trailers.fm / Guide / Documentary + 1970s + English

Martin Scorsese's documentary intertwines footage from The Band's incredible farewell tour with probing backstage interviews and featured performances by Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and other rock legends.

British progressive rock band Pink Floyd perform at the ancient Roman Amphitheatre in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy in 1971. Although the band perform a typical live set from the era, there is no audience beyond the basic film crew.

An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspe

Amateur and professional bodybuilders prepare for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests as five-time champion Arnold Schwarzenegger defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young Lou Ferrigno.

A documentary chronicling the Beatles' rehearsal sessions in January 1969 for their proposed "back to basics" album, "Get Back," later re-envisioned and released as "Let It Be."

Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of t

The best of Led Zeppelin's legendary 1973 appearances at Madison Square Garden. Interspersed throughout the concert footage are behind-the-scenes moments with the band. The Song Remains the Same is Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden in NYC concert footage colorfully enhanced by sequences which are supposed to reflect each band member's individual fantasies and hallucinations. Includes blistering live renditions of "Black Dog," "Dazed and Confused," "Stairway to Heaven," "Whole Lotta Love," "The Song Remains the Same," and "Rain Song" among others.

On July 31, 1970, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Elvis Presley staged a triumphant return to the concert stage from which he had been absent for almost a decade. His series of concerts broke all box office records and completely reenergized the care

A detailed chronicle of the famous 1969 tour of the United States by the British rock band The Rolling Stones, which culminated with the disastrous and tragic concert held on December 6 at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, an event of hi

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastover's refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of Am

Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an iro

Animals Are Beautiful People (also called Beautiful People) is a 1974 South African nature documentary written, produced, directed, filmed and edited by Jamie Uys, about the wildlife in Southern Africa, presented with comedic elements. It was filmed in the Namib Desert, the Kalahari Desert and at the Okavango River and Okavango Delta. It was the recipient of the 1974 Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary Film. The film, a critical and commercial success, was independently made by Uys, also known for his later African comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980).

This documentary captures Elvis Presley on his 1972 American tour and includes rehearsals, interviews, archival television appearances and backstage moments. With Elvis at his most flamboyant, the film features well-known hits and cover son

A documentary about a pet cemetery in California, and the people who have pets buried there.

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

Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us a comprehensive look at the British pioneer rock group, The Who. It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group in 1964 to 1978

Made shortly after his death, this documentary explores the brief life and remarkable legacy of guitarist Jimi Hendrix. After finding fame in the U.K., Hendrix brought his act back to the U.S., where his influential playing style left a bla

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese interviews his mother and father about their life in New York and family history back in Sicily.

Jonas Mekas weaves an elegiac diary film from his 1971–72 return to Lithuania, chronicling a visit to his birthplace of Semeniškiai after decades in exile. Blending personal memory with documentary observation, the film becomes both a portrait of homecoming and a meditation on displacement, family, and the passage of time.

A radio DJ in pursuit of an exclusive interview follows ABBA during their mega-successful tour of Australia.

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

The music speaks for itself in this performance documentary that highlights some of the biggest names within the country-folk scene in Texas and Tennessee during the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976, eschewing narration and staged interviews.

A musical portrait of New Orleans' street celebrations and unique cultural gumbo in 1977: 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. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 1999.

The Grateful Dead performs live at Winterland in San Francisco in October 1974.

In 1970, right after the triumphant premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking concept musical Company, the renowned composer and lyricist, his director Harold Prince, the show’s stars, and a large pit orchestra all went into a Manhattan recording studio as part of a time-honored Broadway tradition: the making of the original cast album. What ensued was a marathon session in which all involved pushed themselves to the limit.

Thom Andersen's hour-long documentary adroitly combines biography, history, film theory, and philosophical reflection. Muybridge's photographic studies of animal locomotion in the 1870s were a major forerunner of movies; even more interesti

The documentary depicts Bowie on tour in Los Angeles, using a mixture of vérité sequences filmed in limousines and hotels, and concert footage. Most of the concert footage was taken from a show at the Los Angeles Universal Amphitheatre on 2

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.

