Bacon-Freud, face à face (2025)

Saving Venice

Rising sea levels and sinking land threaten to destroy Venice. Leading scientists and engineers battling the forces of nature to try to save this historic city for future generations. Discover the innovative projects and feats of engineering currently underway, including a hi-tech flood barrier, eco-projects to conserve the lagoon, and new efforts to investigate erosion beneath the city.

Paul Auster: What If

A look at the world of US writer Paul Auster, on the occasion of the publication of his new novel, an exploration of human identity and the soul of New York, the city that Auster has portrayed as no one else has ever done.

The Sparks Brothers

Take a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers Ron & Russell Mael, celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks: your favorite band’s favorite band.

Ailey

Alvin Ailey was a visionary artist who found salvation through dance. Told in his own words and through the creation of a dance inspired by his life, this immersive portrait follows a man who, when confronted by a world that refused to embrace him, determined to build one that would.

Yo, Ocaña

A portrait of the Spanish painter José Pérez Ocaña (1947-83), who used transvestism and performances as his calling card.

The Lost Weekend: A Love Story

May Pang lovingly recounts her life in rock & roll and the whirlwind 18 months spent as friend, lover, and confidante to one of the towering figures of popular culture, John Lennon, in this funny, touching, and vibrant portrait of first love.

Ibáñez

The life and work of the legendary Francisco Ibáñez, brilliant cartoonist, creator of Clever & Smart and many other characters through whom he has portrayed Spanish society for over seven decades, with wild humor, subtle cruelty and much tenderness.

The Man Who Defied Beijing

A portrait of Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017), a witness of the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989), a dissident, a woodpecker who tirelessly pecked the putrid brain of the Communist regime for decades, demanding democracy loudly and fearlessly. Silenced, arrested, convicted, imprisoned, dead. Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2010, alive forever. These are his last words.

Goya, Carrière & the Ghost of Buñuel

French writer Jean-Claude Carrière (1931-2021) traces the life and work of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).

Livet är kort, konsten lång – filmen om Åke Göransson

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The Méliès Mystery

A documentary that details the process of restoring 270 of the 520 lost films of pioneering director Georges Méliès, all orchestrated by a Franco-American collaboration between Lobster Films, the National Film Center, and the Library of Congress.

Gena Rowlands: A Life on Film

An intimate portrait of the superb actress Gena Rowlands, icon of independent cinema. Together with her husband, legendary director John Cassavetes (1929-89), she lived an unusual life beyond the dream factory, a life in which reality and fiction were so perfectly intertwined that it made possible films that still today seem incredibly real.

Heaven Adores You

Heaven Adores You is an intimate, meditative inquiry into the life and music of Elliott Smith. By threading the music of Elliott Smith through the dense, yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in -- Portland, New York City, Los Angeles -- Heaven Adores You presents a visual journey and an earnest review of the singer's prolific songwriting and the impact it continues to have on fans, friends, and fellow musicians.

Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire

Actress Sally Field looks at the dramatic life and successful career of the superb actress Barbara Stanwyck (1907-90), a Hollywood legend.

Christopher Reeve, Superman Forever

A French documentary on Superman actor Christopher Reeve as told by his French voice dubbing actor, Pierre Arditi.

Imagine: John Lennon

The biography of former Beatle, John Lennon—narrated by Lennon himself—with extensive material from Yoko Ono's personal collection, previously unseen footage from Lennon's private archives, and interviews with David Bowie, his first wife Cynthia, second wife Yoko Ono and sons Julian and Sean.

Lady Gaga - Encore

Gaga has travelled through time with her ever changing sound, reinventing herself for every album, award ceremony and red carpet. With a strong fan base behind her, she continues to reign as one of the biggest pop stars of the industry.

Straight to VHS

Act of Violence Upon a Young Journalist is a film shot in 1988 and released on VHS in 1989; a mysterious cult work of Uruguayan cinema surrounded by strange theories about Manuel Lamas, its unknown creator. Until now.

War Photographer

Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.

Barbra Streisand: Becoming an Icon 1942–1984

Barbra Streisand grew up in working class Brooklyn, dreaming of escape from her tough childhood. A stellar student, she resisted the pressure to go to college as her sights were firmly set on Broadway. She was determined to become an actress and landed her first role aged 16, but it was two years later, when she started to sing, that her career took off. Subverting stereotypes and breaking glass ceilings, this programme looks at her rise to stardom and the remarkable achievements of her early career.

Matthew Perry: Not just Friends

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La Cicciolina: Godmother of Scandal

The personal and professional story of Ilona Staller, known as Cicciolina, is probably unique: she left communist Hungary and moved to Italy, where she found a fertile environment for a life dedicated to scandal.

