Frederick Wiseman Trailers
Danger TrailerA Private Life TrailerJane Austen Wrecked My Life Trailer
Frederick Wiseman (January 1, 1930 — February 16, 2026) was an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theatre director. As a documentarian, Wiseman has been noted for his ability to capture the nuances of life in American institutions such as prisons, hospitals, welfare offices, and high schools. He started out in 1963 by producing a narrative feature, The Cool World, an examination of the lives of Harlem teenagers. In the beginning, Wiseman was a staunch social reformist, and his films were calls for change.
Titicut Follies, his first documentary, is an exposé of life in a prison for the criminally insane in Bridgewater, MA. It was controversial and left Wiseman with the reputation of being a muckraker. His four subsequent documentaries were all exposés of other tax-supported institutions designed to show the ineffectiveness of the bureaucracy that not only threatens to destroy them, but also dehumanizes the people they were meant to serve. Wiseman toned down his message and began focusing more on American culture to point out the symbolism of daily activities in his film Primate (1974).
In the 1980s, he began examining institutions as they relate to ideology. Unlike other documentaries, Wiseman’s work does not progress chronologically; rather, the segments are arranged thematically, like an essay, and are linked via rhetorical devices such as comparison and contrast to create a patterned structure. His films are never narrated, thereby forcing viewers to make connections between the sequences themselves. Wiseman has occasionally returned to fictional films, albeit in a non-fiction performance style, as with Seraphita’s Diary (1982) and La Derniere Lettre (2002).
Most Popular Frederick Wiseman Trailers
Total trailers found: 61
27 September 2025
When renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner learns of the sudden death of a patient, she suspects murder.
05 October 2011
A cinéma vérité exploration of the grueling schedules, auditions, lighting design, and backstage operations at the famous Parisian nude cabaret, Le Crazy Horse de Paris, over a ten-week period, specifically capturing the creation of a new show put together by choreographer Philippe Decouflé.
05 April 2023
When aimless Manon begins work at À mon seul désir, a strip club that offers high concept performances, she instantly bonds with her fellow strippers, particularly Mia, an aspiring actress with a boyfriend and child.
22 January 2025
An aspiring author looking to get more out of life takes up a writing residency and finds herself in the sort of romantic entanglements that could come from the pages of a Jane Austen novel.
16 May 2013
18 years after his last film, (The Troubles We've Seen), Marcel Ophuls emerges from retirement as one of our last masters, the most corrosive, the funniest as well.
12 December 2012
A short film by Nicolas Saada.
01 April 1990
The famous New York City landmark is given the spotlight, as well as the variety of ways in which people make use of it: running, boating, walking, skating, music, theatre, sports, picnics, parades and concerts.
21 September 2022
Rachel loves her life, her students, her friends, her ex, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she grows close to his 4-year-old daughter, Leila.
08 November 2013
Direct cinema pioneer Frederick Wiseman takes an in-depth look at the preeminent American university during a fall semester that saw a vigorous debate over tuition hikes, budget cuts, and the future of higher education in the United States.
03 October 1967
Employing methods of direct cinema–observation, limited stylization, and non-intervention–this stark look into the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts shows its denizens, who were often kept in barren cells and infrequently bathed, forced to strip naked publicly, force feeding, and the indifference and bullying by many of the hospital's staff.
13 September 2017
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
20 January 1971
One camera in one setting, one attic and eight young directors – the result is a unique Dadaistic collage of seven short sketches.
06 June 1994
Frederick Wiseman is back to school, this time at Central Park East Secondary School (CPESS), a successful alternative high school in New York's Spanish Harlem, 85-95% of whose graduates go on to four-year colleges.
22 October 2010
Veteran award-winning documentarian Frederick Wiseman turns his lens on the world of boxing, specifically on a gym in Austin, Texas.
14 May 1969
What really happens inside the walls of an American high school? Famed documentarian Frederick Wiseman answers that question in this peek inside Philadelphia's Northeast High School, where students constantly clash with teachers, and teachers wage their own battle against the administration.
