Best movies like Not a Pretty Picture

Myles is divorced in L.A. He wants a love life and a film career. So he decides to go on 20 dates and find true love in front of a camera, making his first feature. His patient agent, Richard, finds a $60,000 investor, the shadowy Elie. Myles starts his search, sometimes telling his date she's being filmed, sometimes not. Elie wants sex and titillation, Myles wants it "real." Myles regularly talks with his old film teacher, Robert McKee, who wonders if love is possible in modern life. Half-way through the 20 dates, Myles meets Elisabeth; she's everything he desires and she likes him. Can he finish the 20 dates, satisfy Elie, and complete his film without losing Elisabeth?

With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade is a 1979 documentary film directed by Lorraine Gray about the General Motors sit-down strike in 1936–1937 that focuses uniquely on the role of women using archival footage and interviews. It provides an inside look at women's roles in the strike. The film was one of the first to put together archival footage with contemporary interviews of participants and helped spur a series of films on left and labor history in the US utilizing this technique. The film was also important in helping bring into view the history of American women being active in the public sphere, particularly in union and labor actions. The film was, further, ground breaking because it was produced and directed by women. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

The film explores the history of the word throughout its inception to present day. Woven into the narrative are poetry, music, and commentary from celebrities about their personal experiences with the word and their viewpoints. Each perspective is unique, as is each experience... some are much more comfortable with the word than others.

A tight-knit group of thirty-somethings -- gay, lesbian and straight -- struggle to live, love and stay friends in modern-day Los Angeles as circumstances conspire to tear them apart.

Digging through the vast collection of his father's home videos, a young man reconstructs the unthinkable story of his boyhood and exposes vile abuse passed through generations.

A blending of documentary and experimental narrative strategies, combining stunning 16mm landscape cinematography with a bold, lyrical voice-over to share two San Francisco stories: the history of the Golden Gate Bridge as “suicide landmark,” and the story of a butch dyke in San Francisco searching for love and self-discovery. The Joy of Life is a film about landscapes, both physical and emotional.

An eight-hour contemplative epic, entirely starring sheep.

Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of four men, each driven to create eccentric worlds from their unique obsessions, all of which involve animals. There’s a lion tamer who shares his theories on the mental processes of wild animals; a topiary gardener who has devoted a lifetime to shaping bears and giraffes out of hedges and trees; a man fascinated with hairless mole rats; and an MIT scientist who has designed complex, autonomous robots that can crawl like bugs.

A young woman in a photography class begins taking pictures of black men out of fear they will soon be extinct.

My American Cousin is a Canadian drama film, released in 1985. Written and directed by Sandy Wilson based on her own childhood, the film stars Margaret Langrick as Sandy Wilcox, a pre-teen girl growing up on a ranch in rural Penticton, British Columbia in the late 1950s. Sandy's longing to be treated as an adult is roused even further when her older American cousin Butch Walker (John Wildman) comes for a visit. The cast also includes Richard Donat, Jane Mortifee, Babz Chula and Camille Henderson.

Sex is why we're all here. Power. Love. Sex. We're all looking for something. Ten characters each of whose lust sends them on a journey of discovery - sometimes decadent - spearhead the narrative threads in this unconventional American melodrama. The smart characterizations are counterbalanced by intense performances. From the virginal young man to the bored housewife a temptress and a womanizer with a dark secret In Search of Sex dramatizes situations where good people looking for short term solutions find themselves in bad circumstances with long term consequences

Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne. House-boy, would-be cabaret performer, and self-proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it was like to be coloured and gay in 1960s Unites States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

A year after she is brutally raped, Dallas housewife Julie Kenner still can't shake the horror of the attack. Her mental state worsens when she learns that the man responsible will soon be paroled. Determined to seek revenge, Julie devises a unique and ingenious brand of Texas justice. Through legal loopholes, she methodically creates an entirely new identity - Bobbie King, a sultry barfly and the perfect bait for her attacker.

An exploration of technologically developing nations and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

The story of Canadian Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire and his controversial command of the United Nations mission to Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. The documentary was inspired by the book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda which was published in 2003.

The story of Robert Flanagan, a man who was born with cystic fibrosis and told he wouldn't live past 20, who through a unique odyssey of masochism, art and love found a way to live decades past his expiration date.

