This outstanding documentary about history and guilt from author and human rights lawyer Philippe Sands concerns the two elderly sons of prominent officials in Nazi Germany. It entirely upends what I confess were my own preconceptions about what such a film would be: that is, a placid, consensual study, ruefully brooding on the sins of the fathers. This is far more challen find out more...

This is the most powerful and best known documentary on the holocaust ever made. Commissioned by the French Comittee for the History of the Second World War in 1955, it contains some of the most chilling and haunting images of human brutality ever seen. The director uses a simple approach to what must have been a very daunting project, managing not to aestheticise the grim subject matter. A very important film. find out more...

Revered Brit film director Terence Davies paints a picture of Liverpool life from his childhood days to the modern in this poetic docu-essay memoir. Heavy on poetry and classical music, heavily against the Church and the monarchy, full of newsreel and documentary footage, this is an awesome tribute to a city that he loves. find out more...

A mesmerizing deconstruction of the man, his life, his loves, his humanity and their influence on a painter who stands not only as a genius but as the greatest artist of the twentieth century. Covering Picasso's early childhood in Spain towards the end of the nineteenth century up to his death in the South of France in the 1970's this is the definitive film biography of the great man. find out more...

A cinephile's odyssey through a century of film clips, to take a witty and stylish look at homosexuality on the silver screen, narrated by Lily Tomlin, with interviews with the likes of Curtis, Sarandon, Hanks and MacLaine and including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Thelma & Louise and Philadelphia. find out more...

This truly exhaustive journey from the dawn of the medium through to the late sixties documents the rise and rise of Hollywood. Martin Scorsese guides us through his personal favourites and a vast selection of cult classics and recognised masterpieces. find out more...

Robert McNamara was the American secretary of defence during the presidencies of both Kennedy and Johnson, a man that history hasn't got much good to say about. In this remarkable interview McNamara attempts to cast himself in a more favourable light, but it is his revelations concerning the whys and wherefores of events such as the Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam which make the Fog of War such a hypnotic documentary. Superb. find out more...

1945 was a pivotal year in British history. The unity that carried Britain through the war allied to the bitter memories of the inter-war years led to a vision of a better society. The find out more...

A fascinating and insightful documentary of Leni Riefenstahl the undoubtedly gifted director behind Nazi Germany's most striking and effective propaganda movies, Triumph Of The Will and Olympia. If not a monster Riefenstahl's certainly culpable, whatever her protestations of innocence. A wasted gift on a self serving soul. Hypnotic. find out more...

The tale of Woody Guthrie told by his family and friends. This is a great documentary filled with music, anecdotes, images and stories from the great dustbowl poet's life and sad demise into Huntington's Disease. find out more...