Best Colombian documentary movies

Karol G: Tomorrow Was Beautiful (2025)

Karol G pulls back the curtain on her rise to stardom while navigating a sold-out stadium tour, creating new music and releasing a new album.

If God Were a Woman (2021)

Laura lives with her parents in L’Alfàz del Pi, in Valencia. Three years ago, she started her transition. Laura now faces adolescence, and with it, a series of changes that will mean a new chapter for her and her family. Each decision they make could be definitive.

The Lost Children (2024)

After a plane crash, four indigenous children fight to survive in the Colombian Amazon using ancestral wisdom as an unprecedented rescue mission unfolds.

Mute Fire (2019)

On 6 March 1906, four men were executed for the attempted murder of Colombian president Rafael Reyes. The event was photographed, and the photos were later used for a fictionalised film on the failed coup. From then on, cinema in this South American country has been inextricably linked to its violent history. Moving images have been used for historiography, propaganda, disinformation and to instil unity in a nation that refuses to come together. Falsos positivos, murdered youths disguised as guerrillas by the army to simulate military success, are a common element.

Operation Hope - The Children Lost in the Amazon (2024)

The incredible true story of four children, who survive a plane crash deep in the dangerous Colombian Amazon. They are lost and alone for 40 days while the military and indigenous guard race against time to find them.

The Boy from Medellín (2020)

Colombian reggaeton singer J Balvin prepares for his 2019 homecoming concert amid intense political turmoil.

Higuita: The Way of the Scorpion (2023)

From humble origins to soccer legend, this documentary captures the rise of Colombia’s René Higuita, from iconic career to personal controversies.

The Heights of Cumanday (1965)

Calentoso, is a young boy that must transport mules across the mountains. He will be challenged to discover the deep secrets that the summit entails. This film is based on the legend of the ghost of the Ruiz Snow Mountain in the Region of Cumanday in Colombia.

The Accidental Twins (2024)

Two sets of identical twins switched at birth in Colombia explore their complex history and new identities in this captivating documentary.

Morat: Balas Perdidas (2021)

Morat, the band with the highest amount of tickets sold in LATAM and Spain in the past years offered an unforgettable concert on December 15th at Wizink Center in Madrid as a final clasp of its mythical "Balas Perdidas Tour". They went through the greatest hits that they have been harvesting year after year consolidating them as an icon on the Pop Scene.

Colombia: Wild Magic (2015)

A wonderful country full of amazing creatures in America called Colombia, seen as never before, accompanied by incredible shots, make it a must-see place for adventurers and wildlife lovers this natural paradise.

Leyenda Viva (2022)

A musical journey hand in hand with some of the great composers of the vallenato region. What is Vallenato? Where was it born? What is the vallenato triphony? What were the so-called juglares? What is the role of women in vallenato? Is it true that "Cien años de soledad" is a vallenato? What is the future of vallenato?

Colombia rumbo al mundial (1997)

El Sendero de la Anaconda (2019)

In the most remote areas of the Amazon rainforest, a writer and his anthropologist friend find communities that have resisted change for centuries.

Broken Idol: The Undoing of Diomedes Díaz (2022)

This documentary chronicles Diomedes Díaz's rise as one of Colombia's most iconic singers, and his downfall after being accused of killing a fan.

El Film Justifica los Medios (2021)

Through the recovery and re-montage of various film fragments and the commentary of three filmmakers - Carlos Álvarez, Marta Rodríguez, and Carlos Sánchez - a historical and aesthetic journey is proposed through a foundational moment for filmmaking in Colombia (1965-1975), whose images constitute a revolution on the screen. This documentary journey tells how, at a time when the film industry was just being consolidated, a generation of young filmmakers brought about a moment of rupture, subverting official cinema by taking the media to experiment, denounce and narrate other realities in Colombia at the end of the 1960s.

Cesó la Horrible Noche (2013)

The film is based on the material filmed by the director's grandfather in the terrible days of the outbreak of the Bogotazo (to understand us, and saving all distances, something like the Civil War for the Spanish), some images that by themselves justify the existence of the documentary, and that at some point they come to shudder. The horrible night ceased (title extracted from the Colombian national anthem) manages to catch the viewer with his warm portrait of the figure of the father and, above all, his remarkable ability to evoke a seemingly idyllic but that ends up revealing in his interior an uncontainable fury and destructive Frankly, we thought that this documentary essay would take some prize, and we are sure that it will be like this in the near future, because it has something, in its images and in the way of treating them, that remains in the memory.

