The Lot of Fun: Hollywood’s Fun Factory

The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga

Japan, 1954. A legend emerges from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, devastated by atomic bombs in 1945. The creature's name is Godzilla. The film that tells its story is the first of kaiju eiga, the giant monster movies.

6.5

2022

El joven Berlanga

The early days of the future genius of Spanish cinema Luis García Berlanga, from his birth in Valencia in 1921 to his departure to Madrid in 1947 to become a filmmaker.

Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field: The Documentary

7.8

Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field: The Documentary

Tucumán, Argentina, 1965. Three years before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released, director Ofelio Linares Montt shot Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field, which turned out to be both a horror film and a political statement. It was a success in the US, but could not be shown in Argentina due to Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship, and was eventually lost. Writer and researcher Luciano Saracino embarks on the search for the origins of this cursed work.

4.7

2022

Florián Rey: Of Light and Shadow

The life and professional career of the Spanish filmmaker Florián Rey (1894-1962), a brilliant artist who began his career in silent films and had great commercial success during the Second Republic (1931-1936): a journey to the early days of Spanish cinema.

2025

Citizen B

Documentary on Ciby 2000, the French film production company founded by Francis Bouygues in 1990.

7.3

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?

6.7

2015

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?

The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened? feature film documents the process of development of the ill fated "Superman Lives" movie, that was to be directed by Tim Burton and star Nicolas Cage as the man of steel himself, Superman. The project went through years of development before the plug was pulled, and this documentary interviews the major filmmakers: Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, Jon Peters, Dan Gilroy, Colleen Atwood, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and many many more.

Hollywood Bulldogs: The Rise and Falls of the Great British Stuntman

6.2

Hollywood Bulldogs: The Rise and Falls of the Great British Stuntman

They created and performed the iconic action sequences of 007, Indiana Jones, Superman, Rambo, Star Wars, Conan, the Alien films and pretty much everything since. They crashed cars, jumped from burning buildings, shot, stabbed, kicked and punched their way into cinema history. This is the first feature documentary to unite the legendary community of stuntmen in telling their story and, as you'll see, there's life in the old dogs yet.

1970

End of the Commune?

A documentary about Fassbinder and the early years of the legendary Antiteater, the group he was a member/leader of. You can here see and hear some of the actors he was going to use in his movies for the next years. The movie shows rehearsals for his play "The Coffeehouse," which also became a television movie, and you can watch unique footage from the 19th Film Festival in Berlin (1969) where "Love is Colder Than Death" was shown. As told in this documentary, his first feature movie was given a cold shoulder by many of the journalists and visitors at the festival. You can in "End of the Commune" watch Fassbinder and actor Ulli Lommel walk out on stage after the opening of "Love is Colder Than Death,” while a man in the audience is shouting "Out with the director!” In this documentary, Fassbinder also talks a lot about his father, who was a respectable doctor.

You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

8.5

2008

You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland and emigrated to Canada near the turn of the century. In 1903, the brothers entered the budding motion picture business. In time, the Warner Brothers moved into film production and would open their own studio in 1923.

4.6

Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

6.0

2023

Keiko Kishi, Eternally Rebellious

Born in 1932, Keiko Kishi has been one of the first Japanese actresses known worldwide. Her decision to move to France and to marry director Yves Ciampi in 1957 – after he filmed her in Typhoon Over Nagasaki starring Jean Marais and Danielle Darrieux – caused a huge scandal in Japan. Despite this transgression, Keiko Kishi continued acting in her home country with Kon Ichikawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Masaki Kobayashi… building unique bridges between Japanese and European cultures. Free and rebellious, she emancipated herself from the many obstacles she encountered in the film industry, and created her own production company in her early twenties. Let’s look back at the story of a pioneer, an inspiration for many generations.

Emmanuelle: Queen of French Erotic Cinema

6.6

Emmanuelle: Queen of French Erotic Cinema

France, 1974. The erotic film Emmanuelle, directed by Just Jaeckin, breaks all records for cinema attendance: the story of the creation of a sensual epic that marked a turning point in the struggle for sexual emancipation.

7.8

2020

Disclosure

An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.

6.9

The Blade Runner Phenomenon

Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and released in 1982, is one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Its depiction of Los Angeles in the year 2019 is oppressively prophetic: climate catastrophe, increasing public surveillance, powerful monopolistic corporations, highly evolved artificial intelligence; a fantastic vision of the future world that has become a frightening reality.

The 'Frankenstein' Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster

7.7

2002

The 'Frankenstein' Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster

The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.

1999

Hitlers Traum von Micky Maus - Zeichentrick unterm Hakenkreuz

The order comes in the summer of 1941 from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney-Quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is re-traced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards. – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi” a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful Multiplane-technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, life-action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the third Reich.

Bearing Witness Native American Voices in Hollywood

7.3

2025

Bearing Witness Native American Voices in Hollywood

For over 100 years, Hollywood cinema has crafted the ultimate "villain"- the Indian, as they were labeled in early Westerns. Confined almost exclusively to this genre, the Western became a vehicle for American racism, obscuring the genocide upon which the United States was built. In this documentary, only Native Americans are given a voice to share their story, one that has been overshadowed by Hollywood's portrayal. Their narrative, part of the larger American story, highlights how cinema has long been used as a powerful propaganda tool, distorting history and perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

6.7

2010

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

6.6

2014

Altman

Robert Altman's life and career contained multitudes. This father of American independent cinema left an indelible mark, not merely on the evolution of his art form, but also on the western zeitgeist. With its use of rare interviews, representative film clips, archival images, and musings from his family and most recognizable collaborators, Altman is a dynamic and heartfelt mediation on an artist whose expression, passion and appetite knew few bounds.