Les Blank's first feature-length documentary captures music and other events at Leon Russell's Oklahoma recording studio during a three-year period (1972-1974).

Documentary on motorcycle racing featuring stars of the sport, including film star Steve McQueen, a racer in his own right.

Prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi and Manson "family" members Lynette Fromme, Mary Brunner and Sandra Good discuss the Tate-LaBianca murders.

A portrait of those individuals who sought radical solutions to social problems in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Cutting back and forth between six major story lines and more than fifty characters. Exploring the lifestyles and attitudes of the American left during the period following the Vietnam War.

A presentation of key events in the life of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. Beginning with the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, MLK is followed through major steps in his struggle to promote racial equality. Including footage of King's stirring speeches, it is a fitting tribute to his legacy, and features clips narrated by a wide range of celebrities, including Harry Belafonte, Paul Newman Charlton Heston, Ruby Dee, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Walter Matthau, Ben Gazzara, Clarence Williams III, Joanne Woodward, and James Earl Jones.

Caudillo is a documentary film by Spanish film director Basilio Martín Patino. It follows the military and political career of Francisco Franco and the most important moments of the Spanish Civil War. It uses footage from both sides of the war, music from the period and voice-over testimonies of various people.

A documentary exploring the legends of vampires, using books, paintings and early films on the subject.

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.

Fred Hampton was the leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. This film depicts his brutal murder by the Chicago police and its subsequent investigation, but also documents his activities in organizing the Chapter, his public speeches, and the programs he founded for children during the last eighteen months of his life.

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 homage

The Page family lives without electricity or running water deep in the Sussex woods. Amidst ever-growing modernity and industrialization, the family carries out chores, hunts pheasants, builds steam engines, and postulates on man's trip to the moon. They demonstrate fine lateral thinking and, through their particular delivery, display fears and concerns about pollution, intensive farming, mechanization, and self-fulfillment during a time of technological advancement.

A documentary film about the Afro-American Woodstock concert held in Los Angeles seven years after the Watts riots. Director Mel Stuart mixes footage from the concert with footage of the living conditions in the current-day Watts neighborhood.

Free to Be…You and Me, a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a record album, and illustrated book first released in November 1972, featuring songs and stories from many current celebrities of the day (credited as "Marlo Thomas and F

Another short documentary of "Real Food, Roots Music, and People Full of Passion for what they do!", Spend It All is Les Blank's spirited look at the French-speaking Cajun community of southwest Louisiana. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Rock artist Frank Zappa hosts a concert in New York City. This movie contains tons of on-stage footage, off-stage footage, and animation.

A complex, insightful look at the Chicano experience as mirrored in the lives and music of the most acclaimed Norteño musicians of the Texas-Mexican border, including Flaco Jimenez and Lydia Mendoza. Video includes bonus feature, Del Mero C

Recounts Ireland's history from British colonization to the territory's division in 1922, then from 1968 details a decade of events through images and eyewitness accounts of killings and such massacres as the infamous "Bloody Sunday" as the IRA argues their cause.

Billy Connolly was, in the 1970s, a sort of Scottish Lenny Bruce, who, with devastating humour, sliced through the hypocrisies he perceived. This 1976 documentary follows the singer-comic during his 1975 Irish tour. Made in a cinema verité

Footage of a concert given in Moscow, Russia, by rock singer Elton John.

Through oral histories, archival footage, photographs, and songs associated with the movement, "The Wobblies" tells the story of the Industrial Workers of the World, the radical union founded in Chicago in 1905 to organize workers across trades. Featuring interviews with aging Wobbly members alongside historical materials from early twentieth-century labor struggles, the film explores the union’s role in strikes, worker activism, and the broader fight for labor rights in the United States.

Kirby, on the outskirts of Liverpool, England, October 1972. A chronicle of the fourteen-month strike by thousands of tenants to protest against the £1 increase in council house rents due to the Housing Finance Act.

A concert film highlighted by performances from Marvin Gaye, Jerry Butler, and Roberta Flack.

