Browse documentary movie and series in New Zealand
Dive into the world of documentary movie and series in New Zealand. From timeless classics to trending hits, explore an exciting collection of titles that define the documentary genre.
Explore critically acclaimed blockbusters, hidden gems, and trending new releases that showcase the diversity and creativity of documentary storytelling. Use our filters to find top-rated titles, recent hits, or beloved classics tailored to your taste.
With Popcorn Time, uncover your next favorite movie or TV show and enjoy the best of documentary entertainment. Start browsing now and bring documentary into your watchlist today!
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In the history of sports, few names are more recognizable than that of Evel Knievel. Long after the man hung up his famous white leather jumpsuit and rode his Harley into the sunset, his name is still synonymous with the death-defying lifestyle he led. Notoriously brash, bold, and daring, Knievel stared death in the face from the seat of his motorcycle, but few know the larger-than-life story of the boy from Butte, Montana.
Being Evel (2015 )
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Frackman tells the story of accidental activist Dayne Pratzky and his struggle against international gas companies. Australia will soon become the world's biggest gas exporter as more than 30,000 'fracked' wells are sunk in the state of Queensland where Dayne lives. He and his neighbours have unwittingly become the centre of a massive industrial landscape and they have no legal right to stop mining on their land. Dayne embarks on a journey that transforms him from conservative pig-shooter to sophisticated global activist as the Frackman. He meets the people drawn into a battle that is crossing the ideological divide, bringing together a peculiar alliance of farmers, activists and political conservatives. Along the way Dayne encounters love, tragedy and triumph.
Frackman (2015 )
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With great bawdiness and backbone, a rugby team made up of farmers strive to redeem themselves from a long run of bitter losses. In the face of the hefty demands of farming and fatherhood, the Saturday game becomes the focus of the men’s passions and the ground on which their worth is proved. ‘The Ground We Won’ is a highly authentic, slice of life film about the challenges and joys of manhood, as seen through the rites and rituals of a rural New Zealand rugby club.
The Ground We Won (2015 )
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The larger than life true story of how a barmaid in a poor Welsh mining village convinces some of her fellow residents to pool their resources to compete in the "sport of kings" with a racehorse they would breed and raise.
Dark Horse (2015 )
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The life and career of the power lifter.
CT Fletcher: My Magnificent Obsession (2015 )
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A look at the life and music of legendary singer and civil rights activist, Mavis Staples.
Mavis! (2015 )
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Jon Mikl Thor was a bodybuilding, steel bending, brick smashing rock star in the '70s & '80s whose band, Thor, never quite made it big. Years later he attempts a comeback that nearly kills him.
I Am Thor (2015 )
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An Inspirational film about the power of family and music, told through the lives if Greece's most famous musical clan, from the island of Crete. The film captures the Xylouris family at crossroads: fifty - year old Giorgis performs non-stop to satisfy his passionate fans, while his Australian wife and manager Shelagh, struggles to keep the family together. Their three children find new freedom abroad, but struggle to uphold the music of their homeland, while finding their own voice. 'A Family Affair' reveals how this age-old and little known musical tradition is passed on from father to son to grandchildren. it brings to light the redemptive but also obstructive power of a strong family, while bringing us closer to the intimate process of the creation of music.
A Family Affair (2015 )
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The 1970s punk rock movement: New York had the Ramones, London had the Sex Pistols, Australia had the Saints. Stranded takes a look at the role four musicians from suburban Brisbane played in the explosion of one of the all time greatest musical movements. Featuring interviews with the members of the band, including its leaders Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey, as well as the likes of Sir Bob geldof, former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra and Buzzcocks guitarist Steve Diggle, Stranded examines how the oppresive and conservative government of Joh Bjelke-Peterson in the 1970s helped act as a catalyst for the rise of punk rock in Australia, and how as a result The Saints went on to be one of the most influential bands in the country.
Stranded (2015 )
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A look at the history of the American comedy publication and production company, National Lampoon, from its beginning in the 1970s to 2010, featuring rare and never before seen footage, this is the mind boggling story of The National Lampoon from its subversive and electrifying beginnings, to rebirth as an unlikely Hollywood heavyweight, and beyond. A humour empire like no other, the impact of the magazines irreverent, often shocking, sensibility was nothing short of seismic: this is an institution whose (drunk stoned brilliant) alumni left their fingerprints all over popular culture. Both insanely great and breathtakingly innovative, The National Lampoon created the foundation of modern comic sensibility by setting the bar in comedy impossibly high.
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon (2015 )
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Set in the Golden Age of Aviation, Andrew Lancaster follows the life and times of his great uncle, Captain Bill Lancaster. Against his family's wishes, he uncovers a fascinating tale of high adventures, obsession, a love triangle and a sensational murder trial.
The Lost Aviator (2015 )
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The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they're one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he's covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early '90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don't Blink is Israel's like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.
Don't Blink - Robert Frank (2015 )
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To understand firsthand what the United States of America can learn from other nations, Michael Moore playfully “invades” some to see what they have to offer.
Where to Invade Next (2015 )
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An inspiring, triumphant and wickedly funny portrait of one of comedy’s most enigmatic and important figures, CALL ME LUCKY tells the story of Barry Crimmins, a beer-swilling, politically outspoken and whip-smart comic whose efforts in the 70s and 80s fostered the talents of the next generation of standup comedians. But beneath Crimmins’ gruff, hard-drinking, curmudgeonly persona lay an undercurrent of rage stemming from his long-suppressed and horrific abuse as a child – a rage that eventually found its way out of the comedy clubs and television shows and into the political arena.
