The best John Turturro’s documentary movies
John Michael Turturro (born February 28, 1957) is an American-Italian actor, writer and filmmaker, known for his association with the independent film movement. He has appeared in over sixty feature films and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler and Spike Lee.
He began his acting career on-screen in the early 1980s, and received early critical recognition with the independent film Five Corners (1987). Turturro's mainstream breakthrough came with Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) and the Coens' Miller's Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. His subsequent roles included Herb Stempel in Quiz Show (1994), Jesus Quintana in The Big Lebowski (1998) and The Jesus Rolls (2020), Pete Hogwallop in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Seymour Simmons in the Transformers film series and is set to play Carmine Falcone in The Batman. In 2016, in a lead role, he portrayed a lawyer in the HBO miniseries The Night Of and had a recurring role in the miniseries The Plot Against America in 2020.
An Emmy Award winner, Turturro has also been nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Independent Spirit Awards. He directed Mac (1992), which won the Golden Camera Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Illuminata (1998), and Romance and Cigarettes (2005).
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The Source
7.2/10
Traces the Beats from Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac's meeting in 1944 at Columbia University to the deaths of Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in 1997. Three actors provide dramatic interpretations of the work of these three writers, and the film chronicles their friendships, their arrival into American consciousness, their travels, frequent parodies, Kerouac's death, and Ginsberg's politicization. Their movement connects with bebop, John Cage's music, abstract expressionism, and living theater. In recent interviews, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kesey, Ferlinghetti, Mailer, Jerry Garcia, Tom Hayden, Gary Snyder, Ed Sanders, and others measure the Beats' meaning and impact.
Frank Serpico
6.9/10
In 1972, officer Frank Serpico exposes the corruption which poisons the roots of the NYPD and becomes famous in 1973 when director Sidney Lumet tells his story in the classic film “Serpico,” starring Al Pacino.
Keepers of the Covenant: Making 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'
7.3/10
An in-depth documentary on the making of Ridley Scott's "Exodus: Gods and Kings," featuring interviews with the cast and crew. Featured in the Deluxe Edition Blu-ray set.
Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time - Vol. 1: Midnight Madness
7.2/10
From "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to "The Big Lebowski" and everything in between, this fascinating deep-dive documentary begins its celebration of the greatest cult movies of all-time discussing the birth of the midnight movie.
At Sundance
2.6/10
A group portrait of filmmakers attend the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Featuring Matthew Harrison, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes, Greg Araki, Abel Ferrara, Atom Egoyan, James Gray, Robert Redford, Haskell Wexler, among many others. Co-directed by Amy Hobby. [Filmed in Pixelvision and blown-up to evocatively grainy 16mm.]
Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later
In this documentary directed by Spike Lee, he interviews the cast and crew of his 1989 film DO THE RIGHT THING. It also includes footage from a twentieth-anniversary screening of the film.
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me
7.5/10
Broadway legend Elaine Stritch remains in the spotlight at eighty-seven years old. Join the uncompromising Tony and Emmy Award-winner both on and off stage in this revealing documentary. With interviews from Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Hal Prince and others, ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME blends rare archival footage and intimate cinema vérité to reach beyond Stritch’s brassy exterior, revealing a multi-dimensional portrait of a complex woman and an inspiring artist.
Sacco and Vanzetti
7/10
SACCO AND VANZETTI is an 80-minute-long documentary that tells the story of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists who were accused of a murder in 1920, and executed in Boston in 1927 after a notoriously prejudiced trial. It is the first major documentary film about this landmark story.
Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Film on Terrence Malick
5.9/10
Rosy-Fingered Dawn is a film on Terrence Malick. It is about the making of BADLANDS, DAYS OF HEAVEN, THE THIN RED LINE and the personal involvement of some of the most representative figures of the American culture itself. This medley of voices has given origin to a journey throughout the whole United States, from California to Colorado, from Virginia to Minnesota, passing by New York and Los Angeles. Every stop represents an ideal set in which all the characters of the films come to life once again giving place to a growing flow of memories. The narrative dimension of Malick's cinema resounds and opens a new horizon on the visible contradictions of the American culture; no easy judgement but a critical consciousness is what emerges from this coral speech, together with a definite need: the necessity of art. A need that Terrence Malick was able to satisfy.
The Filmmaker and the Labyrinth
6.9/10
A documentary looking at the life and films of Francesco Rosi.
In the Shadow of No Towers
6.3/10
Pulitzer Prize-winning MAUS cartoonist Art Spiegelman uses his harrowing experiences as a New Yorker on September 11, 2001 as the catalyst for this haunting meditation on the most horrific terrorist attack ever carried out on American soil. Narrated by John Turturro and featuring a unique fusion score by Sintax Error, this powerful multi-media experience brings the critically-acclaimed graphic novel to life like never before.
