Frederick Wiseman Trailers
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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: 60
27 September 2025
The renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.
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.
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.
02 September 1995
Ballet portrays rehearsals, choreography, performances, business transactions, and other day-to-day life of the American Ballet Theatre.
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.
01 April 1990
CENTRAL PARK is a film about the famous New York City landmark and the variety of ways in which people make use of it: running, boating, walking, skating, music, theatre, sports, picnics, parades and concerts.
03 October 1967
A stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers, and psychiatrists.
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.
04 June 2001
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE shows the Tampa, Florida police responding to domestic violence calls and the work of The Spring, the principal shelter in Tampa for women and children.
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.
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.
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.
01 December 2005
A documentary on Madison Square Garden. Filmed in 1997 and prevented from public screening by the operators of Madison Square Garden.
02 February 1970
Daily activities of the Metropolitan Hospital in New York City, with emphasis on the emergency ward and outpatient clinics.
14 May 1969
Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside Northeast High School as a fly on the wall to observe the teachers and how they interact with the students.
23 September 1975
WELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly.
02 June 1997
Public Housing is 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.
01 December 1986
BLIND shows the educational programs and daily life of students in kindergarten through the 12th grade at the Alabama School for the Blind.
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.
01 January 2009
Frederick Wiseman's contribution to the 2009 'Vision du reel' project.
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 taking place over tuition hikes, budget cuts, and the future of higher education in the United States.
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 are continuing 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").
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.
13 September 2017
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
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.
07 October 2009
A film by Frederick Wiseman following the ins and outs of 7 ballets by the Paris Opera Ballet.
21 October 2020
An epic look at Boston’s city government, covering racial justice, housing, climate action, and more.
19 October 2022
"A Couple" is a film about a long term relationship between a man and a woman. The man is Leo Tolstoy.
01 September 1996
La Comédie-Française is the oldest continuous repertory company in the world, founded in Paris in the late 17th century.
02 December 1986
The School for the Deaf at the Alabama Institute is organized around a theory of total communication i.
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.
04 October 2015
Legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman (At Berkeley, National Gallery) explores the culture, politics and daily life of the Queens, NYC district of Jackson Heights, which lays claim to being the most diverse neighbourhood in the world.
05 October 2011
A cinéma vérité look inside Paris' Crazy Horse, a club that boasts the greatest and most chic nude dancing in the world.
07 October 1989
A film about the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital. The film is concerned with how people face death.
01 June 1976
MEAT traces the process through which cattle and sheep become consumer goods. It 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.
01 January 1991
A former mining town in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, Aspen is now better known as a winter playground for wealthy holidaymakers.
14 December 1983
THE STORE is a film about the main Neiman-Marcus store and corporate headquarters in Dallas. The sequences in the film include 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.
13 November 2002
Locked away in the Jewish ghetto of an occupied Ukrainian town in 1941, a mother revisits her life in a last letter to her son.
04 June 1979
MANOEUVRE follows a U.S. infantry tank company through NATO’s annual fall manoeuvres in Western Europe.
13 November 1972
Essene is about daily life in a Benedictine monastery and the resolution of conflict between personal needs and the institutional and organizational priorities of the community.
15 January 1988
MISSILE follows the 4315th Training Squadron of the Strategic Air Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where Air Force officers are trained to man the Launch Control Centers for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
03 June 1985
RACETRACK is about the Belmont Race Track, one of the world's leading race tracks for thoroughbred racing.
06 June 1994
HIGH SCHOOL II is a film about 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.
02 March 1969
LAW & ORDER surveys the wide range of work the police are asked to perform: enforcing the law, maintaining order, and providing general social services.
04 June 1973
"Juvenile Court" shows the complex variety of cases before the Memphis Juvenile Court: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses.
01 June 1993
ZOO is a film about the zoo in Miami, Florida, the care and maintenance of the animals by the keepers, the work of the veterinarians and their staff, and the visits to the zoo by people from all over the world.
22 October 2010
Explores the world of a boxing gym in Austin, Texas, dwelling on the discipline of training as people from all walks of life aspire to reach their personal best.
16 September 1981
MODEL shows male and female models at work on TV commercials, fashion shows, magazine covers, and advertising for a variety of products, including designer collections, fur coats, sports clothes and automobiles.
01 June 1999
A film about ordinary experience in a beautiful old New England port city. It is a portrait of daily life with particular emphasis on the work and the cultural life of the community.
01 June 1971
Shot during the summer of 1970 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Frederick Wiseman’s film Basic Training focuses on a group of men going through infantry training, showing how they are turned from civilians into soldiers.
05 December 1974
Primate sees realist documentarian Frederick Wiseman hone his lens on the inmates of the Yerkes Primate Research Centre.
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.
12 June 2007
STATE LEGISLATURE shows the day-to-day activities of the Idaho Legislature during an entire session. Lobbyists, lawmakers and their constituents are seen debating and discussing the concerns of the electorate, on issues that range from violence in schools, mad cow disease and video voyeurism to illegal immigration, secondhand smoke and the deregulation of telephone rates.
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.
13 June 1977
CANAL ZONE is about the people who live and work in the Panama Canal Zone and shows 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.
25 July 2002
The opening scene in this film is of an arrest in Hillsborough County Florida where a woman has scratched her husband while he was trying to restrain her from getting back in her car and leaving after an argument.
04 December 1986
This film shows the day to day activities of multi-handicapped and sensory impaired students and their teachers, dormitory parents, and counselors at the Helen Keller School.
16 October 1978
SINAI FIELD MISSION shows the routine activities of the diplomats and electronics technicians who operate the U.
09 May 2026
A group of middle-aged men dressed as the Nazi high command gather in London to attempt a crucial experiment: making the first film entirely shot by a dog.
