From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Five years in the making, "Pole to Pole with Will Smith" follows the Oscar-winning actor's journey through the planet's most extreme environments from the South Pole to the North Pole. The 57-year-old celebrity travels across all seven continents, taking him from the icefields of Antarctica to the jungles of the Amazon, the mountains of the Himalayas, the deserts of Africa, the islands of the Pacific and the icebergs of the Arctic.
There's a new documentary about Diddy in the wake of his recent criminal trial, in which he was sentenced to 50 months in prison after being found guilty of procuring sex workers. The documentary, titled Sean Combs: The Reckoning, has gotten a lot of buzz due to the fact that it was executive produced by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, who has had a longstanding public beef with Diddy.
The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its 2026 lineup, which includes the world premiere of a Courtney Love documentary titled Antiheroine. Co-directed by Edward Lovelace and James Hall, the feature film promises to reveal the now-sober Love's "unfiltered and unapologetic" story as she sits on the precipice of releasing new music for the first time in over a decade.
National Geographic's newest documentary "The Tale of Silyan" explores the heartwarming story of a down on his luck farmer's unlikely bond with an injured stork. While chatting with On The Red Carpet, director Tamara Kotevska revealed the meaning behind the title, "'The Tale of Silyan' is a very popular tale in Macedonia. It's (as) popular as Snow White, you know. And uh, we grew up with this tale. This is the first story I heard from my farming grandparents."
Bucharest's iconic Club Guesthouse celebrates 15 years with a new documentary, If These Walls Could Talk, a film that traces the venue's evolution from a hidden house party on Traian 42 to one of Europe's most respected hubs for deep, hypnotic and long-form electronic music. The documentary blends intimate interviews with Cap, Herodot, Edward, Priku and architect Corvin Cristian with rare archive footage capturing the club's quiet rise.
these home movies shot on her husband's phone, originally for family consumption have since been turned into a documentary premiering in British cinemas this December. Prime Minister, the movie, is the latest step in Ardern's campaign for politicians to be allowed to reclaim their humanity, which broadly means the public accepting that they are grappling with the same private pressures as the rest of us (and no doubt similarly making a hash of it at times).
Over Thanksgiving, Disney+ will serve up a delicious treat for Beatles fans: a newly restored and remastered version of The Beatles Anthology documentary film will be released with the addition of a new ninth episode. Marking its streaming debut, the film will debut on Disney+ over three nights: episode 1-3 will launch on November 26th, followed by episodes 4-6 on the 27th, and episodes 7-9 on the 28th.
Jeremy Renner is denying director Yi Zhou's claims that they reached a resolution after she made multiple allegations against him. Earlier this month, Zhou, 37, who collaborated on a documentary earlier this year with Renner, 54, accused the actor of sending her a string of unsolicited pornographic images of himself in June. She alleged that when she confronted Renner about this, he threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on her. Renner later denied those allegations,
which is why, after she took her own life at the height of the COVID lockdowns in 2021, her grieving family turned to the master documentarian to finish her last film. It was an impossible task since, as Berliner put it, "I could never duplicate the mystery and beauty that Benita always brought to her work." So instead of completing a final act, Berliner chose to craft a collaboration, a magical cinematic conversation of sorts, between himself and his mentee.
Ryan White's stirring "Come See Me in the Good Light," which follows poet and activist Andrea Gibson and their wife Megan Falley after Gibson is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, led all films with six nominations, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature, Direction, and Unforgettable Honors for Gibson and Falley. (Just yesterday, White was announced as one of our IndieWire Honors honorees for this year.)
These Are The Spectacular Winning Photos In The 2017 Best Aerial Photography Contest An Artist Puts Our Modern World's Problems On A Plate, Literally 37,4: A Photographic Project of Carlo Pettinelli Selection of Finalists for Bird Photographer of the Year 2021 The Orphans Of Mother Russia: An Intimate Look At The Daily Life In The Ancient City Of Pskov This Photograprer Has Captured A Bunch Of Little Caesar's Pizza Pies In Unusual Locations And Situations Throughout LA
Despite the joy Zimri brings Savoy, the fact that Zimri will never meet his grandfather compounds his grief, as does Zimri arriving into this world with serious health complications. So Savoy decided to capture this moment in time in a short documentary, also titled Big Bryce Son. Savoy hosts the documentary's Oakland premiere on Friday, Nov. 14, at Rhythm Section Art Lounge for two screenings at 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.
As an Israeli Jew fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Shuster Eliassi could nimbly weave between different audiences, and what started as short comedic videos on social media soon became an invitation from Harvard to develop a full-on stand-up routine skewering the idea of coexistence as it's often used in the Israeli-Palestinian context. The show would riff on her upbringing in one of the only joint Israeli-Palestinian communities in the country, threading a fine needle with self-deprecating humor and an activist's edge.
Sugarcane was directed by Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie and takes a hard look at the injustice and abuse inside the Canadian Indian residential school system. It begins with the discovery of unmarked graves, at the school run by the Catholic Church of Canada and follows the abuse, and forced separation of children, shining a light on a community's heartbreak, and beauty in the face of uncovered facts.
In 1988, the United States entered into its worst drought since the Dust Bowl. Crops withered in fields nationwide, part of an estimated $60bn in damage ($160bn in 2025). Dust storms swept the midwest and northern Great Plains. Cities instituted water restrictions. That summer, unrelentingly hot temperatures killed between 5,000 and 10,000 people, and Yellowstone national park suffered the worst wildfire in its history.
"One Golden Summer" takes us back to simpler times, when Chicago collectively rejoiced around the winning Little League Jackie Robinson West (JRW) team from the South Side of Chicago, the first all-Black team to rally through the end-of-summer tournament. Like any kid, the only narrative I cared about at that time was the batter's count and runs scored. Despite its overall positive light, we see the shadows more clearly in this production.
But it wasn't a given Bowers would compose the score for Proudfoot's feature debut, " The Eyes of Ghana." "Because it's a lot of work, right? It's like, 'OK, it's six months of my life,' Proudfoot told IndieWire during an interview at the 2025 Middleburg Film Festival. "When you decide, 'OK, this project feels like it's part of my body of work,' it's a big decision, one that I take seriously.
Hot off a sold-out premieres in the San Rafael, Ojai and Los Angeles, we're thrilled to bring The Man Who Saves the World? to SF! Are you tired of traditional feature documentaries? Executive produced by comedy legends Danny McBride and Peter Farrelly, acclaimed director Gabe Polsky captures the extraordinary journey of Patrick McCollum - a fearless, free-spirited seeker traveling through the Amazon on a mission to inspire unity and peace.
The Invisible Mammal tells the captivating story of a dedicated team of women scientists as they strive to protect North America's bats against a deadly disease rapidly spreading across the continent. The film, directed by San Francisco filmmaker Kristin Tièche and produced by Matthew Podolsky (Sea of Shadows) follows a team of women bat biologists into underground habitats as they work to save a rapidly disappearing species: the little brown bat.
During fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Nouhad was forced to flee her home in southern Lebanon. While others speak of loss and destruction, the 81-year-old speaks of her beloved olive grove her life's work and a symbol of resilience amid the chaos. But when the Israeli military rains down white phosphorus, burning her beloved trees, she must confront the unbearable truth of losing not just her land, but a part of herself.
If you're programming your own little horror film festival in the run-up to Halloween, and Tobe Hooper's stone-cold classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from 1974 is part of the lineup, then this would make a handy follow-up for a night's viewing. It's not a making-of movie, although there are snippets of insight into the production's process; nor is it a meta-commentary at the rather sprawling level of Room 237, the delirious doc about The Shining.
