The Hit: An Investigative Documentary (2022)

Uppity: The Willy T. Ribbs Story

An in-depth profile of the life and career of Willy T. Ribbs - the controversial Black driver who shattered the color barrier of professional auto-racing and became the first Black qualifier in the storied history of the Indy 500.

Tim Richmond: To the Limit

Natural. Rock star. Outsider. In the 80s, race car driver Tim Richmond lived his life the way he raced cars – wide open. Born into a wealthy family, Richmond was the antithesis of the Southern, blue-collar, dirt-track racers who dominated NASCAR. He also was a flamboyant showman who basked in the attention of the media and fans – especially female admirers. Nevertheless, it was Richmond’s on-track performances that ended up drawing comparisons to racing legends. And in 1986, when he won seven NASCAR races and finished third in the Winston Cup series points race, some believed he was on the verge of stardom. But soon his freewheeling lifestyle caught up to him. He unexpectedly withdrew from the NASCAR racing circuit, reportedly suffering from double pneumonia. In reality he had AIDS. Richmond returned to the track in 1987, but he was gone from the sport by the next year as his health deteriorated. He spent his final days as a recluse, dying on August 13, 1989, at the age of 34.

Fast Track: Taking on the Speedway

The Irwindale Speedway is a small snapshot into the world of NASCAR, a shared sport with many racers and viewers. Watch to see a small snippet into the world of this speedway, the racers behind the wheel, and the history behind racing.

Unrivaled: Earnhardt vs. Gordon

Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon were heated competitors on the racetrack and were polar opposites outside of their race cars. The clash of their personalities and driving styles led to a fierce rivalry, which greatly impacted NASCAR.

Outside Line

Rajah Caruth wasn’t supposed to be a NASCAR driver. As a Black kid growing up in Washington D.C., he had no connections and little representation in the industry. Determined to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a driver, he pursued the only path he saw available: virtual racing. He made a name for himself in the online world of iRacing, leveraging his rapidly growing talents and personal brand into a spot in a real-life race car. In the few short years since Caruth first got into a car, he has risen to NASCAR’s penultimate racing series, with his sights set at the top. This short documentary tells his story and follows him as he prepares for a bold new chapter in his racing career.

Racing

Following a first position on the podium, racing driver Jean-Philippe Bergeron and his team Prolon attempt to win the last race of the season.

Stockcar!

A look at NASCAR Grand National stock car racing circa 1976-7. The stars include Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, and Buddy Baker, and includes upstart female racer Janet Guthrie. The sport in the mid-1970s was undergoing a surge of national popularity after Petty and Pearson crashed fighting for the win within sight of the checkered flag of the 1976 Daytona 500, telecast live on ABC Sports, and the surging interest triggered renewed media interest in the sport.

Days of Thunder

Talented but unproven stock car driver Cole Trickle gets a break and with the guidance of veteran Harry Hogge turns heads on the track. The young hotshot develops a rivalry with a fellow racer that threatens his career when the two smash their cars. But with the help of his doctor, Cole just might overcome his injuries-- and his fear.

Stroker Ace

Stroker Ace, a champion NASCAR driver, is standing at the top of his career, but is getting fed up with having to do as he's told. In between rebelling against his sponsor (a fried chicken chain)'s promotion gimmicks (like making him dress up in giant chicken suit) he spends the rest of the movie trying to bed the buxom Pembrook.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

The fastest man on four wheels, Ricky Bobby is one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. A big, hairy American winning machine, Ricky has everything a dimwitted daredevil could want, a luxurious mansion, a smokin' hot wife and all the fast food he can eat. But Ricky's turbo-charged lifestyle hits an unexpected speed bump when he's bested by flamboyant Euro-idiot Jean Girard and reduced to a fear-ridden wreck.

God Bless the Broken Road

The story of a young mother who loses her husband in Afghanistan and struggles to raise their young daughter in his absence.

Herbie Fully Loaded

Maggie Peyton, the new owner of Number 53 - the free-wheelin' Volkswagen bug with a mind of its own - puts the car through its paces on the road to becoming a NASCAR competitor.

Greased Lightning

The true life story of Wendell Scott, the first black stock car racing driver to win an upper-tier NASCAR race.

