The best Allen Ginsberg’s movies

It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.

Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream, this film captures the troubled spirit of America in 1975 and the joyous music that Dylan performed during the fall of that year.

A chronicle of Bob Dylan's strange evolution between 1961 and 1966 from folk singer to protest singer to "voice of a generation" to rock star.

HEAVY PETTING is a hilarious and salacious exploration of the sexual mores of the 50's as seen through the eyes of a generation that lived through the Sexual Revolution. Creative baby boomers-- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- candidly recall their sexual coming-f-age tales in intimate interviews. Joyously campy and refreshingly carefree, HEAVY PETTING blends humorous, unbelievable footage of unhelpful sex-ed films with classic snippets of THE WILD ONE and Elvis' hip gyrations, not to mention Bernhard talking about playing "doctor", always observant Ginsberg on a disastrous encounter with a girl, and Byrne on the childhood myths of masturbation. Eternal mysteries such as the female orgasm, the universal appeal of Marilyn Monroe, and the rituals of high school are laid bare by this lovable group of characters.

Documentary about the gender-bending San Francisco performance group who became a pop culture phenomenon in the early 1970s.

When Howard Brookner lost his life to AIDS in 1989, the 35-year-old director had completed two feature documentaries and was in post-production on his narrative debut, Bloodhounds of Broadway. Twenty-five years later, his nephew, Aaron, sets out on a quest to find the lost negative of Burroughs: The Movie, his uncle's critically-acclaimed portrait of legendary author William S. Burroughs. When Aaron uncovers Howard's extensive archive in Burroughs’ bunker, it not only revives the film for a new generation, but also opens a vibrant window on New York City’s creative culture from the 1970s and ‘80s, and inspires a wide-ranging exploration of his beloved uncle's legacy.

Director Jonas Mekas provides an intimate glimpse of his personal life by constructing a feature length narrative from over 30 years of private home movie footage.

When Max, a young poet hires a marketing company to turn his suicide-by-jumping into a mass-media spectacle, he finds that his subversive intentions are quickly diluted into a reactionary gesture, and his motivations are revealed as a desperate attempt to seek attention through celebrity.

The fascinating story of the cultural, social, spiritual, and musical revolution ignited by the coming of the Beatles. Tracing the impact that these four band members had, first in their native Britain and soon after worldwide, it reappraises the band and follows their path from young subversives to countercultural heroes. Featuring fresh, revealing interviews with key collaborators as well as a wealth of rarely-seen archival footage, this is a bold new take on the most significant band in the history of music and their enduring impact on popular culture.

Portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman found her medium in 1980: the larger-than-life Polaroid Land 20x24 camera. For the next thirty-five years, she captured the “surfaces” of those who visited her studio: families, Beat poets, rock stars, and Harvard notables. As pictures begin to fade and her retirement looms, Dorfman gives Errol Morris an inside tour of her backyard archive.

The very sad tale of socialite & Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick (1943-1971) who effectively plays herself in a film that follows her life in a large part from the time she left Warhol's 'factory' and what the life of excess drugs did to her sanity. Edie was such a beautiful fragile girl - who finally got her head together and got married (her wedding day video is edited into the end of the movie) but it was too late, her husband woke up on a morning in November 1971, only weeks after filming wrapped, and found her dead beside him. She had died in her sleep from overdosing on her medication she was 28.

Filmed in the autumn of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour – featuring appearances and performances by Ronee Blakley, T-Bone Burnett, Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Arlen Roth, Sam Shepard, and Harry Dean Stanton – the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life.

New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.

An epic portrait of the New York avant-garde art scene of the 60s.