01 December 2005
A documentary exploring the landscape of Madison Square Garden. Filmed in 1997 and prevented from public screening by the property's operators.
19 October 2022
Explores a long-term relationship between a man and a woman: the man, Leo Tolstoy; the woman, his wife, Sophia.
22 November 2023
Founded in 1930, Troisgros has held three Michelin stars for 55 years. The children of the fourth generation, Marie-Pierre and Michel's sons continue the family business: César runs the Michelin-starred restaurant, 'Le Bois sans feuilles' ('The Leafless Wood'), and Léo is in charge of one of the other two Troisgros restaurants, 'La Colline du colombier' ('The Dovecote Hill').
14 December 1983
An in-depth look at the main Neiman-Marcus store and corporate headquarters in Dallas: the selection, presentation, marketing, pricing, advertising and selling of a vast array of consumer products including designer clothes and furs, jewelry, perfumes, shoes, electronic products, sportswear, China and porcelain, and many other goods.
01 January 1991
Famous in the 19th-century for silver mining, Aspen is now better known for its scenic splendor, skiing, hiking, and fashion.
02 September 1995
An exploration of the inner workings of the New York City-based American Ballet Theatre, one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the world.
13 November 1972
Daily life in a Benedictine monastery follows resolution of conflict between personal needs and the institutional and organizational priorities of the community.
01 January 2025
As an imminent construction project looms over their beloved small-town baseball field, a pair of New England rec-league teams face off for the last time.
01 September 1996
La Comédie-Française is the oldest continuous repertory company in the world, founded in late 17th-century Paris.
07 October 2009
Frederick Wiseman observes the ins and outs of the Paris Opera House, including the processes behind seven of their operas: Genus (Wayne McGregor), Le Songe de Médée (Angelin Preljocaj), La Maison de Bernarda (Mats Ek), Paquita (Pierre Lacotte), Casse-Noisette (Rudolf Nureyev), Orphée et Eurydice (Pina Bausch), and Roméo et Juliette (Sasha Walt).
02 February 1970
A look at the daily activities at the Metropolitan Hospital in New York City, with emphasis on the emergency ward and outpatient clinics.
02 June 1997
Frederick Wiseman’s unflinching portrayal of life at the Ida B. Wells housing project in Chicago, a raw exposition of the daily conflicts between residents and the bureaucratic machinery to which they are continually subjected.
04 June 1973
Before the Memphis Juvenile Court are a complex variety of cases: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses.
16 September 1981
Frederick Wiseman focuses his lens on male and female models at work on television commercials, fashion shows, magazine covers, and advertising for a variety of products, including designer collections, fur coats, sports clothes and automobiles.
21 October 2020
An epic look at Boston’s city government, covering racial justice, housing, climate action, and more, exploring the government of Boston, MA, from racial justice, housing, climate change action and more.
02 December 1986
The School for the Deaf at the Alabama Institute is organized around a theory of total communication, i.
13 June 1977
Follow the people who live and work in the Panama Canal Zone and glimpse into both the operation of the Canal and the various governmental agencies — business, military, and civilian — related to the functioning of the Canal and the lives of the Americans in the zone.
15 January 1988
Follow the 4315th Training Squadron of the Strategic Air Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where officers are trained to man the Launch Control Centers for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
01 June 1971
During the summer of 1970 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, a group of men going through infantry training show how they're transformed from civilians into soldiers.
05 December 1974
Realist documentarian Frederick Wiseman hones his lens on the inmates of the Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta, GA.
23 September 1975
The nature and complexity of the welfare system is explored in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of constituting problems: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly.
04 December 1986
The day to day activities of multi-handicapped and sensory impaired students and their teachers, dormitory parents, and counselors at the Helen Keller School, whose primary mission is to meet the total and living needs of deaf and/or blind children, some of whom also have other impairments.
03 December 1986
Wiseman enumerates the sights and sounds of Talladega, Alabama — the railroad tracks, quiet streets and homes, a few shops downtown — almost as if to list those things most of us might take for granted.
01 December 1986
Documentarian Frederick Wiseman highlights the educational programs and daily life of all levels of students at the Alabama School for the Blind, where the effort is organized around educating blind and visually impaired students to be in charge of their own lives.