The Last American Hero

A young hell raiser quits his moonshine business and tries to become the best NASCAR racer the south has ever seen. Loosely based on the true story of NASCAR driver Junior Johnson.

Logan Lucky

Trying to reverse a family curse, brothers Jimmy and Clyde Logan set out to execute an elaborate robbery during the legendary Coca-Cola 600 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Dogtown and Z-Boys

This award-winning, thrilling story is about a group of discarded kids who revolutionized skateboarding and shaped the attitude and culture of modern day extreme sports. Featuring old skool skating footage, exclusive interviews and a blistering rock soundtrack, DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice's Dogtown, a tough "locals only" beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing.

A Brief History of Time

This shows physicist Stephen Hawking's life as he deals with the ALS that renders him immobile and unable to speak without the use of a computer. Hawking's friends, family, classmates, and peers are interviewed not only about his theories but the man himself.

Les Survivantes

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Unemployable

Hannibal Buress's first outing as a goat farmer in Moreauville, La., finds him alternately bored, grossed out, and exhausted, and his time on the line at a New Orleans diner is marked by broken eggs and dreams alike.

Generation Fridays for Future

Who are the young people who are involved in the "Fridays for Future" movement and who relentlessly take to the streets for environmental and climate protection? What are their life like and how will their activism be influenced or changed by current events in 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic? The documentary accompanies them and shows how diverse, creative but also exhausting the protest work is, in that the filmmakers impressively tell of the fears, dreams, successes and defeats of the young people portrayed.

Paris, secrets d'espions

Eavesdropping, infiltration, compromise or political assassination, the French capital has been the scene of actions carried out by Russian, Chinese, American, Israeli or Turkish spies since the end of the 19th century. With two airports, seven major train stations, numerous cemeteries and churches, a record number of metro stations, 157 embassies and the headquarters of UNESCO at 7 Place de Fontenoy, Paris is an ideal playground for secret agents from around the world. Let's take a look at the major cases, the methods and the lairs of the spies.

Eternal Spring

In March 2002, a state TV signal in China gets hacked by members of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong. Their goal is to counter the government narrative about their practice. In the aftermath, police raids sweep Changchun City, and comic book illustrator Daxiong (Justice League, Star Wars), a Falun Gong practitioner, is forced to flee. He arrives in North America, blaming the hijacking for worsening an already violent repression. But his views are challenged when he meets the lone surviving participant to have escaped China, now living in Seoul, South Korea.

Clarissa & the King's Cookbook

Clarissa Dickson Wright tracks down Britain's oldest known cookbook, The Forme of Cury. This 700-year-old scroll was written during the reign of King Richard II from recipes created by the king's master chefs. How did this ancient manuscript influence the way people eat today? On her culinary journey through medieval history she reawakens recipes that have lain dormant for centuries and discovers dishes that are still prepared now.

War of the Worlds

An account of Orson Welles' 1938 radio drama broadcast that inadvertently started a mass panic.

Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly

Sure, Elvis was the King, but who was the Queen? The Women Of Rockabilly – Welcome To The Club is a documentary search for the "Female Elvis", as we meet the women of rockabilly music and explore the "what-if’s?" and "what-now’s" of their careers. Brenda Lee, Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin and a sassy cast of lesser but no less colorful pretenders to the throne describe their trailblazing days when they were the embodiment of exuberance, sexuality and defiance in a world that wasn’t quite ready for them. A rockin’ feature documentary by Beth Harrington.

Glam, Sweat & Tears

Tears were formed in the small town of Katrineholm, Sweden, back in 1968. A band from the same era as Sweet, David Bowie and T-Rex. In the middle of the prog wave, the band chose to invest in an extroverted expression with make-up, glitter and spectacular stage shows. A unique band in Sweden of that time not only for how they looked but also for their sound. Nowadays, the members of Tears are older men, but it still happens that they put on make-up and take to the stage. Ola Salo (The Arc) is one of Tears biggest fans and speaks passionately about the band's history and glam rock in general.

Night of an Era

This documentary is made up of three threads that provide a major retrospective of a decade of Chinese rock.

