Recent Releases & Restorations

Enjoy newly released films and restored classics selected by our curators, now available in your own home.

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  • Jazz on a Summer's Day

  • Irmi

  • Edo Avant Garde

  • RBG

  • Mr. SOUL!

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
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Available Films

  • A Tribute to Malcolm X

    Madeline Anderson
    United States, 1969

    Free Streaming Presentation

    Made for the groundbreaking TV series Black Journal, this short film commemorates the fourth anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination through archival footage of the civil rights leader and an interview with his widow, Betty Shabazz.

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  • Buoyancy

    Rodd Rathjen
    Australia, 2019

    Visceral performances by a nonprofessional cast ground this gripping dramatization of immigrant exploitation on the high seas, as a Cambodian boy falls into modern slavery aboard a Thai fishing boat. “Taut and urgent” (Variety).

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  • Chulas fronteras & Del mero corazón


    Swing along with Lydia Mendoza, Flaco Jiménez, and other greats of Mexican American music in Les Blank’s bouncy 1970s tributes to Chicano culture and pride, now digitally remastered in 4K.

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  • CineSpin: Brussels Loops

    Shirley Clarke, D. A. Pennebaker
    United States, 1957

    Free Streaming Presentation
    Available for One Week Only, November 13–20 

    Friday, November 13, 8 PM PST: Livestream conversation: Ryan Shah, Collette Keating, Katherine Schloss, and Julia Cunningham

    An energetic depiction of American life for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, this compilation of short films explores the natural, industrial, and social landscapes of the nation. With new musical accompaniment by Cal student Ryan Shah.  

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  • City Hall

    Frederick Wiseman
    United States, 2020

    Available November 13

    Eminent documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s study of process, policy, and public service in Boston’s city government is a “typically sprawling, inquisitive and inclusive anatomy of the city’s inner workings . . . both sober and inspiring” (Variety).

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  • Classe tous risques

    Claude Sautet
    France, Italy, 1960

    Digital Restoration

    Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo star in “a tough and touching exploration of honor and friendship among thieves” (New York Times). “One of the best French gangster films, tense and warm, elliptical and human” (Bertrand Tavernier).

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  • Coded Bias

    Shalini Kantayya
    United States, 2020

    Available Beginning November 18
    Thursday, November 19, 6 PM PST: Livestream conversation: Meredith Broussard, danah boyd, Valerie E. Taylor, Seyi Olojo, and Eden McEwen

    Coded Bias shows how the widespread adoption of machine learning and automated decision making in financial services, human resources, voter registration, and law enforcement makes the racial and gender bias embedded in artificial intelligence an urgent civil rights issue.

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  • Edo Avant Garde

    Linda Hoaglund
    Japan, United States, 2019

    This beautiful examination of the tradition of Japanese folding screen and scroll painting explores the sensuous style and innovative methods of Edo period painting and reveals its influence on Western art.

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  • I Am Somebody

    Madeline Anderson
    United States, 1970

    Free Streaming Presentation

    Anderson’s most celebrated film documents the 1969 strike of Black hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina, a high-water mark in the alignment between labor struggles and the civil rights movement.

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  • Integration Report 1

    Madeline Anderson
    United States, 1960

    Free Streaming Presentation

    A cinematic snapshot of the civil rights movement across the United States circa 1960, this short film documents speeches and interviews with movement leaders as well as protests around the country.

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  • Irmi

    Veronica Selver, Susan Fanshel
    United States, 2020

    This beautiful documentary portrait of German Jewish émigrée Irmi Selver (1906–2004), based on her memoirs (read by Hanna Schygulla), takes us on a unique journey through a life marked by love, unimaginable loss, and strength of spirit.

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  • Jazz on a Summer's Day

    Bert Stern
    United States, 1959

    4K Digital Restoration

    Closing October 25

    Shot at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz on a Summer’s Day is an indispensable record of some of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. “Outstanding. . . . It’s Americana and a document of its time” (Variety).

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  • John Lewis: Good Trouble

    Dawn Porter
    United States, 2020

    Closing October 25

    This essential documentary combines rare archival footage with interviews and scenes of John Lewis at work to chronicle the life and career of the civil rights activist and politician, from Alabama cotton fields to Congress.

