Spend It All

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

This fascinating making-of documentary investigates the controversy and political atmosphere surrounding the production of Salt of the Earth, movingly chronicling the filmmakers' defiance of the blacklist. (BAM) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

In the years before World War II, a tomboyish postulant at an Austrian abbey is hired as a governess in the home of a widowed naval captain with seven children and brings a new love of life and music into the home.

Mixing narrative and documentary, the film retells a 16 year old girl's experience of a date rape.

A contemporary portrait of a small Louisiana town created at the site of the world’s largest lumber mill. Captured here in its last days after thirty years, Miss Dixie Gallaspy conducts a charm school for girls in order to teach the young women of Bogalusa the social graces and skills that would guide them into “Ladyhood”. Dixie’s week long school, in a town confronted with many challenges (including a legacy of racial conflict and financial dissipation) preserves fragments of a world that may already be lost.

Bad Boy of Bonsai is an experimental art-house documentary that focuses on Guy Guidry, a Louisiana local, and his passion for bonsai.

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.

The film "Hurricane on the Bayou" is about the wetlands of Louisiana before and after Hurricane Katrina.

Satyajit Ray's poetic documentary was commissioned by the Chogyal (King) of Sikkim at a time when he felt the sovereignty of Sikkim was under threat from both China and India. Ray's documentary is about the sovereignty of Sikkim. The film was banned by the government of India when Sikkim merged with India in 1975. The ban was finally lifted by the Ministry of External Affairs in September 2010. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

An aging, decadent landlord’s passion for music becomes the undoing of his legacy as he sacrifices his wealth in order to compete with the opulent music room of his younger, richer neighbour.

An early short film by Penelope Spheeris about a boy enjoying the age-old pleasures of making a wish on a dandelion. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

This short film takes a look at the off-screen personas of screen actors. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

A naïve farm girl is duped by con men who promise her movie stardom in exchange for her savings.

Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter) directed this 53-minute documentary about movie tycoon Joseph E. Levine (1963). Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

A documentary about four African-American comediennes set in 1984. Restored in 2021 by the Academy Film Archive.