Best movies like Overture

Urge to Build is a 1981 American short documentary film directed by Roland Hallé about individuals building their own homes. They share the experience and the different phases of construction, providing a background for more human issues: stress, confidence, and control of one's own life. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

A Way Out of the Wilderness is a 1968 American short documentary film produced by Dan E. Weisburd. It describes and illustrates steps being taken by the Plymouth State Home and Training School, Northville, Michigan, to bring mentally impaired children out of the wilderness into the mainstream of life. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

At the Academy Awards ceremony, Bugs Bunny tries to convince the audience that he deserves the Oscar. Opens with live action scenes of Hollywood.

The Wolf Men [also known as Wolves and the Wolf Men) is a 1969 documentary film produced by Irwin Rosten. It was produced for the GE Monogram documentary series on NBC. The film follows naturalists as they fight to save rapidly vanishing species of wolves. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

The Naked Eye is a 1956 American documentary film about the history of photography directed by Louis Clyde Stoumen. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Never Give Up: The 20th Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper is a 1995 short documentary film about Herbert Zipper. It was written, directed, and produced by Terry Sanders, with Freida Lee Mock co-producing. The extraordinary story of Vienna born musician and conductor Herbert Zipper who survived Dachau, Buchenwald, and a Japanese concentration camp to become one of the great music educators of the world, continuing at 92 to bring music to the inner city schools of America. In Dachau, Zipper organized secret concerts using makeshift instruments. He learned the lesson that music and the arts are essential to the very existence of life. For the last half of the 20th century, Zipper has pioneered in bringing professional orchestras into America's inner city schools. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short at the 68th Academy Awards in 1996.

The Numbers Start with the River is a 1971 American short documentary film about small-town life in Iowa. Produced by Donald Wrye for the United States Information Agency, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Operation Vittles is a 1948 American short documentary film about the Berlin Airlift, from the initial closure of the city in 1948 through 1949. It explains how, what, and why that supported the city. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor [also known as The Merry Wives of Windsor Overture] is a 1953 American short musical film produced by Johnny Green. The film consists of the MGM Symphony Orchestra playing the Overture to Otto Nicolai's opera The Merry Wives of Windsor, also conducted by Johnny Green. It won an Oscar in 1954 for Best Short Subject, One-Reel.

Rebel in Paradise is a 1960 American documentary film on the artist Paul Gauguin produced by Robert D. Fraser, a San Francisco real estate developer. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Remember Me is a 1979 American short documentary film produced by Dick Young, that was filmed in the US, the Middle East and Asia. The film depicts the youthful exuberance of children from many nations in contrasted with the squalor, hardship, and unfulfilled potential of their lives. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Leonard Junger, an aspiring television writer, tries to find a cheap apartment for his estranged wife and daughter so that they can be a family again. During his quest, he encounters mystery and murder.

This film shows the growth of cooperatives in the Maritime provinces and how they brought new life and hope to poverty-stricken fishermen. The Rising Tide is a 1949 Canadian short documentary film directed by Jean Palardy. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Centres on Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who in later years lived on skid row in Montreal following a history of drug and alcohol abuse.

Jenny is a Good Thing is a 1969 American short documentary film about children and poverty, directed by Joan Horvath. Produced by Project Head Start, it shows the importance of good nutrition for underprivileged nursery school children. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Jet Carrier is a 1954 American short documentary film produced by Otto Lang as a CinemaScope Special. It was nominated for two Academy Awards - one for Best Documentary Short, and the other for Best Two-Reel Short. It was filmed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.

Journey into Self is a 1968 documentary film introduced by Stanley Kramer, and produced and directed by Bill McGaw. The film portrays a 16-hour group-therapy session for eight well-adjusted people who had never met before. The session was led by psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson. The participants included a cashier, a theology student, a teacher, a principal, a housewife, and three businessmen. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1968.

Journey into Spring is a 1958 British short documentary film directed by Ralph Keene, and made by British Transport Films. The film -- partly a tribute to the work of the pioneering naturalist and ornithologist Gilbert White (1720-1793), author of The Natural History of Selborne -- features a commentary by the poet Laurie Lee, and camerawork by the wildlife cinematographer Patrick Carey. The journey suggested by the title is through time rather than space. In fact, two such journeys are made: the first back to the eighteenth century to pay tribute to the work of White, and the second studies the changing natural landscape near White's home town of Selborne in Hampshire between a typical March and May. It was nominated for two Academy Awards -- one for Best Documentary Short, and the other for Best Live Action Short.

