson. Well known throughout the North East of England his 'Little Waster' character tells tales of debt, dole and wife trouble, while 'The Old Soldier' gives a hilarious account of his Second World War relationships with King George and Field Marshall Montgomery, providing a wry look at the class divide. Also included is a documentary film shot during his final years.

A raw and unparalleled DIY documentary about the West Coast Punk scene made by a group of young fans/filmmakers about the bands they loved.

Concert For The Americas This 1st-ever U.S. release of this spectacular 1982 concert proves that even at age 66, Francis Albert Sinatra was still the undisputed Chairman Of The Board. This 90-minute performance features a memorable rendition of "Send In The Clowns" with guitarist Tony Mottola.

A behind-the-scenes look at how some of the visual effects were accomplished in the feature film Poltergeist (1982).

During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wenders asks a number of global film directors to, one at a time, go into a hotel room, turn on the camera and answer a simple question: "What is the future of cinema?"

A film that takes laundry seriously as a form of folk art, a fraught social signifier and lens for women to reflect on the joys, pains and ambivalences of household chores.

Director Guy Hamilton and several of the stars of Agatha Christie's "Evil Under The Sun" walk you through the making of the film.

Vincent Price hosts this documentary exploring the historical myths surrounding vampires.

Documentary about the blacklisted folk group, "The Weavers," and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.

Documents the post-punk period between 1978 and 1981, featuring the looks, the poses, the rucks, the riots and the slaggings of bands and their fans. Includes footage of the Wasted Festival and some of the original bands 25 years on. Also has performances from exponents of Punk, Mod, Oi and Ska - all filmed in the same DIY ethic that spawned punk itself.

Two former Mormons seek to file a class-action lawsuit against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, detailing for skeptical attorneys the history, doctrines and secret rituals of the Mormon religion.

A documentary about America's knowledge of the Holocaust during the Second World War dares to ask, ""Could the Jews of Europe have been saved?"

Gods of Metal is a 1982 American short documentary film produced by Robert Richter for the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers on nuclear disarmament. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

"Breathtaking in its techniques, rhapsodic in its passion, and encyclopedic in its scope, the film traces the long fall from paradise into modern barbarism." - Art Gallery of Ontario

During 1977-1981 The Police went on a truly global tour which took them through more than a dozen countries, including many that most Rock bands of the period would fail to reach. This film features highlights of the tour which include stops in Japan, Hong Kong, India, Egypt, Australia and Latin America. Recorded live during the tour are 16 songs featured in this film, However this is more than a video rock concert - including many humourous off-stage shots that show the band sampling some of the sights, customs and culture of the lands their fans call home

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 could happen again. The history of European Jewish culture and events before and during the Holocaust are seen in newsreels, photographs, and animated segments. The words of the victims of the era are read, and footage from the liberation os a concentration camp is shown.

A short documentary on the Francis Ford Coppola musical One From the Heart.

French film critic Michel Ciment interviews Billy Wilder about his life and filmmaking.

The maiden voyage of Columbia, the first space shuttle, is recounted with footage shot on the ground and in space.

Documentary about the nuclear industry.

First Contact is a 1983 documentary by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson which recounts the discovery of a flourishing native population in the interior highlands of New Guinea in 1930 in what had been thought to be an uninhabited area. It is based on the book of the same name by the same authors. Inhabitants of the region and surviving members of the Leahy brothers' gold prospecting party recount their astonishment at this unforeseen meeting. The film includes still photographs taken by a member of the expedition and contemporary footage of the island's terrain. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Australian pediatrician Helen Caldicott delivers a lecture on the potential medical and societal consequences of a nuclear war, and advocates for nuclear disarmament. The film includes newsreel records of the beginnings of the arms race and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as film records showing the Japanese who were severely scarred and burned in the bombings.

Omniscient perspectives shoot vibratory gleams through human projectors statically displaced across the screen. Superimpositions at fever pitch falling apart and compressing into new molecular lattices. Peripheral fantasies imagine forth collusioned destinies. A yin/yang interchange makes light's transparency into density, while the darkness metamorphoses into thin lucidity. Hands in peristaltic motion grasp and release, conjuring interstitial embroideries. Landscapes yield their own maps in topographical patterns.

