Best Lithuanian documentary movies

State Funeral (2019)

The enigma of the personality cult is revealed in the grand spectacle of Stalin’s funeral. The film is based on unique archive footage, shot in the USSR on March 5 - 9, 1953, when the country mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.

The Bearers of Memories (2021)

In Miglė Križinauskaitė-Bernotienė's "The Bearers of Memories", what the filmmaker remembers of her late grandmother is being slowly eroded by time, the starting point to a contemplative search of rural landscapes, an old photograph, an abandoned dwelling, and the faces of others, all strikingly captured on 16mm and enhanced by an intricate acoustic score.

Yesterday (2023)

A documentary about the rock pioneers and legendary rock bands of the 1960s-1970s in Lithuania, an era that brought with it the extraordinary power of youth, the hunger for new ideas, the infinite thirst for freedom and the love of music.

Wonderful Losers: A Different World (2017)

They're called water carriers, domestics, 'gregarios', 'Sancho Panzas' of professional cycling. Always at the back of the group, with no right for a personal victory. These wonderful losers are the true warriors of professional cycling.

Lithuania is a Force (2018)

"Lithuania is a Force" is a long-term documentary about the life and historical events of informal youth in Lithuania in 1984–1992: dissident rallies, persecution of the KGB, punk rock, protest concerts. Rock musicians testify to this. The documentary includes songs by the groups „Genocidas Raudonajam Interventui“, „WC“, „Už Tėvynę“, „Hidroelektra“, „Foje“.

The Jump (2020)

In the Cold War years of the 1970s, an American patrol boat meets a Soviet ship off the east coast of the United States for talks about fishing rights in the Atlantic. In the midst of this, while Russian commanders are aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel where the talks are being held, a Lithuanian sailor jumps across the ten feet of icy water separating the boats. Crash-landing on the deck of the American ship, he desperately begs for asylum. Though they try, the Americans ultimately fail to provide protection and the Soviets are allowed to capture him and brutally return him to their vessel. Thus begins a stranger-than-fiction story of imprisonment, discovery, fame, and freedom. Through rare archival footage and a dramatic first-person re-enactment of that fateful day by Simas Kudirka, the would-be defector himself, this tale of one of the biggest Cold War muddles takes us on a journey of uncanny twists of fate, and the emotional sacrifices of becoming a universal symbol of freedom.

Joe Building: The Stalin Memorial Lecture (2006)

Jonathan Meades examines the cult of Stalinism through its buildings and monuments.

Secret Of The State (2019)

A documentary about Lithuania's first female president and her 10 years in office.

Habit & Armour (2017)

History of Teutonic Order and Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.

Mes už. . . Lietuvą! (2012)

Celebration in a country of basketball. Lithuania, probably the only country in the world where basketball is routinely described as a religion, hosts the most important basketball event of the year - the European basketball championship or EuroBasket 2011. The biggest nation's pride, Lithuania's national basketball team has a long winning tradition. The entire Lithuania is waiting only for the gold. However the team's star player Linas Kleiza has suffered a serious injury and will not be playing for the championship.

Letter to Ukraine (2023)

More than a hundred members of the Lithuanian film community have joined together in a voluntary film project "Letter to Ukraine", which aims to record what is happening in our country at this difficult time. The film focuses on a person close to the war: a passer-by, a protester, a volunteer, a medic, an artist.

Before Flying Back to Earth (2005)

Documentary about a hospital ward for children with leukemia in Lithuania.

Burial (2022)

With striking images and meticulous sound work, Burial reminds us of the paradoxical relationship between scientific development and the destruction of nature. Questioning the effects of human activity on the planet we inhabit and which we have put at risk, the film focuses on the unsolved issues of nuclear plants and nuclear activity.

How We Played the Revolution (2012)

It was the year 1984 when a group of architects decided to organize a one night music band as a New Year's party joke in Kaunas, Lithuania. The joke proved to be so good that rumors about the new exciting rock band spread from lips to lips and soon their intellectual circus grew into the Rock Marches - massive events involving thousands of people - that transformed into the big meetings for Lithuanian Independence later named the Singing Revolution. This is the story about the people who raised their independence with the smiles and songs regardless of the danger of the situation.

Kernagis (2021)

Everyone in Lithuania knows Vytautas Kernagis – heard him singing, saw him on stage, or hosting TV shows. The public constantly saw Kernagis and thought they knew and understood him. But Kernagis was convinced that the artist must always remain somewhat mysterious. However, still living in the Soviet Union, he was among the first ones to buy a personal video camera in the mid-1980s and has documented his life on a VHS camera for more than ten years.

Jonas (2024)

Animus Animalis (A Story about People, Animals and Things) (2018)

Human beings are the kings of all animals, at least if you ask us humans. Our vanity is given something to mirror itself in, but does not escape without a scratch or two in this documentary, which observes a taxidermist, a deer farmer and a museum curator at work. Three jobs that have one thing in common: turning animals into aesthetic objects, alive as well as dead. When the work is done properly, it is impossible to tell the difference. Dead pets are mummified. At the zoological museum, the animals' glassy eyes stare back at us from the showcases. Even a plastic alligator has its natural place in the human master plan.