Call Me Lucky (2015 )
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A dramatization of the events at Gallipoli using the letters of the soldiers who were there.
25 April (2015 )
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In 2013, the world's media reported on a shocking mountain-high brawl as European climbers fled a mob of angry Sherpas. Director Jennifer Peedom and her team set out to uncover the cause of this altercation, intending to film the 2014 climbing season from the Sherpa's point-of-view. Instead, they captured Everest's greatest tragedy, when a huge block of ice crashed down onto the climbing route...
Sherpa (2015 )
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Panti Bliss is many things: part glamorous aunt, part Jessica Rabbit, she's a wittily incisive performer with charisma to burn who is regarded as one of the best drag queens in the business. Created by Rory O'Neill, Panti is also an accidental activist and in her own words 'a court jester, whose duty is to say the un-sayable'. Over the last few years Rory has become a figurehead for LGBT rights in Ireland and since the recent scandal around Pantigate, his fight for equality and against homophobia has been recognised all around the world.
The Queen of Ireland (2015 )
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A documentary about Caroll Spinney who has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969. At 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.
I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story (2015 )
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Based on Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, a look at how people in various communities around the world play a role in the ongoing climate change debate and how they're affecting change in trying to prevent the environmental destruction of our planet.
This Changes Everything (2015 )
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The film takes place on December 21, 2012, while the people of the town of Quillagua await the supposed "end of the world" that the Mayans predicted for that day.
El final del día (2015 )
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A logging engineer, a centuries old tree, and the decision that questions both business and personal values.
Hadwin's Judgement (2015 )
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A feature documentary on African American ballerina Misty Copeland that examines her prodigious rise, her potentially career ending injury alongside themes of race and body image in the elite ballet world.
A Ballerina's Tale (2015 )
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Karski & The Lords of Humanity is a feature-length partially animated documentary project. The film tells the story of a member of the Polish underground who acted as a courier during World War II and whose most prominent mission was to inform the Allied powers of Nazi crimes against the Jews of Europe in an effort to prevent the Holocaust.
Karski & The Lords of Humanity (2015 )
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Hollywood stars, historical footage and stylized reenactments tell the story of costume designer Orry-Kelly, who ruled Tinseltown fashion for decades.
Women He's Undressed (2015 )
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The story of fashion designer Jeremy Scott's ascent from a small town in Missouri to his current position as the Creative Director of Moschino.
Jeremy Scott: The People's Designer (2015 )
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An American journalist, a British sake brewer and the president of a centenary Japanese sake brewery join together to explore the mysterious world of sake, a generic name for Japanese rice wine, actually a sort of liquor. These unique individuals, fascinated by this extraordinary beverage, investigate the spectacular world that has grown around it thorough ages.
Kampai! For the Love of Sake (2015 )
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Every nuclear weapon made, every watt of electricity produced from a nuclear power plant leaves a trail of nuclear waste that will last for the next four hundred generations. We face the problem of how to warn the far distant future of the nuclear waste we have buried --but how to do it? How to imagine the far-distant threats to the sites, what kinds of monuments can be built, could stories or legends safeguard our descendants? Filmed at the only American nuclear burial ground, at a nuclear weapons complex and in Fukushima, the film grapples with the ways people are dealing with the present problem and imagining the future. Part observational essay, part graphic novel, this documentary explores the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
Containment (2015 )
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Featuring the not-to-be-missed legendary foods that define a location. These are the unique dishes we're willing to travel halfway around the world to sample. Each episode features one locale and at least four of five iconic foods that define the location. Delicious Destinations explores how they are made and take viewers inside the kitchens, factories and farms where these foods are created. We dig into the origin of these popular foods and how they've evolved over time. And for those who like their meals well-seasoned, we dish on the sometimes special lingo associated with these foods and the surprising table manners you absolutely need to know. This is a series that is guaranteed to make you hungry!
Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations (2015 )
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A unique mix of editorial integrity, first-person storytelling and dynamic visual elements focusing on Vanity Fair's most fascinating stories and compelling scandals.
Vanity Fair Confidential (2015 )
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André's Eyes is an experimental docudrama in which the actual family members themselves participate in the recreation of their own story. Set in a small village in the Portuguese countryside, the film follows the struggle of a divorced father to keep his family together after his youngest son is taken away from them and placed in a foster family.
André's Eyes (2015 )
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The Way We Talk is a personal documentary intimately centered around a support group for people who stutter on their journey toward self-acceptance.
The Way We Talk (2015 )
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Filmed in Netherlands and London this special commemorates 70 years since Anne Frank's death. With unique interviews with Anne's step sister, Eva Schloss and Gillian Walnes, a survivor from Auschwitz who now runs the Anne Frank Trust in the UK and Ronald Leopold, the Director of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. In 1933, the Nazis rose to power. Five years later, in 1938, Eva Schloss remembers the Nazis marching on Austria and then she and her family fleeing and settling in Amsterdam the same year. They found they were in the same residential square as the Franks with their young daughter, Anne. Anne and Eva found a bond from the shared experience of being displaced by the Nazis.
The Diary of Anne Frank: A Tale of Two Sisters (2015 )