A documentary about a political troupe headed by actors Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland which traveled to towns near military bases in the US in the early 1970s. The group put on shows called "F.T.A.", which stood for "F**k the Army", and

This feature-length documentary from 1974 takes viewers inside Fidel Castro's Cuba. A movie-making threesome hope that Fidel himself will star in their film. The unusual crew consists of former Newfoundland premier Joseph Smallwood, radio and TV owner Geoff Stirling and NFB film director Michael Rubbo. What happens while the crew awaits its star shows a good deal of the new Cuba, and also of the three Canadians who chose to film the island. (NFB)
A lyrical journey through the heart of Chicano culture as reflected in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music tradition. Performers include, Little Joe & La Familia, Leo Garza, Chavela Ortiz, Andres Berlanga, Ricardo Mejia, Conjunto Ta

Peter Gabriel is among the rockstars performing the music of Lennon and McCartney against a montage of World War II newsreel footage.

After a difficult break-up, Hockney is left unable to paint, much to the concern of his friends.

The Real Bruce Lee is a martial arts documentary. It begins with a brief biography of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his childhood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Cheung, and The Carnival, each sepia-toned and dubbed to English. Next, there is a three-minute highlight reel of Lee imitator Bruce Li. Finally, there is a feature-length film starring Lee imitator Dragon Lee, which is obviously modeled after Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury.

An atmospheric essay, which is an alternative version of Count Dracula, a film directed by Jess Franco in 1970; a ghostly narration between fiction and reality.

This documentary on rock 'n' roll groupies, including the infamous Plaster Casters, features performances (musical) by such bands as Ten Years After, Terry Reid, Spooky Tooth, and Cat Mother.

A concert film taken from two Rolling Stones concerts during their 1972 North American tour. In 1972, the Stones bring their Exile on Main Street tour to Texas: 15 songs, with five from the "Exile" album. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick T

Documentary about the gay rights movement during the year of 1977, capturing the intersections of diversity in queer life; from vox pop style interviews with lesbian feminists, street drag queens, and straight allies to taking a look at the

The Late, Great Planet Earth is the title of a best-selling 1970 book co-authored by Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson, and first published by Zondervan. The book was adapted in 1979 into a movie. The Late, Great Planet Earth is a treatment

Fascinated by forbidden rituals and ceremonies, world explorer Arthur Davis takes a crew with hidden cameras to Africa and South America to secretly record the beauty and horror of the "law of the jungle". BRUTES AND SAVAGES is the filmed document of his death-defying adventures. Shocking, brutal and repulsive, this film mixes bizarre authentic footage with incredibly exploitive (and often hilarious) "re-enactments" of his findings. Animal sacrifices, bizarre tribal ceremonies, mating rituals and even brain surgery.

This fly-on-the-wall documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their 1972 North American Tour, their first return to the States since the tragedy at Altamont.

A fascinating hybrid of performance and video verité, The Continuing Story of Carel and Ferd introduces Carel and Ferd, a couple who allowed Ginsberg to produce an ongoing documentary record of the intimate moments of their relationship. Carel, a porn actress, and Ferd, a drug addict, invite the camera to participate in their wedding, their sex life, and their break-up. Produced before the landmark PBS documentary An American Family introduced television audiences to the live-in camera — and many decades before the ubiquity of reality television — this document raises questions about the relationship between subject and camera, privacy and manipulation. Originally presented as an installation, this one-hour version, which includes interviews with Carel, Ferd and Ginsberg, was distilled from thirty hours of footage recorded from 1970 to 1975. - Electronic Arts Intermix

Fiction and documentary mingle in a freewheeling portrait of Susan Superstar, a New York celebrity on a drug-fueled downward slide that mirrors Edie Sedgwick’s own self-destructive spiral.

A collection of death scenes, ranging from TV material to homemade super 8 movies.

The Marquee Live In 1971' is the latest addition to the series. The show was filmed at London's legendary Marquee club on March 26th 1971, shortly after the finish of the band's 1971 UK tour and about a month before the release of the 'Sticky Fingers' album in late April. Mick Taylor was now fully integrated into the group and the band had used the tour to showcase some of the tracks from the forthcoming album.

