MTV Documentary Films

Shortlisted - Best Documentary Short Subject for the 2025 Academy Awards. In the days leading up to his execution, Texas death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez seeks redemption from his victim's son; an elegy about the death penalty where a prisoner seeks forgiveness.

DEATH WITHOUT MERCY

Over the course of 10 days after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that left 50,000 people dead in Southern Turkey, Death Without Mercy follows two Syrian families as they piece together the tragedy and uncover revelations about the corruption, lies and government incompetence that exacerbated the disaster and its response.

BLACK BOX DIARIES

Black Box Diaries follows director and journalist Shiori Ito’s courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Unfolding like a thriller and combining secret investigative recordings, vérité shooting and emotional first-person video, Shiori's quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s desperately outdated judicial and societal systems.

MOURNING IN LOD

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict told through three people whose fates become inextricably linked in a vicious cycle of violence. The outpouring of love, anger, forgiveness and sorrow that follows in their wake offers a glimpse of morning light to offset a collective state of mourning with no end in sight. The film provides a first-hand account of the way our individual actions reverberate, amplify and shape the course of each other’s lives.

THE ETERNAL MEMORY

2024 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature. Winner of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary Cinema, The Eternal Memory is directed by the first Chilean woman to be nominated for an Academy Award, Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent). The documentary tells a profound and moving love story that balances vibrant individual and collective remembrance with the longevity of an unbreakable human bond.

THE ABCS OF BOOK BANNING

2024 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short. Over 2,000 books have been removed from school districts in the U.S. The ABCs of Book Banning, directed by Sheila Nevins in her inaugural debut, follows the human toll the future will pay for depriving children of their right to read and learn about a complex world. Interviews with children and authors shed light on this ongoing dangerous precedent.

ROSIE'S THEATER KIDS

Ten years ago, inspired by the teacher who inspired her, actor-comedian Rosie O'Donnell established a school, giving kids access to dance, music, and drama. Through archival footage, interviews, first-person accounts, and performances, this heartwarming and memorable film tells of the life-changing impact that the organization has had on its students and alumni - and how the power of musical theater and the performing arts helps young people unlock their full potential.

AFGHAN DREAMERS

In Afghanistan, an all-girl robotics team risk everything to prove they can build a name for themselves in the world. Working in secret under the Taliban regime and in a male-dominated cultural environment, the girls encounter enormous challenges. With exceptional access, Afghan Dreamers tells an insprirational story about an extraodinarily brave group of young women.

PAY OR DIE

Today, nearly 2 million Americans are being held for ransom. Without insulin, they wont surive. Pay or Die follows families on the receiving end of these ransom notes, revealing the harrowing reality of life with chronic illness in the richest country in the world. This enraging and enlightening film lays bare the human cost of the United States’ insulin affordability crisis, and serves as a call to action against the medical-industrial complex that monetizes our bodies and lives.

THE FIRE THAT TOOK HER

At age 31, mother-of-two Judy Malinowski was doused in petrol and set on fire by her crazed ex-boyfriend. She was also one of the first victims ever to testify from beyond the grave at the trial for her own murder. A story that lives at the intersection of true crime and #MeToo, The Fire That Took Her goes deep inside a landmark case to ask a timely question: How much must women suffer in order to be believed?

LAST FLIGHT HOME

Acclaimed filmmaker Ondi Timoner's (Dig!, We Live in Public) latest film is a deeply personal chronicling of the final days of her 92-year-old father, Eli, as he chooses to end his own life (legally, under California law). The family journeys back through Eli's remarkable yet painful life (Eli Timoner founded Air Florida, the fastest growing airline in the world in the 1970s) to discover what true love looks like. Last Flight Home is a transcendent celebration of life.

ART AND KRIMES BY KRIMES

While locked-up for six years in federal prison, artist Jesse Krimes secretly creates monumental works of art—including an astonishing 40-foot mural made with prison bed sheets, hair gel, and newspaper. He smuggles out each panel piece-by-piece with the help of fellow artists, only seeing the mural in totality upon coming home. As Jesse's work captures the art world's attention, he struggles to adjust to life outside, living with the threat that any misstep will trigger a life sentence.

ANASTASIA

This powerful documentary short spotlights the life of Russian civil rights activist Anastasia Shevchenko as she faces the brutal repercussions of speaking out against her government. Shevchenko endured house arrest for two years, and became the first person found guilty of “organizing activity of an undesirable organization” by a Russian court for her work with the Open Russia movement. Amnesty International declared her a “prisoner of conscience.”

ANGOLA DO YOU HEAR US? VOICES FROM A PLANTATION PRISON

This acclaimed documentary tells the story of playwright Liza Jessie Peterson, whose celebrated play "The Peculiar Patriot" was shut down mid-performance at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola Prison. It examines how one woman's play challenged the country's largest plantation prison and impacted the incarcerated men long after the record of her visit was erased by the institution's administration.

MORE THAN I WANT TO REMEMBER

One night at her home in southeastern Congo, 14-year-old Mugeni awakes to the sounds of bombs. As her family scatters to the surrounding forests to save themselves, Mugeni finds herself completely alone. From there, she sets out on a remarkable solo journey across the globe, determined to reunite with her lost loved ones and lift up the Banyamulenge people.

