Watch 80 Free Documentaries from Kino Lorber: Includes Films on M. C. Escher, Stanley Kubrick, Hannah Arendt, Hilma af Klint & More

M. C. Esch­er, Han­nah Arendt, Hierony­mus Bosch, Hilma af Kint, Stan­ley Kubrick: if you’re a reg­u­lar read­er of Open Cul­ture, you’re no doubt fas­ci­nat­ed some or all of these fig­ures. Now, thanks to film dis­trib­u­tor Kino Lor­ber, you can watch entire films about them on Youtube. Hav­ing evi­dent­ly put a good deal of ener­gy toward expand­ing their Youtube chan­nel in recent months, Kino Lor­ber has uploaded such doc­u­men­taries as M. C. Esch­er: Jour­ney to Infin­i­ty, Vita Acti­va: The Spir­it of Han­nah Arendt, Hierony­mous Bosch: Touched by the Dev­il, Beyond the Vis­i­ble: Hilma af Kint, and Film­work­er (about Kubrick­’s right-hand man, the late Leon Vitali) — all of them free to watch.

So far, Kino Lor­ber’s playlist of free doc­u­men­taries con­tains 80 films, a num­ber that may vary depend­ing on your loca­tion. Some pop­u­lar selec­tions focus on music: that of Elvis Pres­ley, that of Lev­on Helm and The Band, that of Green­wich Vil­lage in the nine­teen-six­ties and sev­en­ties.

But the doc­u­men­tary is a ver­sa­tile form, able in the right direc­to­r­i­al hands to con­tain a wide range of real-life sub­jects, from art (Louise Bour­geois: The Spi­der the Mis­tress and the Tan­ger­ine, The Jeff Koons Show) to food (Sushi: Glob­al Catch, El Bul­li: Cook­ing in Progress) to nature (More than Hon­ey, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes) to reli­gion (Bril­liant Moon: Glimpses of Dil­go Khyentse Rin­poche, The Last Dalai Lama?), to cin­e­ma itself (Cap­tured on Films: The True Sto­ry of Mar­i­on Davies, Blank City).

All this gives only a hint of the sheer aes­thet­ic, intel­lec­tu­al, and cul­tur­al vari­ety of Kino Lor­ber-dis­trib­uted doc­u­men­taries. To get a fuller sense, you’ll have to explore the playlist itself, down to its most recent addi­tions like Find­ing Fela, Nol­ly­wood Baby­lon, and Lina Wert­müller: Behind the White Glass­es. Like all doc­u­men­taries worth watch­ing, these don’t just address sub­jects of inter­est, but leave their view­ers with new­ly open avenues of curios­i­ty to fol­low. Your jour­ney may begin with films about Glenn Gould, Char­lotte Ram­pling, John­ny Cash, or Maya Deren, but to what realm it will take you — that of the Bal­lets Russ­es, of Mex­i­can lucha libre wrestling, of the female Bud­dhists of the Kath­man­du Val­ley — can­not be fore­told.

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Relat­ed con­tent:

285 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online

Watch Free Cult Films by Stan­ley Kubrick, Fritz Lang, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi & More on the New Kino Cult Stream­ing Ser­vice

The 10 Great­est Doc­u­men­taries of All Time Accord­ing to 340 Film­mak­ers and Crit­ics

50 Must-See Doc­u­men­taries, Select­ed by 10 Influ­en­tial Doc­u­men­tary Film­mak­ers

The Atom­ic Café: The Cult Clas­sic Doc­u­men­tary Made Entire­ly Out of Nuclear Weapons Pro­pa­gan­da from the Cold War (1982)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.