If you loved Oscar® nominee Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, here are 12 more films that we think you’ll like! 

From director Johan Grimonprez’s documentary-fiction hybrid about American media run amok during the Cold War to an intimate documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, these films are sure to entertain, educate, and astound you.

Cold War Films

Double Take (2009)

Johan Grimonprez (Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat) uniquely combines 60's advertising, hysterical Red Menace newsreels, and Alfred Hitchcock into a black comedy journey through the global commoditization of fear. This essay film ingeniously blends archive footage with cryptic allusions to an imaginary murder plot involving Hitchcock and his doppelgänger to paint a vivid portrait of American media run amok during the Cold War.

The Atomic Cafe (1982)

Armageddon has never been so darkly funny as in “The Atomic Cafe”. This 1982 cult classic juxtaposes Cold War history, propaganda, music and culture, seamlessly crafted from government-produced educational and training films, newsreels and advertisements. Taken together, these sources cheerily instruct the public on how to live in the Atomic Age.

Hollywood Beyond the Movies

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)

What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930s and 40s and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamor icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman and a technological trailblazer who perfected a secure radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes during WWII.

Hitler's Hollywood (2018)

Narrated by Udo Kier, Rüdiger Suchsland's film suggests that the Third Reich was an immersive movie starring the German nation created by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. "Hitler’s Hollywood" collages films from the more than 1000 features the Nazis produced from 1933-1945: musicals, melodramas, romances, war films – and when the real war got insanely lavish, over-the-top fantasies.

Dawson City, Frozen Time (2017)

Part fever dream, part historical record, this is the bizarre true story of some 533 silent film reels, buried for almost 50 years in a sub-arctic swimming pool, deep in the Yukon permafrost. Filmmaker Bill Morrison deftly combines excerpts, including rare Hollywood features, with historical footage, photographs, and interviews, to explore the history of Dawson City, a Canadian Gold Rush town.

Colonialism & Political History

Finding Fela (2014)

​​Directed by Academy Award winner Alex Gibney, “Finding Fela” tells the story of Fela Anikulapo Kuti's life and how he created a new musical movement, Afrobeat, which he used to express his revolutionary political opinions against the dictatorial Nigerian government of the 1970s and 1980s. His influence helped bring a change towards democracy and the potency of his message remains current today.

Concerning Violence (2014)

Narrated by Lauryn Hill, this profound essay from the director of "The Black Power Mixtape" is a bold and fresh visual narrative on Africa, based on newly discovered archive material covering the struggle for liberation from colonial rule in the late '60s and '70s.

What Is Democracy? (2018)

Coming at a moment of profound political and social crisis and featuring a diverse cast—including celebrated theorists, trauma surgeons, activists, factory workers, asylum seekers, and former prime ministers—this urgent film connects the past and the present, the emotional and the intellectual, and the personal and the political, in order to provoke and inspire.

Epicentro (2020)

Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, "Epicentro" is an immersive and metaphorical portrait of post-colonial, "utopian" Cuba by Academy Award nominee Hubert Sauper ("Darwin's Nightmare").

Jazz Documentaries

The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith (2016)

In 1950s Manhattan, a dingy loft building becomes the home and obsession of the brilliant photographer W. Eugene Smith – who leaves his family and moves there to live the artist’s life. Smith wires the building for sound and captures daily life at 821 Sixth Avenue, where jazz players gather all night, every night, for freewheeling jam sessions both hot and cool.

Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)

Filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and directed by renowned photographer Bert Stern, this film features intimate performances by an all-star line-up of musical legends including Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, and closes with a beautiful rendition of "The Lord's Prayer" by Mahalia Jackson at midnight to usher in Sunday morning.

Bix: "Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet" (1981)

Cornetist / pianist / composer Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke (1903-1931) was jazz’s man who got away. Beiderbecke became a legend even in his short lifetime, bringing an amazing new energy to music and influencing generations. Using photographs, rare footage and interviews, Oscar winner Brigitte Berman’s documentary brings to life the only cornetist Louis Armstrong regarded as an equal.