01 September 2018
A large and beautiful property on the French Riviera. A place that seems out of time and sheltered from the rest of the world.
20 April 1964
A fifteen-year-old boy wants to buy a gun from an adult racketeer named Priest, in order to become president of the gang to which he belongs, and to return them to active "bopping" (gang fighting) which has declined in Harlem.
01 June 1993
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman analyzes the interrelation between animals and their human captors at Miami's Metro Zoo.
04 June 2001
A look at how the Tampa, Florida police respond to domestic violence calls and the work of The Spring, the principal shelter for women and children.
01 June 1999
A film about ordinary experience in a beautiful old New England port city. A portrait of daily life with particular emphasis on the work and the cultural life of the community, among the activities shown are the work of lobstermen, tug-boat operators, factory workers, shop owners, city counselors, doctors, judges, policemen, teachers, social workers, nurses and ministers.
04 October 2015
Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman explores the culture, politics and daily life of the Queens, NYC district of Jackson Heights, which lays claim to being the most diverse neighborhood in the world.
12 June 2007
The day-to-day activities of the Idaho Legislature during an entire session: lobbyists, lawmakers and their constituents debate and discuss the concerns of the electorate, on issues that range from school violence, mad cow disease and video voyeurism to illegal immigration, secondhand smoke and the deregulation of telephone rates, a highlighting example of the achievements, values, constraints and limitations of the democratic process.
07 October 1989
At the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, people face death. Sequences highlight the complex interrelationships among patients, families, doctors, nurses, hospital staff and religious advisors as they confront the personal, ethical, medical, psychological, religious and legal issues involved in making decisions about whether or not to give life-sustaining treatment to dying patients.
03 June 1985
At the Belmont Race Track, one of the world's leading race tracks for thoroughbred racing, the viewer is invited into the training, maintaining and racing of thoroughbred horses.
07 September 2018
Monrovia, Indiana explores a small town in rural, mid-America and illustrates how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity, and authenticity are formed, experienced, and lived along with conflicting stereotypes.
02 March 1969
A survey of the wide range of work police are asked to perform: enforcing the law, maintaining order, and providing general social services.
13 November 2002
In a captured Ukrainian ghetto, circa 1941, Jewish town physician Anna Semyonovna dictates a final farewell letter to her son who is safe outside enemy lines, detailing the harrowing realities of the ghetto before her impending execution by the Nazis.
01 June 1976
Tracing the process through which cattle and sheep become consumer goods, Frederick Wiseman's deep dive depicts the processing and transportation of meat products by a highly automated packing plant, illustrating important points and problems in the area of production, transportation, logistics, equipment design, time-motion study, and labor management.
04 June 1979
Follow a U.S. infantry tank company through NATO’s annual fall manoeuvres in Western Europe. One purpose of these war games is to test how quickly and effectively U.
16 October 1978
A look at the routine activities of the diplomats and electronics technicians who operate the U.S. Sinai Field Mission, the early warning system established in 1976 to help facilitate the disengagement between Egypt and Israel following the 1973 war.
23 April 2009
Frederick Wiseman's contribution to the 2009 'Vision du reel' project.
16 December 2026
Simon, a disillusioned developer, carries a secret that could dismantle modern society: a code capable of remote neural hijacking.
25 July 2002
Opening on an arrest in Hillsborough County, FL, a woman scratches her husband as he tries to restrain her from getting back in her car and leaving after an argument; officers explain that she has committed a battery and thereby earned herself an inescapable arrest and overnight stay in jail because by law, they have no discretion.
18 May 1982
The story of a famous fashion model who, unable to cope with the fantasies and pressures her beauty induces in others, disappears.
24 June 2013
In a private collection in Arlington, French actor and director Mathieu Amalric, who won the Best director award in Cannes) takes his camera to one of Hopper's latest masterpiece, one of the most mysterious as well.
08 October 2014
A portrait of the day-to-day operations of the National Gallery of London, that reveals the role of the employees and the experiences of the Gallery's visitors.
