Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill travels to Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries where the United States has taken military action in the War on Terror. In Afghanistan, he investigates the United States military and government cover-up of the deaths of five civilians, including two pregnant women killed by US soldiers from the Joint Special Operations Command. After investigating the attack, Scahill travels to other sites of JSOC intervention, interviewing both proponents and opponents, and the survivors, of such raids,including U.S. Senator Ron Wyden. Scahill also investigates the assassinations of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, meeting with their family at their home in Yemen. Scahill suggests that the War on Terror is in fact a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and causes the radicalization of Muslims. He also discusses the case of Yemeni investigative journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye who was detained, tried and sentenced on terrorism-related charges after reporting on American drone strikes.

Follow the life and career of Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, who currently plays for Spanish club Real Madrid and the Portugal national team, through a series of interviews with Ronaldo himself as well as friends and family. Directed by Anthony Wonke and executive-produced by Asif Kapadia, Ronaldo was shot over the course of 14 months with the film-makers gaining access to Ronaldo's private life and inner circle of friends, family and team-mates. The film was shot in Madeira, Lisbon, and Madrid, where he currently resides as a squad member of Real Madrid.

David Attenborough discovers the plants that have evolved to shed their dependency on water enabling them to survive in the driest environments. The story begins at midnight in midsummer as David steps into the Princess of Wales Conservatory to witness the extraordinary nocturnal blooming of a cactus. The queen of the night, with its giant flowers, is the centre piece of a stunning symphony of cacti blooms that burst open in the desert (and at Kew) at night. In a mesmerizing 3D slow motion sequence, we discover the extraordinary connections between cacti and their natural pollinators: bats. As the sun rises, David meets other amazing plants. Species like the century plant, the Agave franzosini, which grows steadily for over 50 years, only to then flower itself to death with one mighty telegraph pole sized bloom which literally bursts out of the roof of Kew’s green house.

Michael Ruppert is an independent journalist who has made a minor career out of telling people news that most folks do not want to know. Ruppert, a former police officer, predicted the Wall Street debacle of 2008 several years before the fact, at a time when most analysts were still imagining infinite growth for the stock market and major investment banks. Since then, his vision of the world's future has grown only darker. As Ruppert sees it, civilization and the global economy has yet to wean itself off fossil fuels, and when the world's supply of oil finally runs out, it will lead to a global financial catastrophe that will leave no one unscathed. But while most of what Ruppert has to say bears the ring of truth, there's a small audience for his dire message -- the primary medium for his work is a self-published newsletter, and his most recent book has done so poorly in the marketplace that he faces eviction from his home. Is Ruppert right? And if he is, why doesn't anyone care? Filmmaker Chris Smith profiles Michael Ruppert and gives him a chance to explain his apocalyptic vision of the future at length

After becoming the most powerful mob boss in the country, Al Capone now finds himself locked up in America's newest and harshest maximum security prison: Alcatraz. Prohibition has recently been repealed and one of the Outfit's most important sources of income dries up. With Capone cut off from all communication, his most trusted men, Frank Nitti, Tony Accardo and Paul Ricca, must keep his organization from collapsing. With Americans flocking to theaters by the thousands, the movie business is raking in millions of dollars a month. To take advantage of Hollywood, Nitti recruits Willy Bioff. Acardo breaks into a new racket in Chicago: slot machines. With help from Ricca, Accardo builds a network of slots in Chicago bars, earning up to $20,000 a year. By the end of 1939, the Outfit is bringing in more money than ever before... But new problems start to appear.

Salvador Dali's strange crucifixion is often called the greatest religious painting of the 20th century. Yet its artist was a notorious blasphemer some of whose work had outraged the Catholic Church. The Christ of St John of the Cross by Salvador Dali is the first of two extraordinary crucifixions painted by Dali in the early 1950s. The painting is based on a 'cosmic dream' Dali is said to have had, in which the nucleus of the atom was a figure of Christ himself.
The painting offers a surrealist view of the crucifixion of Christ, and is based on a drawing by the 16th century Spanish friar Saint John of the Cross. But Dali's vision was somewhat unique, using an unusual artistic perspective in which Christ is seen from above. His Christ of St. John of The Cross was inspired by a weird mix of Spanish mysticism and nuclear physics, with his Christ being modelled by a Hollywood stuntman. It's also a masterpiece of painting technique.