FAVORITE DAUGHTER

An intimate portrait of director Dana Reilly's grandmother Sylvia Weinstock and mother Janet Isa, sheltering in place together in a lower Manhattan apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Raw and charming, melancholy and funny—a portrait of two women with vastly different experiences coming together and supporting one another through the uncertainty of spending the next chapters of their lives “alone,” without a partner.

AS FAR AS THEY CAN RUN

An intimate, unflinching look at children with intellectual disabilities in rural Pakistan who have been deemed "useless" by their communities. A searing "verité" portrait of three young teenagers who manage to find some acceptance and a place in society through sports. As Far As They Can Run is a moving documentary that offers an insightful window into the world of Special Olympics and the impact this event has on a community.

ASCENSION

2022 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature. Nominated for Best Documentary by the Director's Guild, Producer's Guild, Independent Spirit Awards, and Gotham Awards, and winner of Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, Ascension explores the paradoxical pursuit of wealth and progress in China. This extraordinary documentary follows factory workers, middle class consumers and elites as they chase the elusive "Chinese Dream.”

76 DAYS

On January 23rd, 2020, China locked down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, to combat the emerging COVID-19 outbreak. Set deep inside the frontlines of the crisis in four hospitals, 76 Days tells indelible human stories at the center of this pandemic. These raw and intimate stories bear witness to the death and rebirth of a city under a 76-day lockdown, and to the human resilience that persists in times of profound tragedy.

LYNCHING POSTCARDS: TOKEN OF A GREAT DAY

From 1880 to 1968, over 4000 African Americans were lynched in the United States. Like picnics or parties, lynchings were often carnival-like events commemorated through photos and postcards. This film tells the story of how Black activists subverted these souvenirs, which were celebrations of white supremacy, in the fight against lynching.

ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN

2020 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject. Bruce Franks Jr., a Ferguson activist and battle rapper who was elected to the overwhelmingly white and Republican Missouri House of Representatives, must overcome both personal trauma and political obstacles to pass a bill critical for his community.

CODED: THE HIDDEN LOVE OF J.C. LEYENDECKER

J.C. Leyendecker was one of the most prominent artists of his time, but his story is largely forgotten. Forced to keep his sexuality a secret, his coded imagery spoke directly to the gay community and laid the foundation for LGBTQ+ representation in advertising today.

HUNGER WARD

2021 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject. Filmed inside two of the most active therapeutic feeding centers in conflict-ridden Yemen, Hunger Ward documents two women fighting to thwart the spread of starvation against the backdrop of a forgotten war. With unprecedented access within a sensitive conflict-zone, the documentary reveals the bravery of deeply committed doctors working in the middle of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

AMERICAN SELFIE: ONE NATION SHOOTS ITSELF

From celebrated filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi comes a visceral cross-country journey during one of the most tumultuous years in history. Placing viewers directly within the most consequential events of our era, American Selfie raises critical questions about the stark divisions in how Americans feel, and asks if it's possible to ever find a way to a more perfect union.

R.I.P. T-SHIRTS

Through the lens of a small t-shirt shop outside Washington D.C. and its young customers, R.I.P. T-SHIRTS intimately portrays the current spike in urban gun violence and its effect on Black youth in America.

FINDING YINGYING

Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese student, comes to the U.S. to study. Within weeks of her arrival, Yingying disappears from the campus. Through exclusive access to Yingying’s family and boyfriend, Finding Yingying closely follows their journey as they search to unravel the mystery of her disappearance and seek justice for their daughter while navigating a strange, foreign country

BREE WAYY: PROMISE WITNESS REMEMBRANCE

A film by award-winning director Dawn Porter (John Lewis: Good Trouble, Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer) that looks at how the art world responded to the death of Breonna Taylor by using art not only as a form of protest, but as a space to heal.

MY FATHER THE MOVER

Winner of Best Short Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival. Alatha’s father calls himself a ‘Mover.’ Using African electronic Gqom beats he motivates kids in Khayelitsha, South Africa to find their superpowers. However, his daughter, Alatha, is still looking for her own powers. In an intimate moment together, this is all about to chang

THE MUSICIAN

Winner of Best Animated Short at the Tribeca Film Festival, The Musician is a gorgeous short work that follows a young musician and the love of his life, at the time of the attack of the Mongols, who are separated from one another.

A LIFE TOO SHORT

A Life Too Short is an exceptional documentary that examines the tragedy behind the killing of Pakistani women’s rights activist and social media star, Qandeel Baloch. Qandeel challenged conventional ideas with her open exclamations of women’s equality and agency.

GOING TO POT: THE HIGH AND LOW OF IT

Going to Pot: The Hight and Low of It is an insightful and amusing documentary that explores this rapidly growing industry through an irreverent approach to the misconceptions and promises of the marijuana explosion.

EACH AND EVERY DAY

A powerfuly moving and urgent documentary film, Each and Every Day speaks with nine young people who recount what led them to attempt suicide or have suicidal ideation, and how they worked to reclaim their will to live. Shot during COVID-19, the film provides a message of hope and resilience.

SABAYA

With just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and their group risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS as Sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria. Sabaya is a powerful and exceptional work of documentary.

17 BLOCKS

In 1999, filmmaker Davy Rothbart met Emmanuel Sanford-Durant and his older brother, Smurf, during a pickup basketball game in Southeast Washington, D.C. Davy began filming their lives, and soon the two brothers and other family members began to use the camera themselves. Spanning 20 years, this story illuminates a national, ongoing crisis through one family's raw, stirring and deeply personal saga.