Keats and His Nightingale: A Blind Date is a 1985 American short documentary film directed by Jim Wolpaw. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Baptism of Fire is a 1943 American documentary, meant to be an Army training film starring Elisha Cook Jr. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Bugs conducts the Warner Brothers Symphony in Franz von Suppé's "Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna" while reacting to a bothersome fly.

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.

Cowboy is a 1966 American short documentary film directed by Michael Ahnemann and produced by Ahnemann and Gary Schlosser. At a ranch in Tehachapi, California, a husband and father lives the life of a modern cowboy. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

The End of the Road (also known as Alaska: The End of the Road) is a 1976 British short documentary film directed by John Armstrong. The film is about British Petroleum's Alaska operations, including the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.

Gil Cardinal searches for his natural family and an understanding of the circumstances that led to his becoming a foster child. An important figure in the history of Canadian Indigenous filmmaking, Gil Cardinal was born to a Métis mother but raised by a non-Indigenous foster family, and with this auto-biographical documentary he charts his efforts to find his biological mother and to understand why he was removed from her. Considered a milestone in documentary cinema, it addressed the country’s internal colonialism in a profoundly personal manner, winning a Special Jury Prize at Banff and multiple international awards.

This winner of the 1993 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature details the case that the 1989 invasion of Panama by the US was motivated not by the need to protect American soldiers, restore democracy or even capture Noriega. It was to force Panama to submit the will of the United States after Noriega had exhausted his usefulness.

High Schools is a 1984 American documentary film produced and directed by Charles Guggenheim. It is based on Ernest L. Boyer's book, High School, and was filmed on location in seven American high schools. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Hymn of the Nations, originally titled Arturo Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations, is a 1944 film directed by Alexander Hammid, which features the "Inno delle nazioni," a patriotic work for tenor soloist, chorus, and orchestra, composed by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi in the early 1860s. (For this musical work, Verdi utilized the national anthems of several European nations.) In December 1943, Arturo Toscanini filmed a performance of this music for inclusion in an Office of War Information documentary about the role of Italian-Americans in aiding the Allies during World War II. Toscanini added a bridge passage to include arrangements of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the United States and "The Internationale" for the Soviet Union and the Italian partisans. Joining Toscanini in the filmed performance in NBC Studio 8-H, were tenor Jan Peerce, the Westminster Choir, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The film also included the overture to Verdi's opera La Forza del Destino.

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

Making Overtures: The Story of a Community Orchestra is a 1985 Canadian short documentary film directed by Larry Weinstein. A small-town orchestra and choir are the focus of this loving and humorous portrait. The film unveils the musician's passion for performance, their imaginative fund-raising methods and collective will to survive. This film includes a colorful cast of characters ranging from students to seniors, from business executives to hog farmers. Holding it all together is the outrageously flamboyant conductor who inspires everyone with his endless enthusiasm. Making Overtures reveals how an entire community us enriched by its orchestra. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Point of View is a 1965 American short documentary film. The film is about cigarette smoking and health, designed to give young people a wholly new way of looking at cigarette smoking and its health hazards. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Music is an integral part of most films, adding emotion and nuance while often remaining invisible to audiences. Matt Schrader shines a spotlight on the overlooked craft of film composing, gathering many of the art form’s most influential practitioners, from Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman to Quincy Jones and Randy Newman, to uncover their creative process. Tracing key developments in the evolution of music in film, and exploring some of cinema’s most iconic soundtracks, 'Score' is an aural valentine for film lovers.

In this Puppetoon animated short film (an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee), Tubby the Tuba is disappointed that his sound limits what he's permitted to do in an orchestra of self-playing instruments that, unlike him, get to play pretty melodies. A chance meeting with a bullfrog changes everything.

The portrait of Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky focuses on his failed love affair.

In this 1957 biography film of the jazz-great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, he and his band tour the world as American good-will ambassadors bring jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music. One of the outstanding scenes in this "biography/docudrama" shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy's immortal "St. Louis Blues."

A tribute to producer Irving Thalberg.