Ciro and Me (2018)

Ciro Galindo was born on August 29th, 1952 in Colombia. Wherever he's gone, war has found him. After twenty years of friendship, I understood Ciro 's life sums up Colombia's history. As so many Colombians he is a survivor, who has run away from war for more than sixty years, and now dreams of living in peace. "Ciro and Me" is a journey to memory, seeking to give sorrow words; a journey, similar to that of Colombia in times of peace, in search to recover its dignity.

Back to Escalona (2023)

Carlos and Egidio embark on a journey to find Rafael Escalona’s lost notebook. This notebook contains unpublished songs as well as the composer’s greatest hits and will be the roadmap for the legendary band La Provincia to record a new album like never before.

Golden Girls (2021)

They graduated from a boarding school in 1968. 50 years passed very quickly. Amelia and her classmates meet today at their old school to celebrate their past times at the boarding school, knowing that this may be the last time they see each other alive.

Horsemen of Paradise (2020)

'El Llano' is offered as a paradise; a delirious experience where nature discovers its enigmatic beauty in couplets. Here, music, landscape, riders and horses star in a vibrant and robust culture, brought to the world stage in the verses and voice of Orlando "El Cholo" Valderrama, but unknown in its greatness by the inhabitants of the city.

A Paper Tiger (2008)

The life of Pedro Manrique Figueroa, a pioneer of collage in Colombia, is both incomplete and contradictory. Taking his life and work as a pretext, this mockumentary takes the viewer on a journey through history from the year 1934 up until 1981, when the artist mysteriously disappeared from view.

Carta a una sombra (2015)

In August 1987, Héctor Abad Gómez was murdered on the streets of downtown Medellín during the darkest moments of the dirty war against the Colombian left. Why was he killed? Who could have had a vested interest in silencing a university professor, human rights activist and doctor who was a precursor of the concept of "public health" in Colombia?

Patient (2015)

PATIENT is the word that defines us as we follow medical instructions or have to stay calm while we wait. In Colombia, a country where the harsh health system requires its users to face absurd bureaucratic obstacles to access its services, PATIENT is not only the one who has the disease, but also the one in the daily struggle ensuring that his or her loved one receives all necessary needs. Nubia is a PATIENT, a mother who, despite living with the anguish of possibly losing her daughter to an aggressive cancer, firmly gets to overcome the labyrinths established by the Health System processes upon which her daughter's life depends.

El testigo: Caín y Abel (2018)

The Colombian photographer Jesús Abad Colorado looks back into his photographic work portraying the Colombian armed conflict and visits territories affected by it, including San José de Apartadó, Ganada and Bojayá to show the photographs he took to those who appeared in them. He reflects on the horrors of war and the future of peace in Colombia.

The Evolution of Horror Cinema Worldwide (2025)

Why do people no longer see this type of stories nowadays? How can this notion be awakened? Which films should begin to feed back from the past and balance them with the current horror?

The Supreme Uneasiness: Incessant Portrait of Fernando Vallejo (2003)

Freely expressing his loves and hates, controversial Colombian and openly gay writer Fernando Vallejo (living in Mexico) breaks with an ingrained literary tradition: that of the omniscient writer who sees and knows everything. The film covers his literary output and his many interests: film, music, science, and politics. Made with the full support and participation of the author, it provides a portrait of one of the best Spanish-language writers.

The Tower (2018)

On March 17, 2004, an explosive device was activated at the Piloto Public Library in Medellín, where much of the photographic archive of Colombian history is kept. A photograph is the only evidence of this barbarism.

The Fortress (2019)

In the final days leading up to the Colombian national soccer finals, Jorge, a young man from the northeastern Colombia, travels 1,000 miles across the country with his friends to see his native Bucaramanga’s soccer team. Proving their commitment as loyal fans, they travel by illegally hopping onto tractor trailers to attend the most important game of the season — one that promises the team a chance to return to Division A of the Colombian professional soccer league after eight years in Division B.

Gamin (1977)

After an extensive immersion work on abandoned childhood, Ciro Durán presents, from his point of view, the life of street children, who have broken all family ties and have regrouped to survive in the concrete jungle.