Synthavision was an early computer CGI technology developed by MAGI (Mathematical Applications Group, Inc.), and one of the first systems to implement a ray-tracing algorithmic approach to hidden surface removal in rendering images, using solid primitives with combinatorial operators rather than the polygons or wireframe meshes that most CGI companies use today. This demo sampler was directed by golden age animator Jack Zander and designed by Joanne Mitchell, and showcases the technology and its capabilities through short segments of experimental animation and colorful compositions.

A professional boxing match contested on June 15, 1976, for the NABF heavyweight championship.

Recorded on French TV, the concert marked the first time since the breakup of The Velvet Underground that Reed, Cale and Nico were on stage together.
Elvis Presley performance at the Madison Square Garden arena in New York City on Saturday June 10, 1972, the concert, and the subsequent album, were promoted as being Presley's first live concerts in the Big Apple since the 1950s.
A documentary about the traditional music of the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands.


Time lapse photography shows the swarm of commuters at London Waterloo station racing about at top speed.

A Film Journey to the Soul of India documents the life of sitar master Ravi Shankar in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following him on his return to India to revisit his guru, Bengali multi-instrumentalist and composer, Baba Ustad Allauddin Khan. It further explores Shankar's life as a musician and teacher in the United States and Europe, initiating those in the West to the exceptional world that is Indian classical music and culture. Through rare and candid footage shot in both India and the United States, Raga sheds light on Shankar's influences and collaborations, from Allauddin Khan to his famed dancer brother Uday Shankar, to his associations with Western musicians Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison. Fully narrated by Shankar himself, the film reveals music as the soul of India and of Shankar's life.

In advance of his fight with Al 'Blue' Lewis at Croke Park in Dublin, Cathal O'Shannon interviews Muhammad Ali about boxing, and his life outside the ring. When a fight is coming up Muhammad Ali (formally Cassius Marcellus Clay, junior) admits he deliberately intimidates his opponent. He does this because historically in America black people have always been taught to be subservient.

This film, made by the artist, Robert Smithson, with the assistance of Virgina Dwan, Dwan Gallery & Douglas Christmas, Director, Ace Gallery, (the aforementioned Dwan & Christmas also assisted Smithson financially with the making of the Spiral Jetty), is a poetic and process minded film depicting a "portrait" of his renowned earth work -- The Spiral Jetty, as it juts into the shallows off the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake. A voice-over by Smithson reveals the evolution of the Spiral Jetty.

The story of five skiers, sponsored by K2, who tour the U.S. in a red, white and blue van that matched their skis. They travel like a pack of joyful wolves, devouring powder and looking for challenges. Just 26 minutes in length, the film offers ferocious detail, with ski footage that still holds up today. The film revealed the ski culture as a surrogate family. In an interview years later, skier Charlie McWilliams recalled how people came up to him to explain how they deeply identified with this happygo- lucky skiing clan. He saw the film as a groundbreaking portrayal of skiing as a tribal experience. “It was the first time anybody had gone out and made a film of a group of guys traveling around the country having a great time skiing.”

Leon Gast's musical documentary reveals New York City's Latin culture and features live performances of salsa greats The Fania All Stars and The Spanish Speaking People of New York. A document of urban American Hispanic culture, Gast's film captures the rhythms of New York's Spanish Harlem, from illegal cockfights and Santeria rituals to the rooftops and backstreets of El Barrio and the legendary musicians performing at the Cheetah club.

Sea of Joy, a film by Paul Witzig has been restored, remastered and remixed. Sea of Joy follows the emergence of the short boards following The Hot Generation and Evolution. Starring Wayne Lynch, Nat Young and Ted Spencer and many more. Filmed in Australia, Mauritius, South Africa, Oahu and Kauai. Original soundtrack by Tully.

In this unique documentary, French filmmaker Benoit Jacquot interviews Alfred Deller, the internationally celebrated contemporary countertenor who focused his talent on showcasing Renaissance and Baroque music to modern audiences. One of the few films on Deller, it includes footage of him performing selections from Campion, Rosseter, Morley and Purcell. Deller toured the globe with his group, the Deller Consort, from the 1950s through the '70s.

A report on the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, a historic event that gathered Black voices from across the political spectrum, among them Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Coretta Scott King, Richard Hatcher, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, and H. Carl McCall.

