Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Sun Ra and his Arkestra • 1980 • 59 minutes

Robert Mugge filmed jazz great Sun Ra on location in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. between 1978 and 1980. The resulting 60-minute film includes multiple public and private performances, poet...

Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Gil Scott-Heron • 1983 • 79 minutes

BLACK WAX is a musical-political entertainment film produced and directed by Robert Mugge. It centers on the late African American poet-singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron - the man Melody Maker called "the most dang...

Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Ken Tucker • 1984 • 66 minutes

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AL GREEN looks at Green's transition from hugely successful soul singer to gospel artist and fundamentalist preacher. Filmed in concert in Washington, D.C., in rehearsal in...

Directed by Thomas Robsahm • Documentary • With Morten Harket, Pål Waaktaar, Magne Furuholmen • 2021 • 108 minutes

Follows the band a-ha on tour, telling the full story of how three young men followed their impossible dream of becoming Norwegian pop stars. When Take On Me reached number 1 on Bil...

Directed by Chris Hunt • Documentary • With Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad • 2019 • 51 minutes

It's been 50 years since Abba's founders met, 40 since their last concert, and 20 since Mama Mia! became a worldwide phenomena. This multi-Gold Award-winning doc t...

Directed by John Scheinfeld • Documentary • With Micky Dolenz, Terry Gilliam • 2010 • 116 minutes

In this definitive documentary on the Grammy® award winning music legend Harry Nilsson, friends, family and colleagues delve into the acclaimed singer-songwriter's music, creative process and person...

Directed by Robert Mugge • Documentary • With Rubén Blades, Linda Ronstadt, Nat Hentoff • 1985 • 82 minutes

THE RETURN OF RUBEN BLADES follows the singer to Harvard, where he gets his master's degree in international law; to his old neighborhood in Panama; to California for a recording session w...

Directed by Fazila Amiri • Documentary • 2023 • 90 minutes

Amidst the United States and Taliban peace negotiations, Afghanistan’s controversial pop star and activist Aryana Sayeed mentors hopeful contestants on the hit singing TV series Afghan Star, including the only two female singers, Zahra E...

Directed by Roberto de Oliveira, Jom Tob Azulay • Documentary • With Tom Jobim, Elis Regina • 2023 • 101 minutes

Los Angeles, 1974. Tom Jobim, the incarnation of Bossa Nova, and Elis Regina, then Brazil's most popular singer, met to record what would become one of the most iconic albums in the h...

Directed by Rita Baghdadi • Documentary • With Lilas Mayassi, Shery Bechara • 2022 • 80 minutes

SIRENS intimately chronicles the lives and music of Slave to Sirens, a band made up of five young metalheads whose burgeoning fame is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese revolution. Its members w...

Directed by Julie Simone • Documentary • With Presley Barker, Wayne C. Henderson, Kitty Amaral • 2019 • 88 minutes

Sister filmmakers Julie Simone and Vicki Vlasic return to their Appalachian roots to film at the world's oldest Fiddler's Convention. With multiple generations jamming together, Fid...

Directed by Adam Bhala Lough, Ethan Higbee • Documentary • With Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Paul McCartney, The Clash, Bunny Wailer, Marcus Garvey, Carl Bradshaw, Eve, Benicio Del Toro • 2008 • 95 minutes

THE UPSETTER tells the wild, weed-fueled story of Lee “Scratch” Perry — a ...

Directed by Jørgen Leth, Andreas Koefoed • Documentary • With Jakob Bro, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell • 2022 • 92 minutes

An informed and intimate portrayal of the jazz scene that offers revelatory glimpses for fans of the genre, Music For Black Pigeons strikes a universal chord in its p...

Directed by Patrick Savey • Documentary • With Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Miles Davis • 2014 • 97 minutes

Patrick Savey plunges us into Marcus’s world, capturing the New York roots of the legendary bass player, following his path like the pebbles of Tom Thumb, as he meets mast...

Directed by Mark Robinson • Documentary • With Butch Willis, Jeff Krulik, Mark Robinson, Gibby Haynes, Ian MacKaye, Guy Picciotto, Karl Hendricks, Brendan Canty • 2020 • 73 minutes

Butch Willis is a Washington, D.C. rock legend. Born and raised in 1960s suburban Maryland, Byron Henry "Butch" Wil...

Directed by Hanley Banks • Documentary • With Bill Callahan • 2014 • 65 minutes

This strikingly shot concert documentary follows enigmatic Drag City singer-songwriter Bill Callahan on a two-week tour from California to New York. For the past 25 years, under both the Smog moniker and under his ow...

Directed by Daniel Fetherston and Danny Szlauderbach • Documentary • With Bill Goffrier, Brent Giessmann, John Nichols, Ron Klaus, Evan Dando, Freedy Johnston, Grant Hart, Thomas Frank • 2022 • 108 minutes

Ignited by punk’s invasion of the Great Plains, America’s gawkiest and greatest lost rock ...

Directed by Roberta Cantow • Documentary • With Guy Klucevsek, William Schimmel, Pauline Oliveros • 2016 • 74 minutes

What if everything we thought we knew about the accordion were wrong? This film shatters the mistaken notions and tells the real story. Accordions have returned, not only with am...

Directed by Florian Habicht • Documentary • With Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle • 2014 • 89 minutes

Though culminating with the farewell concert the band played to thousands of adoring fans in their hometown of Sheffield, England, PULP is by no means a traditional concert film or rock ...

Directed by Eivind Tolas • Documentary • 2012 • 58 minutes

Hipster goes yodel... We follow the philosophy student and yodeler Polkabjørn on his way to the ultimate yodel experiences, and to success. He and his musical companion ”Kleine Heine” take their yodel act from the narrow fjords of Norway...

Directed by Bernard Weber and Martin Schilt • Documentary • 2012 • 90 minutes

For over 20 years the citizens of Wiesenberg have cultivated the same rituals. The singing mountaineers meet once a week in the local church to rehearse together and they yodel for weddings and birthdays. Suddenly, the...

Directed by Makoto Nagahisa • Drama • With Keita Ninomiya, Mondo Okumura, Satoshi Mizuno, Sena Nakajima • 2019 • 120 minutes

When four young orphans—Hikari, Ikuko, Ishi, and Takemura—first meet, their parents’ bodies are being turned into dust, like fine Parmesan atop a plate of spaghetti Bologn...

Directed by Murray Lerner • Documentary • 1979 • 84 minutes

This Oscar-winning film chronicles with affection and intelligence the great violinist’s 1979 visit to China. Stern was supposed to attend a rehearsal and give one recital but instead wound up playing a formal concert, touring two citie...

Directed by François Verster • Documentary • 2002 • 54 minutes

It will take anyone in the world no more than a few bars to recognize this song: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, also sung as "Wimoweh”.

The melody has been covered at least two hundred times by artists as diverse as James Last, Henri Sa...