Bill Cunningham New York is a wonderful documentary about a fascinating man, now available on Hulu. [more inside]
posted by gilrain on Nov 4, 2011 - 34 comments

Step Across the Border (previously, link now broken) "as long as I was playing in a band I didn't have to actually go out there and talk to girls and dance, I could just be on stage and watch everybody else doing it". The critically acclaimed music documentary on Fred Frith, written and directed by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel (amazon link). It is also available in 8 parts, on youtube. [more inside]
posted by idiopath on May 28, 2011 - 11 comments

The last gasp of the arcade. Several months ago, two of the last major arcades on the west coast and east coast, Chinatown Fair in New York and Arcade Infinity in Los Angeles, shut down. [more inside]
posted by zabuni on May 15, 2011 - 71 comments

A German tourist films a trip to New York City in 1983 and 86: Times Square, The Subway
posted by The Whelk on Apr 29, 2011 - 53 comments

"Toity poiple boids / Sittin on da koib / A-choipin an’ a-boipin / An’ eatin doity woims." From Atlantic Avenue to Zerega Avenue (map), the kinds of New York City accents made famous by the likes of Archie Bunker, Jimmy Breslin and Travis Bickle are disappearing. But though you may not often hear “foath floah” for "fourth floor" in Manhattan anymore, documentary filmmaker Heather Quinlan knows you can still hear strains of the old mellifluous tones in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx, and that's exactly what she's setting out to document in her film If These Knishes Could Talk.
posted by ocherdraco on Dec 6, 2010 - 51 comments

Uneven Terrain is a series of short documentaries about urban exploration, about 10-15 minutes long each. There are six so far, about monumental ruins in New York, Centralia, the Pennsylvania town where an underground coalseam has been on fire since the 1960s, abandoned missile silos in the US and how they're being turned into homes, oil drilling in Los Angeles, the Teufelberg listening station and the abandoned bunkers under Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and pirate radio in London and on the old Redsand sea forts. Each short doc has a different presenter. All have accompanying photo galleries. [These are produced for the bootmaker Palladium, but it's pretty low-key]
posted by Kattullus on Apr 7, 2010 - 7 comments

Sunday Morning Movie - A moving and fascinating documentary, Dark Days is on Google Video. Marc Singer lived in the tunnel, and started filming with the help of his fellow tunnel dwellers. Trivia here. Inevitable Wikipedia link here. [more inside]
posted by Fuzzy Skinner on Nov 9, 2008 - 19 comments

A new documentary on the Jonestown Massacre (YouTube) raises a few key questions about The People's Temple and mass suicide; yet the most pertinent quandary at the moment (posed by New York Magazine) has little to do with tainted Kool-Aid and instead focuses on an unfortunately named rapper from Harlem. This week, it's Jim Jones versus Jim Jones.
posted by dead_ on Nov 9, 2006 - 22 comments

Bike Kill 2004 - a 5 min QT clip documenting the Black Label Bike Club’s annual Bike Kill in Brooklyn, recently shown at Bicycle Film Festival 2005. These guys party hard. via in case of mishaps
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 28, 2005 - 15 comments

Big Fun in the Big Town Incredible German-produced documentary on hip hop and NY street culture from 1986. Features interviews and performances from Grandmaster Flash, Doug E Fresh, Run DMC, Roxanne Shante & Biz Markie, Schoolly D, and more.
posted by svidrigailov23 on Feb 26, 2005 - 18 comments

It's amazing how good religion is at mobilizing people to do awful, murderous things. There is this dark side to it, and anyone who loves religious experience, including me, better begin to own there - a profound admission - in very well produced piece about 9/11 -
posted by specialk420 on Sep 5, 2002 - 3 comments

SmallPox 2002 - Silent Weapon...
It is April 2002, and a smallpox outbreak occures in New York. 4 and a half months later and 60 million people across the planet are dead. Tonight, The BBC broadcast a fictional documentary as if it were filmed in 2005, looking back at the smallpox pandemic that swept the world in 2002 and killed 60 million people. Heavily rooted in fact, it was disturbing viewing, to put it mildly. Did anyone else in Europe see this?
posted by tomcosgrave on Feb 5, 2002 - 22 comments