Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

The story of America's most notorious gangster, Al Capone, starts on the streets of Brooklyn. In 1913, at the age of 14, Capone starts running errands for local gangsters - just one of many immigrants struggling to survive. One day, young Al Capone gets caught in a police raid. He quickly grabs what money he can, evades police, and runs to the headquarters of mob boss Johnny Torrio. Torrio rewards Capone for his quick-thinking. When Torrio recognizes Capone's intelligence and drive, he takes him under his wing.

The definitive discourse with Noam Chomsky on the defining characteristic of our time - the deliberate concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a select few. Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality - tracing a half century of policies designed to favour the most wealthy at the expense of the majority. "Requiem for the American Dream" is profoundly personal and thought provoking. Chomsky provides penetrating insight into what may well be the lasting legacy of our time - the death of the middle class, and swan song of functioning democracy. A potent reminder that power ultimately rests in the hands of the governed, "Requiem for the American Dream" is required viewing for all who maintain hope in a shared stake in the future.

As tuition rates spiral beyond reach and student loan debt passes $1 trillion (more than credit card debt), IVORY TOWER asks: Is college worth the cost? From the halls of Harvard, to public colleges in financial crisis, to Silicon Valley, filmmaker Andrew Rossi assembles an urgent portrait of a great American institution at the breaking point. Through interviews profiled at Arizona State, Cooper Union, and Sebastian Thrun's Udacity-among several others-IVORY TOWER reveals how colleges in the United States, long regarded as leaders in higher education, came to embrace a business model that often promotes expansion over quality learning. Along the way we also find unique programs, from Stanford to the free desert school Deep Springs to the historically black all women's college Spelman, where the potential for life-changing college experiences endure.

West Perrine, Florida is a suburban ghetto in Southwest Miami. Over 63% of its residents are African-American and the unemployment rate is three times higher than the national rate. Violent crimes occur on a daily basis in this neighborhood of less than two square miles, where much of its adult male population winds up dead or in prison before their 30th birthday. But there is hope in the hood... Dhafir 'Dada 5000' Harris has built a ring in his momma's backyard and transforms himself into the Don King of illegal backyard fights in Perrine". Dada 5000 (6'3", 270lbs., bench presses 670lbs) grew up blocks away from Perrine's MMA sensation, Kimbo Slice, and spent a year traveling the world as Kimbo's bodyguard. When Kimbo's manager buried video of Dada's spectacular backyard fight debut, for fear of Dada overshadowing his rising superstar, Dada leaves Kimbo's crew and makes a life-changing decisión. In his ring there is no doctors, no ambulance. Just two men in a 12'x12' ring battling in a savage bare-knuckle fight to the finish. Dada's gladiators give everything in the the backyard to feed their families and to try to fight their way out of hood. Meanwhile Dada returns to the ring, is discovered by professional scouts and gets his shot at turning pro in the octagon at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

Ripped from international headlines, The Hacker Wars takes you to the front lines of the high-stakes battle over the fate of the Internet, freedom and privacy". Get ready to be shuttled between story lines at lightning speed mirroring the disjointed lives of the protagonists and life on the Internet. The Hacker Wars- a film about the targeting of (h)ac(k)tivists and journalists by the US government. Hacktivists are either terrorists or freedom fighters depending on ones perspective on who should control information. Meet weev, infamous hacker; Barrett Brown, journalist and propagandist for the hacktivist collective, Anonymous; and Jeremy Hammond, aka Anarchaos, number one on the FBI's cyber-criminal list. The fourth character is Sabu, the uber-hacker turned FBI informant who ran the FBI's cyber unit for 9 months and is responsible for many arrests. He is the shadowy protagonist in a high-stakes game of espionage and betrayal in the age of the Internet. Barrett Brown, American journalist, is facing 105 years in prison for publicizing information revealed through Jeremy Hammond's epic hacks. Hammond himself has just begun a 10-year prison term. Andrew Auernheimer, known by his hacker handle weev embarrasses large corporations. He was sentenced to 41 months for hacking AT&T, but his conviction was just overturned. He vows to continue doing what landed him in prison in the first place. These hacktivists are the rock stars of the Internetmodern-day folk heroes. Glenn Greenwald (Snowdon Leaks), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and others explain why these anti-heroes exposing the security surveillance state are essential to a functioning democracy.

By the time he died in 1931, Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most famous men in the world. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in history, Edison had achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light. Edison's curiosity led him to its cutting edge. With just three months of formal schooling, he took on one seemingly impossible technical challenge after another, and through intuition, persistence, and a unique team approach to innovation, invariably solved it." Driven and intensely competitive, Edison was often neglectful in his private life and could be ruthless in business. Challenged by competition in the industry he'd founded, Edison launched an ugly propaganda campaign against his rivals, and used his credibility as an electrical expert to help ensure that high-voltage electrocution became a form of capital punishment. Edison explores the complex alchemy that accounts for the enduring celebrity of America's most famous inventor, offering new perspectives on the man and his milieu, and illuminating not only the true nature of invention, but its role in turn-of-the-century America's rush into the future.