Recommended Movies

6.1

2013

Main Krishna Hoon

In answer to an orphan boy's prayers, the divine Lord Krishna comes to Earth, befriends the boy, and helps him find a loving family.

9.5

1911

War

In the gray dawn of an October day, as the inhabitants of a village street in Tripoli are engaged in the enjoyment of their several pursuits of life, an Arab rushes upon the peaceful scene, announcing that Italy has declared war against Turkey and that the Italian warships are now in the harbor, shelling the city.

2009

Crows Zero II

Genji and his victorious G.P.S. alliance find themselves facing down a new challenge by the students of Hosen Academy, feared by everyone as 'The Army of Killers.' The two schools, in fact, have a history of bad blood between them. And the simmering embers of hatred are about to flare up again, burning away any last remnants of the truce they had so rigorously observed until now.

6.8

2014

Man

A worn-out, aging shearer who once rained king of the high country, gets on the gear to keep up his numbers. But when the drugs take over he must learn what it really means to be a man, before he loses so much more than his country pride -- MAN.

1973

Palkó Csinom

The musical adventure film goes back to the early eighteenth century, the times of the battles between the Hungarian insurrectionists and the pro-Austrians. Palkó and Jankó are about to join the insurrectionist army when they clash with a pro-Austrian troop. Jankó is captured and put in Count Koháry's prison.

5.9

2017

12

Anton and Erika started out as friends for five years and got into a romantic relationship for seven years. Anton is a commercial director while Erika is a former band member and becomes his stay-at-home partner. The day finally comes when he asks her to marry him.

8.7

Flow

A turbulent day in a life, painted by air.

6.0

2025

Penguin Girl

Moon loves penguins. Her lifelong ambition is to study penguins in Antarctica. She believes she’ll meet her destined mate just like penguins do. One day, Moon runs into Adley, a guy in a penguin suit fortuitously making penguin courtship gestures at her. She believes the penguin-scented Adley is her fate. As they spend time together, Adley is moved by Moon's genuineness and passion. Just when their relationship has made some progress, Moon is recommended for an exchange program to the UK, throwing Moon into a dilemma between pursuing love and her dream.

6.9

2016

A Boy Called Po

A recently widowed, now single father struggles to raise his sixth-grade son with autism. The pressure of his job and coping with the loss of his wife proves to push him nearly to the breaking point.

5.8

1986

Maine-Ocean Express

"Maine-Ocean" is the name of a train that rides from Paris to Saint-Nazaire (near the ocean). In that train, Dejanira, a Brazilian, has a brush with the two ticket inspectors. Mimi, another traveler and also a lawyer, helps her. The four of them will meet together later and live a few shifted adventures with a strange-speaking sailor (Mimi's client).

7.7

On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Legend

Part one of On the Trail of Bigfoot. Journey back through the history of one of America's last great mysteries in this new documentary from Small Town Monsters (The Mothman of Point Pleasant, The Bray Road Beast) and director, Seth Breedlove. Join researchers, investigators and historians as they uncover the story behind centuries-old mystery; the creature known as Bigfoot.

4.3

2007

Captive Factory Girls: The Violation

Natsumi (Ai Takeuchi) is forced to work in a steel factory in order to pay off a debt, a factory notorious for employing women with "dark pasts" as slave labor. Tsukada, Chief of Security places Natsumi in a team of four women led by Atsuko(Nagisa Umeno). When one worker fails to follow instructions, Tsukada rapes her, and Natsumi is next on his list. Natsumi tries to fight the insanity, but is hindered by managing director Hideko and factory president Kamiyama. It is up to Natsumi to take on the evildoings of the factory.

7.0

2024

The Death of Mr. Fawkes

A young woman, after her fiancée’s death, cannot understand her feelings about the socially-motivated engagement’s end. Parents apathetic, cousin overwhelmingly sympathetic, only a reemerging suitor’s advances allow her to understand— what she feels is grief.

6.3

2023

Hello

During one of their night stays, three college teens play a silly prank where they randomly call people and tell them that they know who that person is and what they have done. What will happen when things take a dangerous turn?

2020

Maintenance

Two people are waiting together for each other. Their flat waits with them and for them. Together they are living side by side. Someone is coming, someone is leaving, the flat stays where it is.

6.7

1942

Terror on the Midway

When things go wrong at the circus, it's up to Superman to stop the escaped animals.

6.6

2018

F.O.T.O.G.R.A.F.

A short film based on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fictional universe, combining the “Picnic to the curb” of the Strugatsky brothers, “Stalker” by Andrei Tarkovsky and the “Exclusion Zone” location around the Chernobyl NPP. According to the scenario, an agent of the peacekeeping forces, nicknamed "The Photographer", arrives in the Zone to prevent a global scale catastrophe, which could be caused by an experiment that went out of control at a scientific lab.

6.0

1971

Hydro-Puzzle

Warsaw is mysteriously running out of water during the summer heat wave. This mystery can only be solved by a Polish superhero known as As.

1999

Hornblower: The Frogs and the Lobsters

Lieutenant Hornblower and his shipmates are sent to accompany a doomed royalist invasion of revolutionary France.

8.5

2009

Six: Inside

Delves deep into the anxiety, thrill and uncertainty of six aspiring animation artists as they are plunged into the twelve-week trial-by-fire that is the NFB's Hothouse for animation filmmakers.