Through a series of twenty six short stories, a girl describes the childhood events that shaped her ideas about fatherhood, family relations, work and play. As the stories unfold, a dual portrait emerges: that of a father who cared more for his career than for his family, and of a daughter who was deeply affected by his behavior. Working in counterpoint to the forceful text are sensual black and white images that depict both the extraordinary and ordinary events of daily life. Together, they create a formally complex and emotionally intense film.

Spalding Gray sits behind a desk throughout the entire film and recounts his exploits and chance encounters while playing a minor role in the film 'The Killing Fields'. At the same time, he gives a background to the events occurring in Cambodia at the time the film was set.

Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.

William is constantly shooting video journals of his life to have as souvenirs for himself. Feeling the end of his relationship with Médéric, his young lover, William spends two days camping with him, taking advantage of the situation by filming the trip and their time spent with another young gay couple. The camera never stops shooting, even when Médéric decides to get it on with another guy in a tent. As Canada's first Dogme95 film, the story is shot on location, with natural lighting and live sound, the camera is hand-held and all superficial elements are forbidden. Yet somehow, in spite of these harsh restrictions during the filmmaking process, the result is warm and beautiful.

A gay jewish man speaks out about living with and dying from AIDS. He also discusses how being gay has affected his identity as a jew and his relationship with his parents.

Public Sex, Private Lives is an intimate look at the professional and private lives of porn performers Lorelei Lee, Princess Donna, and Isis Love. Capturing moments of joy and struggle, this film follows the characters as they navigate their lives as artists, daughters, mothers, writers, and women who have made careers in the adult industry. Asked to defend their choices to their families, communities, and even the United States Government, these women share their unique motivations and shifting visions for the future.

A street-wise teen gets herself in a series of circumstances and mishaps in her meaningless existence.

On a March night in 1964, 37 neighbors in Queens, New York, witness the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese. None of them takes action or calls the police. 37 tells the story of a few of these people and what led up to the night when they unexplainably remained passive observers. The film is a convincing portrayal of a borough in change and a time characterized by racism, the Civil Rights Movement and political shifts. The actual event that inspired the film’s plot has been called a symbol for the moment when America lost its innocence. The director Puk Grasten skillfully weaves into her feature film debut various fates, dreams and family conflicts by leading us through an apartment building that comes to bear a collective failure.

Iron and Silk is a 1990 movie based on the eponymous book by American writer Mark Salzman. It details his journey to China after college to study Chinese wu shu, better known in the west as kung fu, and to teach English. Though not trained as an actor, Salzman starred as himself, as did Pan Qingfu, who claimed no one else could portray him on film. Salzman's experiences occurred in Changsha, Hunan, though the film was shot in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. (Wikipedia)

A sensational crime story is at the centre of three disconnected narratives: a self-destructive driver, a violent family of three, and the relationship between a quiet warehouse worker and her boss.

Inspired by the transformation of the sex-trafficking survivors whose lives she follows, the filmmaker finds the courage to break the silence about sexual abuse in her own life.

"The Trials of Darryl Hunt" is a feature documentary about a brutal rape/murder case and a wrongly convicted man, Darryl Hunt, who spent nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Both a social justice story and a personally driven narrative, the film chronicles this capital case from 1984 through 2004. With exclusive footage from two decades, the film frames the judicial and emotional response to a chilling crime - and the implications that reverberate from Hunt's conviction - against a backdrop of class and racial bias in the South and in the American criminal justice system.

The story of the short life, and brutal gang rape and murder in Delhi in December 2012 of an exceptional and inspiring young woman. The rape of the 23 year old medical student by 6 men on a moving bus, and her death, sparked unprecedented protests and riots throughout India and led to the first glimmers of a change of mindset. Interwoven into the story line are the lives, values and mindsets of the rapists whom the film makers have had exclusive and unprecedented access to interview before they hang. The film examines the society and values which spawn such violent acts, and makes an optimistic and impassioned plea for change.

Inspired by the autobiographical writings of David Wojnarowicz, "Postcards From America" chronicles the abuse the artist suffered as a child at the hands of his father and his subsequent running away to New York to become a street hustler.

A story about talented homeless and formerly homeless fine arts painters in the worst section of Los Angeles known as Skid Row. People will create art no matter how humble the circumstances.

In his debut film, assembled entirely from home video footage which he and his partner Tracey shot over the course of a decade, Barker tells the fascinating story behind their journey to conceive.

The autobiography of a Somalian nomad who was sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.

Breaking the Surface is about the tough times Greg Louganis had on his way to becoming one of the world's top Olympic divers.