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  • Martin Margiela: In His Own Words

    Reiner Holzemer
    Germany, Belgium, 2019

    Closing October 25

    In this thoroughly engaging chronicle of Martin Margiela’s two influential decades in fashion, the notoriously elusive designer reflects on his formative influences and the concepts behind his groundbreaking collections. “Best fashion documentary of the decade” (Hollywood Reporter).

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  • Mr. SOUL!

    Melissa Haizlip
    United States, 2018

    A chronicle of the revolutionary television program SOUL! and its visionary producer, Ellis Haizlip, Mr. SOUL! is generously illustrated with excerpts from the show featuring a stunning array of Black performers, writers, and activists.

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  • Niki and Flo

    Lucian Pintilie
    Romania, France, 2003

    Politics, pride, and parenthood collide in the great Lucian Pintilie’s portrait of incompatible in-laws, “a mordant almost-comedy that represents a bridge—and also a battle—between the old Romania and the new” (New York Times).

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  • Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

    Ric Burns
    United States, 2019

    “At once tender and thrilling” (Variety), this moving and insightful portrait of neurologist and author Oliver Sacks centers on intimate interviews from his final months, as he faced death and looked back on his extraordinary life.

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  • Picture a Scientist

    Sharon Shattuck, Ian Cheney
    United States, 2020

    Available for Two Days Only, October 28–29
    Thursday, October 29, 6 PM PDT: Livestream conversation: Mahzarin Banaji, Nancy Hopkins, Katya Cherukumilli, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, and Yonna Kim

    Demonstrating the toll that discrimination and harassment take on women in the sciences, this documentary asks what is lost to scientific progress when the contributions of half the population are discouraged.

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  • RBG

    Julie Cohen, Betsy West
    United States, 2018

    We remember Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with this affectionate portrait from 2018, which “emphasize[s] not just Ginsburg’s work on the court but how extraordinarily influential she was before she even got there” (L.A. Times).

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  • Song Without a Name

    Melina León
    Peru, Spain, United States, 2019

    An indigenous Andean woman searches for her stolen newborn amidst the institutional corruption of 1980s Peru in this surreal blend of Latin American political history and Kafkaesque alienation, “shot, scored, and styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams” (Variety).

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  • Stuff and Dough

    Cristi Puiu
    Romania, 2001

    A hopeful young entrepreneur decides to raise money by delivering an unknown package in this deadpan road movie, inspired by Jarmusch’s Down by Law. The debut film by the director of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. 

     

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  • Suspension

    Simón Uribe
    Colombia, 2019

    Deep in the jungle of Colombia, between treacherous mountain slopes, stands an unfinished bridge, an absurd symbol of human folly. This debut documentary feature is “compelling and impressive” (Hot Docs).

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  • The End of the Ottoman Empire

    Mathilde Damoisel, Sylvie Jézéquel
    France, Switzerland, 2016

    This fascinating documentary offers an overview of the Ottoman Empire and its decline, the essential backstory of our world today.

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  • The Great Communist Bank Robbery

    Alexandru Solomon
    Romania, France, 2004

    This sardonic, elegantly constructed documentary is “a bizarre recreation of a crime of which the motive is still difficult to fathom and an astonishing evocation of a lost world of Romanian Stalinism” (BBC).

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  • The Paper Will Be Blue

    Radu Muntean
    Romania, 2006

    A clueless tank crew wanders Bucharest’s chaotic streets on the night that Ceauşescu falls in Radu Muntean’s wry, humanist portrait of historic times.

     

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  • We Have Boots

    Evans Chan
    United States, Hong Kong, 2020

    Available October 24
    Cosponsored by the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law

    This essential documentary on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong puts us in the center of the action with harrowing street footage and affecting portraits of protesters. With Chan’s 2016 film Raise the Umbrellas, on the Umbrella Movement.

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  • White Riot

    Rubika Shah
    United Kingdom, 2019

    This exuberant account of the 1970s grassroots antifascists behind Rock Against Racism is “a welcome tribute to RAR’s first, most vibrant chapter—an extraordinary fusion of culture and politics that changed society for the better” (Glass Magazine).

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