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Browse by Length

Short = under 10 minutes; Medium= 10 minutes to 30 minutes; Feature= 30 minutes and over

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Climate Change & The Rich

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Climate Change & The Rich

This documentary examines the intersection of socioeconomic status and environmental impact, highlighting the vast disparities in individual carbon footprints. Through a sociological lens, the film shows how class shapes consumption patterns, with extreme wealth enabling carbon-intensive lifestyles (e.g., private jets, luxury cars, yachts).

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Food Sovereignty

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Food Sovereignty

Today, many Native Americans live in food apartheid and insecurity. But it wasn't always this way. Once, their lands were abundant with nutritious food sources—corn, bison, potatoes, squash, and more. So… what happened? Forced relocation meant that entire Indigenous food systems were ripped away. This triggered a public health crisis and forced a dependence on government rations that just can’t compare.

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Video Game NPCs and Capitalism

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Video Game NPCs and Capitalism

The New York Times, 2024, 20:20… Here, we reflect on the question of work and what’s supposed to be normal. Despite the game’s turn-of-the-century setting, the labor routines, activity patterns — as well as bugs and malfunctions — paint a vivid analogy for how workers today toil under capitalism. Can we, the nonplayer characters of a political economy that controls, exploits and alienates us, find a way to rebel against the absurdity of our own activities?

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The Fraud of Plastic Recycling

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The Fraud of Plastic Recycling

CBS Sunday Mornings, 2024, 5:02… About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the United States each year, but only 5 to 6 percent of it is actually recycled. A new report from the Center for Climate Integrity, "The Fraud of Plastic Recycling," accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign to "mislead" the public about the viability of recycling. Correspondent Ben Tracy talks with the report's co-author, Davis Allen, and with Jan Dell, a former chemical engineer, about an inconvenient truth surrounding the lifecycle of plastic.

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The Iron Cage of Prior Authorizations

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The Iron Cage of Prior Authorizations

The New York Times, 2024, 8:37... Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary? Doctors are often required to get insurance permission before providing medical care. This process is called prior authorization and it can be used by profit-seeking insurance companies to create intentional barriers between patients and the health care they need. At best, it’s just a minor bureaucratic headache. At worst, people have died.

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Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017)

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Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017)

The documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017) explores a fascinating case of “Munchausen syndrome by proxy” (aka factitious disorder imposed on another), an abusive situation whereby a parent or guardian forces an imagined illness onto a vulnerable dependent. As a result, the once-healthy person often becomes sick from forced treatments and/or unnecessary medication.

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Jawline (2019)

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Jawline (2019)

Jawline (2019) is an intimate look into young men aspiring to social media fame. Profiling a number of “influencers,” the film focuses on a teenage boy as he attempts to grow his social media followers. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok mean that celebrity is no longer institutionalized in Hollywood but rather available to anyone with a camera and Internet connection. While this has democratized celebrity to some degree, it has also opened the door to self-professed “experts” who seek to exploit those hoping to go viral.

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Tickled (2016)

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Tickled (2016)

Tickled (2016) is essentially a film about how the YouTube-based world of “competitive tickling” is run by a secretive exploitative millionaire named David D’Amato, a man who inherited his fortune and served as an assistant principal to 8 different high schools over the course of just 10 years. D’Amato would pay young straight men to tickle and be tickled by their friends, all on film, all completely clothed, and all under the guise of a homophobic, pseudo-religious media organization called Jane O’Brien media.

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Voyeur (2017)

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Voyeur (2017)

The documentary Voyeur (2017) has two subjects. The first is Gerald Foos, a voyeur who secretly observed guests at his motel. Foos built an observation platform above the motel’s rooms and spent decades spying on guests through fake ceiling air vents. In violating the privacy of his guests, Foos witnesses their unmanaged backstage selves in addition to sexual acts, heated arguments, and even a murder. Even more intriguing, Foos considers this to be his “research”

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Icarus (2017)

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Icarus (2017)

In Icarus (2017, we learn how the deception of Olympic officials was accomplished, how the Russian government directly sponsored the illegal doping program, and how far the government was willing to go in their attempts to cover up the mess—denials, lies, and assassinations. Revelations made in this film implicate all levels of the Russian state bureaucracy, nearly every Russian athlete, and the International Olympic Committee which turned a blind eye for years. The film makes us question the fairness of modern athletics and whether steroid-free sports are still possible.  

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The Florida Project (2017)

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The Florida Project (2017)

While any brief description of The Florida Project (2017) may paint the setting and characters as delinquents engaged in a destructive lifestyle, what makes this film beautiful are the extraordinary acts of kindness, love, and mutual support. For example, arguments between characters often later give way to sharing cigarettes and other small acts of compassion. This demonstration of empathy is evident in director Sean Baker’s other films as well, most notably Tangerine (2015).  

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Obit (2016)

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Obit (2016)

Who gets an obituary in the New York Times? Obit (2016) gives us a glimpse inside the most prestigious obituary outlet in modern day America. Editors and writers tell us what makes for a good obituary as well as the types of people they profile in these widely-read life histories. We also learn about the history of obits such as how old obits used to avoid words like “death” or “died”. Moreover, did you know many obituaries of famous people are written well before they die? These are called “advances” and are often composed when notable individuals become ill or pass a certain age.

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Hail Satan? (2019)

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Hail Satan? (2019)

Hail Satan? (2019) is an exciting documentary that focuses on non-theistic satanism as a means to maintain a secular democracy. The film presents The Satanic Temple as a religious and political organization where satanism functions as a socio-political counter myth. They don’t see themselves as anti-Christianity but rather post-Christianity, and they advocate for religious pluralism. It is very intersectional, too!

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Cooked: Survival by Zip Code (2019)

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Cooked: Survival by Zip Code (2019)

Cooked: Survival by Zipcode (2019) tells the story of the tragic 1995 Chicago heatwave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in which 739 citizens died over the course of just a single week, most of them poor, elderly, and African American. This is a story about life, death, and the politics of crisis in an American city that asks the questions: What if we approached poverty through the lens of disaster management?

Credit Card Rewards & Inequality

Credit Card Rewards & Inequality

The New York Times, 2023, 5:21… The enticements for credit card rewards programs promise fantasies. And for the privileged members who can convert taps of plastic into points, and those points into luxury, the process can feel like digital alchemy, or at least a delightful refutation of that adage about a free lunch. But as the Opinion Video above explains, that lunch — or that points-purchased round-trip ticket to the Seychelles — isn’t really free. Which raises the question: Who’s paying for it? Well, we all are.