Zelensky, The Story

Portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky: his beginnings as a comedian, his phenomenon series "State Servant", his ultra spectacular campaign, his election, his rivalry with Vladimir Putin... and his new status as the most admired leader in the world.

Endurance

A century after Shackleton's Endurance sank beneath the ice, explorers uncover the legendary shipwreck and an amazing tale of survival.

Dr Tscharniblues

Bern, 1979: a tower block called Tscharnergut. A group of friends get together to make a film about their experiences growing up in suburban Switzerland.

Eine vo dene

Bern, 1980: A caleidoscopic portrait of Swiss urban life in the early 1980s.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an account of the life of Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little in 1925, who became a human rights activist. Malcolm X was assassinated in New York's Audubon Ballroom in February 1965.

Los Negros

Seville, Spain, 14th century. A group of black slaves brought from Africa form the Hermandad de los Negros, a Holy Week brotherhood that has survived over the centuries, despite the opposition of the powerful; still active, it is one of the oldest institutions in Europe.

Through These Eyes

A 1970s American elementary school program encouraging students to figure out for themselves the universal building blocks of human community — family, work, faith, etc. — inflamed political sensitivities so intensely it was shelved and forgotten. Archive footage of the documentary film series at the program's core, classroom exchanges, and the ensuing controversy frames larger issues of education, politics and ideology.

Rose Nunes Vive!

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The Moshumentary

After being banned from moshing due to his violent past, a grown man must right his previous wrongs in order to come out of mosh retirement for his favorite band's reunion show.

Le Palais des hiéroglyphes - Sur les traces de Champollion

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TAÏ: 33 days in the last primary West African forest

After having discovered the TAÏ forest 6 months earlier , The exporer Nico Mathieux promised himself that he would be comming back to try and be the first ever to traverse the very last primal forest of west africa from north to south

I Am My Own Woman

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

Football Under Cover

David Asmmann's Football Under Cover documents the hard work involved in setting up an exhibition soccer match, known as a "friendly," between a German girls squad and Iranian women's team. In addition to showing how the two groups come from very different cultures, the documentary showcases what playing the game means to the members of both teams, and displays how passionate the fans of these two squads are.

Who Killed Fourth Ward?

Originally founded as Freedman’s Town after the Civil War, The Fourth Ward is one of the oldest and most culturally significant black communities in Houston, Texas. In the 1970s, the city along with big business interests planned to redevelop the Fourth Ward in order to revitalize the dilapidated real estate and freshen the image of downtown Houston. The price of progress in this case would be the removal of many poor black families. The film explores a complex series of encounters with elected city officials, businessmen and the people of Fourth Ward in order to better understand how a city like Houston works. Who makes the decisions about where resources are spent and so determines the growth and wealth of the community.

My Own Breathing

"My Own Breathing" is the final documentary of the trilogy, The Murmuring about comfort women during the World War II directed by BYUN Young-joo. This is the completion of her seven years work. BYUN's first and second documentaries spoke of grandmothers' everyday life through the origin of their torment, while My Own Breathing goes back to their past from their everyday life. Deleting any device of narration or music, the camera lets grandmothers talk about themselves. Finally, the film revives their deep voices trampled by harsh history.

Ulysse

At the sea shore, a goat, a child, and a naked man. This is a photograph taken in 1954 by Agnès Varda. The goat was dead, the child was named Ulysses, and the man was naked. Starting from this frozen image, the film explores the real and the imaginary.

Sunken Eldorado: The New Underwater Gold Rush?

For thousands of years, gold has been the most treasured and coveted of all metals. But extraction sites are dwindling and what little gold that remains is harder and harder to mine. However, there is a place where you can still find vast quantities of gold. Underwater archaeology has revealed that 3 million shipwrecks litter the ocean floor, 3,500 of which sunk with cargoes of ’precious metals’ onboard. Billions of dollars worth of gold, just sitting there, at the bottom of the sea. With today’s technology, this gold is in reach.

Ice on Fire

An eye-opening documentary that asks the question: Are we going to let climate change destroy civilization, or will we act on technologies that can reverse it? Featuring never-before-seen solutions on the many ways we can reduce carbon in the atmosphere thus paving the way for temperatures to go down, saving civilization.

The Pathan Project

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