"The most exciting thing going on in Europe, if not the world": welcome to Milton Keynes circa 1973.

The culmination of a ten year celebration in celluloid, Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman give us five-plus exciting, controversial and beautiful stories about surfing. A perspective that warns of the future while it warms the present.



A look at photographer Duane Michal's sequential photo narratives, with voiceover by Michals himself.

Follows dub poet master Linton Kwesi Johnson out of the recording studio onto the Brixton streets.

1968: Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and Bobby Hutton are among the recent dead. In Nigeria, the Civil War is entering its second year with no end in sight. In San Francisco, the adventures of Gabriel, a young Nigerian reflects tribal, personal, and racial frictions during the tumultuous sixties. Truth is stranger than fiction in Bushman, a rare sort of film portrait, part document, part imagined – poetic in its approach to real events.

Ben Caldwell’s Medea, a collage piece made on an animation stand and edited entirely in the camera, combines live action and rapidly edited still images of Africans and African Americans which function like flashes of history that the unborn child will inherit. Caldwell invokes Amiri Baraka’s poem “Part of the Doctrine” in this experimental meditation on art history, Black imagery, identity and heritage.

Marcel Broodthaers’ film and book, both titled A Voyage on the North Sea which were distributed together as part and parcel of the same publishing plot. The ostensibly related subject of both book and film consists mutually of 19th and 20th century nautical images including: 1. photographic reproductions and details of an amateur’s 19th century painting of a fleet of fishing ships and 2. photographs of a contemporary sailboat.

Documentary featuring backcountry skiing, extreme skiing and hang gliding in the Southern Alps.

An exciting video journey through the world of time-lapse photography by one of the founders of the science of photobiology, Dr. John Nash Ott. Do fluorescent lights cause cancer and childhood learning and behavior disorders? Can long-term exposure to low-level radiation as from TV sets, computers, fluorescent lights, and similar devices harm you? Does living behind window glass and with glasses covering our eyes over years affect our health? Is natural sunlight and trace ultra-violet radiation really harmful? Or is it necessary and beneficial? How do cells, plants, and animals respond to constant exposure to different light color frequencies? These and similar questions were the subjects of Dr. Ott's pioneering investigations in the field of photobiology, using the methods of time-lapse photography.

This documentary is a must have for "old school" wrestling fans! It's loosely focused on the career of 23 year old Vivian Vachon during her first professional tour, and the wrestling legends she shares the ring with. Through interviews with wrestling superstars, the promoters, the fans, and the critics, Wrestling Queen will give you a snapshot of a rarely seen part of 70’s culture, along with a healthy dose of wrestling nostalgia!
Presents the history of the conflict between the Canadian government and the Kwakiutl Indians of the Northwest Pacific over the ritual of the Potlatch. Archival photographs and films, wax roll sound recordings, police reports, the original potlatch files, and correspondence of agents form the basis of the reconstruction of period events, while the film centres on a Potlatch given today by the Cranmer family of Alert Bay.
Silent home movie shot by Diane and Karol Berolzheimer depicting Chicago's Maxwell street market in the autumn or winter of '78, currently held in collection at the Chicago Film Archives.

The Bakhtiari migration is one of the most hazardous tests of human endurance known to mankind. Every year, 500,000 men, women and children — along with one million animals — struggle for eight grueling weeks to scale the massive Zagros Mountains — a range which is as high as the Alps and as broad as Switzerland — to reach their summer pastures.

George Foreman vs. Ron Lyle was a boxing match that took place on January 24, 1976 in Caesars Palace, Paradise, Nevada, U.S.
Produced at the height of the black power movement in the early ‘70s, Lord Thing is an insider history into the genesis and transformation of the Conservative Vice Lords gang, one of Chicago's oldest street gangs. Partially shaped and told by by CVL members who also appear in the film, Lord Thing is a unique and powerful tool that expresses an effort in self-transformation during a volatile and violent time in US race history. Gritty and rhythmic, this unusual film reflects an under-told chapter in gang history as members from the West Side neighborhood of North Lawndale try to become viable and political agents in their community. (Chicago Film Archives)

Documentary about a rodeo that takes place, for the most part, in Harlem.