Best Documentary Movies of 1989

A behind-the-scenes look at the putting on of the successful West End stage musical, including footage of the cast rehearsing and the triumphant first night.

Here’s an interesting and extremely rare documentary from 1989, which features legendary producer and multimedia artist Brian Eno discussing his process and his thoughts on music in general.

The film evolves around questions of identity, popular memory and culture. While focusing on aspects of Vietnamese reality as seen through the lives and history of women resistance in Vietnam and in the U.S, it raises questions on the politics of interviewing and documenting.

A camera crew follows Helmut Newton, the fashion and ad photographer whose images of tall, blond, big-breasted women are part of the iconography of twentieth-century erotic fantasy. He's on the go from L.A., to Paris, to Monte-Carlo, to Berlin, where he was a youth until he escaped from the Nazis in 1936. We see him on shoots, interviewing models, and discussing his work.

Profile of one of the world's most popular motion picture stars, told through interviews with some of the artists who worked with him, family, friends, and excerpts from many of his films and television appearances.

Mani Kaul's BEFORE MY EYES is a 'filmscape' on the Kashmir valley.

A documentary covering the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul.

Black Mother Black Daughter explores the lives and experiences of black women in Nova Scotia, their contributions to the home, the church and the community and the strengths they pass on to their daughters.

James Baldwin was at once a major 20th century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy.