Movies Similar to Riefenstahl

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations(1938)

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty(1938)

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

Gene Tierney: A Forgotten Star(2017)

Martin Scorsese is among those paying tribute to Gene Tierney, the Academy Award-nominated American actress who was a leading lady in Hollywood throughout the 1940s and '50s.

1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year(2009)

This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.

Land Without Bread(1933)

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Batman & Bill(2017)

Everyone thinks that Bob Kane created Batman, but that’s not the whole truth. One author makes it his crusade to make it known that Bill Finger, a struggling writer, actually helped invent the iconic superhero, from concept to costume to the very character we all know and love. Bruce Wayne may be Batman’s secret identity, but his creator was always a true mystery.

Edith Piaf: A Passionate Life(2004)

This documentary about legendary French chanteuse Edith Piaf begins at her birth (which was helped along by a cop), travels through her turbulent romantic history, follows her to the pinnacle of her success and reports on her death. Piaf was queen of the torch song, her plaintive wail speaking volumes of the tragedy and joy she'd faced. Hers wasn't exactly, in the words of one of her famous songs, "La Vie En Rose," but it was quite a life.

Jorge Semprún, la plume au poing(2024)

Sœur Sourire: Who Killed the Voice of God?(2021)

1962. A crystalline voice becomes a planetary tube. A Belgian nun jostles Elvis and the Beatles on the world charts. Her name: Sister Smile. A popstar with the trajectory of a comet who understands her success no more than the double meaning of her words… The harder the fall will be. Even God does not protect sharks' appetites or pretenses of success! Who killed the little voice of God? Here is the tragic story of an innocent voice, of an extraordinary fate, almost of a curse ...

Tony Curtis: Driven to Stardom(2012)

Tony Curtis, the man who influenced Elvis Presley and James Dean. A sex symbol, a matinee idol, a powerful and magnetic actor, Tony Curtis was the original movie star.

Charlotte Salomon: Life and the Maiden(2022)

In 1940, the German artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-43) undertook an extraordinary artistic adventure, during which she combined painting, text and music: in only eighteen months, she painted more than a thousand paintings. In 1943, she was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

The Tea Coffee Experiment(2017)

A group of friends come up with the brilliant idea of testing the non-existent drink known as "Tea Coffee".

Beside Bowie - The Mick Ronson Story(2017)

Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story is a documentary about the life and work of Michael "Mick" Ronson, the guitarist, songwriter, producer and arranger who, in the early part of his career, performed with David Bowie as one of the 'Spiders from Mars'.

Spielberg(2017)

A documentary on the life and career of one of the most influential film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg.

Khali, La Nouvelle VOIX du Rap Français ! ( documentaire )(2025)

Moje Praha(2002)

Otakar Vávra walks through Prague in front of the camera and with the camera, and remembers those who in the 1930s determined the pulse of the cultural and political life of that time.

After the War, You Have to Tell Everyone About the Dutch Gay Resistance Fighters(1991)

Many members of the Dutch Underground were gay and lesbian. This film pays homage to them and recounts their story.

Barbra Streisand: Becoming an Icon 1942–1984(2017)

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.

Hitlers Traum von Micky Maus - Zeichentrick unterm Hakenkreuz(1999)

The order comes in the summer of 1941 from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney-Quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is re-traced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards. – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi” a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful Multiplane-technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, life-action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the third Reich.

Die guten Feinde(2017)

An intimate quest by a son to understand the identity of his father; a look back at the Berlin of the 30s and a special group of friends who loved life and, in the darkest hours of German history, ultimately chose good over evil.