Springsteen on Broadway is a solo acoustic performance written and performed by Tony Award, Academy Award, and 20-time Grammy Award winner Bruce Springsteen. Based on his worldwide best-selling autobiography 'Born to Run,' Springsteen on Broadway is a unique evening with Bruce, his guitar, a piano, and his very personal stories. In addition, it features a special appearance by Patti Scialfa. Netflix will allow global audiences to see the show critics have been raving about from anywhere they are.

Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes was the hip-hop voice of TLC, the best selling female R&B group of all time. On March 30th, 2002, Lisa decided to document her life. She filmed at a mysterious spiritual retreat deep in the jungles of Honduras, but 26 days later, after a tragic accident, she was dead and her unedited tapes were left behind. Last Days of Left Eye is the re-imagining of the film Lisa never got to complete. Revealing private moments from Lisa's journals and home movies, along with highlights from her celebrated career, this film is an intimate journey into the soul of a talented and still provocative young artist. Directed by Lauren Lazin, Academy Award nominated director of Tupac: Resurrection (2005, Best Documentary Feature), Last Days of Left Eye has screened to sold-out audiences at film festivals around the world.

For more than 70 years, the UN has been at the forefront of work to uphold human rights and promote global peace. But what happens when the fixer of the world’s problems is itself faced with allegations of wrongdoing and corruption? What happens when UN staff try to call out their own managers and colleagues?

This television essay from 1985 was written by Leonard Bernstein to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Gustav Mahler's birth. Recorded in Israel, Vienna and later in London, it is punctuated by biographical interludes and illustrated by musical examples drawn from the cycle of Mahler's works recorded by Bernstein. Bernstein talks, plays and conducts various orchestras (Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker) and soloists (Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, Edith Mathis, Lucia Popp, Walton Groenroos) in performances spanning 17 years. Leonard Bernstein also examines the roots of Gustav Mahler's inspiration. The programme also features music from the nine symphonies, 'The Song of the Earth' and the 'Wunderhorn Cycle'.

Academician and piano expert David Dubal narrates this absorbing documentary chronicling the instrument's history and featuring some of the 20th century's finest pianists via archival film clips. Among the keyboard virtuosos are Vladimir Horowitz, Claudio Arrau, Van Cliburn and Glenn Gould. Extras include Arrau's 1983 performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 4, accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra under maestro Riccardo Muti.

Fresh off the heels of her brand-new album, "Happier Than Ever," this cinematic concert experience features an intimate performance of every song in the album's sequential order – for the first and only time – from the stage of the legendary Hollywood Bowl.

Perhaps the most popular ballet video ever released, this version of Tchaikovsky's beloved work stars one of the most famous classical dance partnerships of all time, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. Nureyev choreographed this production for the Vienna State Opera Ballet. Two icons of 20th-century dance in magnificent form. Ballet authority John Lanchbery, former music director of the Sadler's Wells and Royal Ballet companies, as well as of American Ballet Theatre and Australian Ballet, conducts the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's enchanting score.

Captain Vere, an old man, is haunted by a moment in his life when he was tested and found wanting. Based on Herman Melville's novella of naval life in the late 18th Century, Benjamin Britten's 'Billy Budd' is a gripping reflection on good and evil, innocence and corruption.

David McVicar's exhilarating new production, with Anne Sofie von Otter in the title role, restores the Opera Comique to Bizet's masterpiece. Philippe Jordan, in his Glyndebourne debut, conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Chorus, and a cast which includes Marcus Haddock, Laurent Naouri, and Lisa Milne.

Elvis Costello performs for his hometown audience.

Glyndebourne's celebrated production of Nikolaus Lehnhoff's Tristan und Isolde is a supremely intelligent achievement; gravely beautiful, haunting and meditative, it is deeply reflective rather than visceral, fortified by Roland Aeschlimann's stunningly effective set, a womb-like space through which the protagonists move like gods. Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek mirrors Lehnhoff's approach in his sophisticated plumbing of the score's depths, with every shift in texture carefully laid bare by an inspired London Philharmonic Orchestra. Nina Stemme's Isolde and Robert Gambill's Tristan, both gloriously lyrical, are matched by superb performances from René Pape as the betrayed and vulnerable King Marke and Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal, deeply touching in his helpless devotion to Tristan. This High Definition recording of a production of uncommon intimacy reveals the opera's music and drama in a new light.