This autobiographical film about the most important and influential composer of the 20th century includes documents, photographs and film never seen publicly before. Stravinsky's three surviving children talk about their father and there are contributions from the late Madame Vera Stravinsky, his music associate Robert Craft, Marie Rambert, Balanchine, Nadia Boulanger and many friends. Included in the film are important performances: Les Noces has never before been heard in this, its original form, and the choreography of Petrushka was specially recreated for the film by the Bolshoi and was not seen in this form since 1911. Finally, there is priceless film of Stravinsky himself in this unique film.

This, then, finishes eleven years of editing drawing on 30-some years of photography. I will surely work autobiographically again, but the modes of SINCERITY and DUPLICITY seem completed with this film which on the one hand is as simple in its integrity-of-light as those follow-the-ball "sing-along" early silent movies and on the other as complicated as teen-age metamorphosis. Childhood dissolves in flame, struck from the hearth.

The culmination of a series of autobiographical films that Brakhage made about his family (collectively known as The Book of Family), Tortured Dust was shot as the filmmaker's children from his first marriage were beginning to leave the house, and edited during Brakhage and his first wife Jane's impending separation. The first half concentrates on Brakhage's teenage sons as they move around the cabin that has been their home for almost 20 years, and the second half turns towards the filmmaker's three daughters.

This unique narrative incorporating documentary elements follows Rey, a 40-year-old non-binary teacher and typhoon survivor, on a roadtrip to fame. With surreal comedy and social portrait realism, filmmaker Seán‌ Devlin explores climate change, LGBTQ+ issues, and the impact of colonialism on contemporary Philippines.

This controversial work, created and performed by Eve Ensler, debuted off-off-Broadway in 1996 and soon rode a wave of national acclaim. Now, the intimacy of Ensler's original show has been lovingly brought to the screen. Capturing her unique performance, the film also follows Ensler as she explores the creative impetus behind the monologues and conducts a series of new interviews as inspiring as those that brought about the original work

David Attenborough investigates the remarkable life and death of Jumbo the elephant - a celebrity animal superstar whose story is said to have inspired the movie Dumbo. Attenborough joins a team of scientists and conservationists to unravel the complex and mysterious story of this large African elephant - an elephant many believed to be the biggest in the world. With unique access to Jumbo's skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History, the team work together to separate myth from reality. How big was Jumbo really? How was he treated in captivity? And how did he die? Jumbo's bones may offer vital clues.

A documentary on some of the interesting hamburgers available around the United States and the unique characters who sell them.

Loosely bases on Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela or Virtue Rewarded, this is the story of Pamela who goes to work in the kitchen of Lord Devenish who is determined to rape her.

Touching story of elderly couple David and Eva who go on one last journey across the USA when they discover Eva is dying, ending up with their granddaughter Jeannie in San Francisco. Restored in 2022 by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation. Restoration funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

A unique anthology of six short vignettes on the subject of love, all of them written, directed and produced by women.

A story of love, sex and teen pregnancy in San Antonio, Texas. Petting Zoo is the portrait of a young woman coming into her own, in an environment that does not always present ideal circumstances.

65 shots making up a cryptically alluded-to narrative: a lesbian couple's Midwest travels, a hitchhiking young man's journeys, the story of a man who may be having an affair.

So much more than simply the story of the Thanksgiving meal, the epic saga of the Pilgrims is one of the fundamental narratives of our nation. This ambitious documentary presents the definitive history of the Pilgrims and their journey to and colonization of the New World. A marriage of feature-film quality historical reenactments with the latest scholarship and analysis of original source material, this definitive look at the Pilgrims' progress will shed light on the reality of their experience.

A courier who represents Moroccan dissidents arrives in Washington with secret documents.

The remarkable first-person story of filmmaker Daniel Northcott, who documented his travels around the world, including a visit to a mysterious Mayan cave that may have precipitated his death.

Honing his craft as an indie filmmaker in Germany in the early 90s, Uwe Boll never could have imagined the life that lay before him. From working with Oscar-winning actors and making films with US$60million budgets to having actors publicly disparage him and online petitions demanding he stop making films, Boll continued to work; he has a filmography of 32 features, a career that has led to his new life as a successful high-end restauranteur. Already a cult legend, he will be remembered forever in the film world; for some, as a modern-day Ed Wood, who made films so bad, they're good, while for others, a prolific filmmaker who came from a small town in Germany and never compromised his integrity while forging his own unique Hollywood trajectory.