Bridges of Time (2018)

At the beginning of the 1960s, when the French pioneers of cinéma vérité set out to achieve a new realism, and when direct cinema in Québec began to vie for notice, the Baltics wit-nessed the birth of a generation of documentarists who favored a more romantic view of the world around them. This meditative documentary essay – from a Latvian writer and Lithuanian director whose composed touch has long dovetailed with the stylistically diverse works of the Baltic New Wave – pushes adroitly past the limits of the common his-toriographic investigation to create a portrait of less-clearly remembered filmmakers. The result is a consummate poetic treatment of the ontology of documentary creation. Also a cinematic poem about cinema poets.

Arvydas Sabonis 11 (2014)

The film - an open, sincere, warm and funny story about Arvydas Sabonis life and career. This is particularly characteristic of a T-shirt with the number 11 worn out 2.20 m tall basketball giant Olympic and world champion, portrait.

In Memory of the Day Passed By (1990)

The film is a day in the life that passes by, even if it seems neverending. In the morning the streets are alive with people, pedestrians and cars, with loud and exultant noise. Such sounds accompany the restless walk of a woman and her child across a dusty street, while Bartas’ gaze wanders through many different perspectives.

Rūta (2018)

Ruta Meilutyte is one of the most recognizable and likeable people in Lithuania. She inspires the young generation to chase their goals and the rest of us - to be proud of Lithuania. Ruta is much more than a great athlete, she is the symbol of today's Lithuania. Currently a documentary is being produced that will allow the viewers to see Ruta's daily life from up close and hopefully understand a bit more about the amount of hard work that goes into preparing for this short distance swim.

Domingo Domingo (2023)

Domingo Domingo, a witty Valencian orange farmer, tries to stand up to the multinational companies that oppress the humble workers of the land.

Second Hand (2019)

Ever wondered where the clothes at your local second-hand shop came from? A tangled net of murky charity clothes business is spreading out across the entire UK. From London to Lithuania, the journey of the donated garments is accompanied by a hidden life of Lithuanian emigrants in the business. In this documentary comedy with a touch of a detective drama, we will follow lives of four vivid characters, who have cultural clashes, tragicomic incidents yet manage to retain passion and irony in the cruel and inhumane environment.

Uku ukai (2006)

Sorrow does not come merely from contemplating death, which forces us to look into Eternity, but also from life, which compels us to confront Time", wrote Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyayev. Renowned Lithuanian documentarist Audrius Stonys took these words as a motto for his latest film, a meditative visual essay which portrays old people undertaking all kinds of activities, meditation and group laughter therapy. Without a single word of commentary, he creates from sophisticated, aesthetic images a compelling study of human corporeality which, in an ideal union with spiritual equilibrium, can sustain us with the pledge that old age doesn't have to be a painful wait for the last breath.

I Walked Through Fire, You Were with Me (2010)

The film relates the story of the Kriauleidziai family, who lost the roof over their heads after fire engulfed their home. It also demonstrates man's ability to come to terms with misfortune, not to lose heart, but to start afresh.

Master and Tatyana (2015)

Lithuanian photographer, the legend of Soviet Sixties' generation Vitas Luckus tragically passed away in 1987. Yet the life and times of the talented rebel still impassion and lead us to a journey questioning why, at all times, we are wary of those who are really free.

The Ticket (2023)

Basketball players on the court, businessmen in their spare time and carriers of the spirit of freedom in Lithuania - that's the "Žalgiris" Kaunas team of 1979-1989. Historic battles against the Red Army, which cannot be forgotten by those who watched them and which the new generation of basketball fans must learn about.

Good Life (2022)

The documentary filmmakers Marta Dauliute and Viktorija Šiaulyte step into the closed-in collective with as much curiosity as much-needed skepticism. Here, capital is synonymous with the individual’s ability, and innovation is the confounding keyword. At the same time, we get to know those who rent a little “pod” that barely offers space for a bed and desk, raising questions about how the entrepreneurial ideology affects us as people. Good Life reflects on a modern phenomenon, where community has become the product of a company, but which at the same time reminds us of other collectives from a completely different time.

Flight Over Lithuania or 510 Seconds of Silence (2000)

The film features an incredibly low angel’s flight over the dunes of Nida, Trakai castle, the lakes of Aukstaitija (Highlands), the roofs of the Old Town of Vilnius and the fantastically beautiful church steeples. It’s like a mystical gliding just above the treetops, meadows covered by early morning mist, as well as the narrow streets of Vilnius.

Juoda (2024)

The first blueprints for rockets could be found in a treatise, Artis Magnae Artilleriae (1648) by inventor K. Simonavičius. And how many Lithuanian astronauts were there? Two. And one of them was an architect. Ozė (V. Ozarinskas, 1961-2014) was an exceptional figure in the Lithuanian cultural scene. His works stand out in their scale, depth, and originality. Especially inconvenient to the viewer is Ozė’s “black” creative period. But is black color only the symbol of despair? Astrophysicists estimate that the better part of the Universe is composed of invisible dark matter. Seems like Ozė knew that very well.