Heroes of the Pinball Arcade race to stop the invasion of the Video Game terrors

The Rolling Stones' record-breaking 1981 North American arena tour documented by director Hal Ashby. Featuring the biggest Rolling Stones songs from the first 20 years - in the words of Mick Jagger, "a feel of what it's like to be there", as 20 cameras take you onstage with the band in this groundbreaking, dynamic tour.

To Live or Let Die is a 1982 American short documentary film directed by Terry Sanders, about the neonatal I.C.U. of the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, where life and death decisions must be made while ethical dilemmas are also posed by new technologies.. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Documentary about ancient Egypt, its temples, paintings and art, and how these old treasures are being endangered by modern civilization. Also shown are the Nile river, the Luxor and Karnak temples, the Sphynx, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the river path to the Land of the Dead, the pharaohs and queens' tombs, as well as egyptologysts' interpretation of Ancient Egypt mysteries.

Saxophonist Art Pepper (1925-1982) lived the kind of jazz life only found in Hollywood movies. His prodigious talent led him to top gigs as a teenager, but drugs and attendant criminal activity knocked him out of commission for virtually all of the 1960s and early 1970s. This documentary, shot shortly after his searing memoir, {-Straight Life}, was published in 1979, shows Pepper in the full flower of a remarkable comeback. His third wife, Laurie, is featured prominently; they met in the drug treatment facility Synanon in 1969 and were married in 1974. She took over his business affairs and helped him write {-Straight Life}. Pepper tells his own story here, but the emphasis is on an evening's performance at a club in Malibu, with the musician in fine form, backed by a terrific trio. (Tom Wiener, Rovi)

A documentary on the life of Ed Pincus and his immediate family from 1971 to 1976.

Hour long documentary on the legendary director.

Oscar nominated documentary short about the Ku Klux Klan.

For over 30 years, the so-called First Transmission video from Psychic TV, has been the stuff of, well, “snuff film” legend. First advertised in the back pages of Thee Grey Book , The First Transmission was an ultra weird touchstone of the underground VHS tape trading scene of the 1980s.

This poignant documentary profiles a young black woman's struggle to confront the legacy of a physically abusive father and her headlong flight into drug abuse. Suzanne, after years of physical and psychological abuse, is compelled to understand her father's violence and her mother's passive complicity, who suffered at her husband's hands as well, as the keys to her own self-destruction. After years of silence, Suzanne and her mother are finally able to share their painful experiences with each other in an intensely moving moment of truth.

Sewing Woman chronicles the bittersweet journey of one woman's determination to survive: from an arranged marriage in old China to working class comforts in modern America.

There has never been a documentary like "Land of Look Behind". Relatively unknown due to poor distribution and New York Film Festival skullduggery, this breathtaking film presents a unique epic vision with quasi-dramatic elements and cinematographic wizardry. The non-reggae original soundtrack is outstanding, as is the reggae music of Bob Marley and Gregory Isaacs. The great documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog has called "Look Behind" the non-fiction film that has influenced him most over the last fifteen years. Indeed, this film's peers are the best of Herzog, Bunuel's "Land Without Bread", Flaherty's "Nanook" and Leacock-Pennebaker's "Louisiana Story". With thoughtful viewing, one will see this moving documentary actually end with a lovely little dream sequence. No American has come close to making a film this ingenious in the last thirty years.

Director John Landis has combed the vaults of Universal Studios, Hollywood's preeminent producer of horror films and edited them into this retrospective documentary featuring clips from preview trailers dating from Lon Chaney's 1923 "The Hunchback of Notre Dame to the present day. Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis hosts and narrates this tribute featuring Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Godzilla, Tarantula,, the Phantom of the Opera, Dracula and their infamous progeny.

Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Gilda Radner and Cheech and Chong present this compilation of classic bad films from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Special features on gorilla pictures, anti-marijuana films and a special tribute to the worst film maker of all-time, Ed Wood.

A mockumentary starring Warwick Davis, the actor who played the Ewok, Wicket W. Warrick in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and the Ewok spin-off films. Davis and David Tomblin, Return of the Jedi's first assistant director, created it, with Tomblin directing. Lucasfilm planned to use the movie as a promotional film for Return of the Jedi, but post-production on the film was never completed.

A documentary about Roger Baldwin, the founder of the ACLU.

A short documentary about Jörg Buttgereit's father.

A Mondo documentary following the customs and rites of passage of various tribes in Africa.

George Kennedy narrates this documentary that examines the theory that the world is doomed due to the influence the planet Jupiter has on the Earth.