Blackie

During a two-day period before and after the University of Alabama integration crisis, the film uses five camera crews to follow President John F. Kennedy, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy, Alabama governor George Wallace, deputy attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach and the students Vivian Malone and James Hood. As Wallace has promised to personally block the two black students from enrolling in the university, the JFK administration discusses the best way to react to it, without rousing the crowd or making Wallace a martyr for the segregationist cause. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1999.

A 1960 cinéma vérité documentary on anti-American sentiment in Latin America, combining observational footage from Caracas and political events, directed by Robert Drew and shot by Maysles, Leacock, and Pennebaker. (Note: Originally broadcast as a standalone documentary on ABC, "Yanki, No!" is widely cited and archived as a discrete direct-cinema film with its own title, production identity, and critical reception, rather than as an anonymous TV news magazine episode.)

A look at the daily business of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, with a focus on some of the political issues he faces six weeks into his term. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

During the fertile early years of Drew Associates following the breakthrough of Primary, came this seldom-seen portrait of David Allen, a jazz trumpeter struggling in the Santa Monica drug rehabilitation center Synanon House. Pennebaker’s love of music drew him to David and the film prefigures later portraits such as Dont Look Back. He teamed with Life photographer William Ray and producer Gregory Shuker.

Documentary focusing on 25 year-old actress Jane Fonda as she and her director Andreas Voutsinas prepare a stage play called The Fun Couple for Broadway.

Follows a crusading lawyer as he embarks on a campaign to save an African-American man, Paul Crump, from the electric chair. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2007.

Set around a classic case of broken vows – the defendant having literally left the claimant at the altar – the trial bubbles over with emotion, humour, and downright chaos, leaving the jury divided.

A documentary on the importance of railroads in the United States