Hermitage: The Power of Art

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Fellinopolis

Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.

Becoming Cary Grant

For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.

TS Eliot: Into 'The Waste Land'

An exploration of TS Eliot's The Waste Land, in its centenary year, that for the first time uncovers the personal story behind Eliot's creation of his celebrated poem.

Faces Places

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power

The views and thoughts of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood have never been more relevant than today. Readers turn to her work for answers as they confront the rise of authoritarian leaders, deal with increasingly intrusive technologies, and discuss climate change. Her books are useful as survival tools for hard times. But few know her private life. Who is the woman behind the stories? How does she always seem to know what is coming?

I Cut Off His Penis: The Truth Behind The Headlines

A shocking act, its baffling legacy - the gripping true crime doc. When Mrs Bobbit cut off her husband's penis in 1993, similar cases followed. Why?

The Memory of Cinema: A Film About Fernando Méndez-Leite

A look at the life and work of Spanish filmmaker and film critic Fernando Méndez-Leite, as he writes his memoirs and a novel with autobiographical resonances.

We Remember Marilyn

We Remember Marilyn. Marilyn Monroe transforms from Norma Jean, a cuddly teenager, into the most recognizable face and body in the world in these home movies, photos and film clips which span her early bit parts to her most known roles.

The Incredible Mr. Piccoli

A captivating portrait of French actor Michel Piccoli, who has worked with the greatest filmmakers of his time and has built a dazzling career of remarkable merit and success, focusing on his work during the 1970s and his professional relationship with Claude Sautet, Romy Schneider, Marco Ferreri and Luis Buñuel.

Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.

Coco Chanel Unbuttoned

The story of original influencer Coco Chanel, whose designs still represent the zenith of female sexuality, style and power.

With Love from Truman

At his Long Island beach house, and on the occasion of the publication of his masterful nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, reporter Karen Dennison interviews celebrated writer Truman Capote, who displays his exuberant personality, makes witty jokes, shares his thoughts on writing, reflects on various aspects of the book and, in a sweet and endearing voice, reads and explains some of its highlights.

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.

The Painting

For three and a half centuries, from the same day that Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) applied his last brushstroke to the canvas, the enigma of “Las meninas, o La familia de Felipe IV” (1656) has not been deciphered. The secret story of a painting unveiled as if it was the resolution of a perfect crime.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.

Babenco: Tell Me When I Die

Besieged by cancer and nearing the end, the genius Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco (1946-2016) asks Bárbara Paz, his wife, for one last wish: to be the protagonist of his own death.

Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer

An account of the life and work of Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-86) in his own words: his memories, his vision of art and his reflections on the fate of the artist and the meaning of human existence; through extremely rare audio recordings that allow a complete understanding of his inner life and the mysterious world existing behind his complex cinematic imagery.

Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself

A portrait of French filmmaker Michel Gondry, creator, for three decades, of an imperfect, astonishing, fascinating, damaged and poetic work.

The Capote Tapes

A portrait of the brilliant American writer Truman Capote (1924-84) and the New York high society of his time.

Let's Get Lost

Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least one movie and at least one jail cell (for drug possession). And, we see the aged Baker, detached, indifferent, his face a ruin. Includes interviews with his children and ex-wife, women companions, and musicians.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema.

Becoming Marilyn

The story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.

Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast

In the late 1990s, iconic photographer Bruce Weber barely managed to convince legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-97) to let himself be filmed simply hanging out with friends, telling anecdotes from his life and recording jazz standards.

Dark Star: H. R. Giger's World

An account of the life and work of Swiss painter, sculptor, architect and designer H. R. Giger (1940-2014), tormented father of creatures as fearsome as they are fascinating, inhabitants of nightmarish biomechanical worlds.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, artiste absolu

The life and work of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat have been marked by a long quest for identity, by his Haitian and Puerto Rican family origins and by a founding trip to Africa. To portray this major painter of the 20th century, who died in 1988 at only 27 years old, is also to evoke the place of black American artists in the conservative and racist America of the Reagan years.

The Lost Leonardo

London, England, 2008. Some of the most distinguished experts on the work of Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) gather at the National Gallery to examine a painting known as Salvator Mundi; an event that turns out to be the first act of one of the most fascinating stories in the history of art.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.

Visions of Light

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.

Salman Rushdie: Death on a Trail

An intimate portrait, in his own words, of the Indian writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988), thirty years after the fatwa uttered by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini: his youth in multicultural Bombay, his life in England, his many years of forced hiding, his thoughts on President Trump's United States of America.

Burden of Dreams

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.