Best Serbian documentary movies
Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch documentary films from Serbia, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
The Other Side of Everything (2017)
The Other Side of Everything (2017)
For Serbian filmmaker Mila Turajlic, a locked door in her mother's apartment in Belgrade provides the gateway to both her remarkable family history and her country's tumultuous political inheritance.
The Shutka Book of Records (2005)
The Shutka Book of Records (2005)
A documentary about bizarre residents of Shutka, a Macedonian village built on the former city dump area. Shutka, where everyone is the champion of something. This film is a celebration of the culture, humor, spirit, oddities and idiosyncrasies of the Roma, one of the world's poorest and most persecuted peoples. Ultimately we are instructed in the celebration of life despite any and all circumstances - everyone is of value here.
250 Steps (2017)
250 Steps (2017)
The documentary film "250 Steps" is dedicated to the generation of Yugoslav junior national team that won the title of World Champions in basketball led by legendary coach Svetislav Pesic in the Italian town of Bormio in 1987.
EKV: As It Once Was (2009)
EKV: As It Once Was (2009)
"Kao da je bilo nekad" is a documentary about band Ekatarina Velika (1981 - 1994). The band had a profound influence on the ex-Yugoslav scene of the 1980s and ended unusually tragic five members of the creative core of the band died between 1992 and 2002 from heroin abuse. The film comprehensively presents the band career with a particular attention to individual destinies of its members while trying to pose the question - who is actually to blame for their early death.
Cinema Komunisto (2010)
Cinema Komunisto (2010)
This eye-opening and bittersweet chronicle of the Yugoslavian film industry recounts how the cinema was used—often with direct intervention from President Josip Broz Tito—to create and recreate the young nation’s history, replete with heroes and myths that didn’t always hew closely to reality.
Contact (2017)
Contact (2017)
A documentary on alternative music scene of Novi Sad (Serbia) that covers the period between 1989 and 2017.
Taurunum Boy (2018)
Taurunum Boy (2018)
Jelena Maksimović and Dušan Grubin explore coming of age and masculinity in the township of Zemun in their joint directorial debut.
Heavenly Theme (2019)
Heavenly Theme (2019)
Documentary about the life and career of Serbian rock musician Vladimir "Vlada" Divljan.
Recipe for Hate (2021)
Recipe for Hate (2021)
Director's intimate story about the loss of his younger brother, who was brutally killed in a fight in front of one of Belgrade's riverside bars. Through this one and several similar incidents, where people lost their lives without any reason, the director searches for the roots of violence and hate in our society. Recipe for Hate is a documentary about the process of creating and spreading hate, and how we, as a society, have easily complied with the violence that surrounds us.
Lemon Tree (2015)
Lemon Tree (2015)
The story of influential rock band from Belgrade.
Yugoslavian Home Movies (2014)
Yugoslavian Home Movies (2014)
Made from a collection of home movies, news footage and photos gathered from a residency in Belgrade in memory of a country that no longer exists.
Riblja Čorba: No One Has This Kind of People! (2010)
Riblja Čorba: No One Has This Kind of People! (2010)
Niko nema ovakve ljude! (trans. No One Has This Kind of People!) is the live/video album by Serbian rock band Riblja Čorba, released in 2010. The album was recorded on the band's concert held on October 10, 2010 in Belgrade Arena. The album featured two CDs and one DVD with the recording of the concert.
Where the Yellow Lemon Blooms (2006)
Where the Yellow Lemon Blooms (2006)
By the end of 1915, during the second half of World War I, which had started by the Austro-Hungarian Empire's attack on a small Kingdom of Serbia, Serbian people, its army, and the state found themselves in the greatest tribulation in its long history. Serbia is attacked by the combined militaries of Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, and Bulgaria. Defending every road, every hill, every creek, during the time when every village, every plato, every crossing was becoming a historical landmark, Serbia, relying on the Allies, moved its people, its government, and its remaining troops to Kosovo--the only unoccupied part of the Serbian territory, but soon had to cross Albania in the hopes of reaching the Allies' ships in the Mediteranian.
Gru Is Here (2023)
Gru Is Here (2023)
Dalibor Andonov Gru is a pioneer of the rap scene in Serbia and was among the first to start a new musical era in the entire former Yugoslavia. From the first album, concert, tour and authentic videos, it was clear that he would leave an indelible musical legacy. Interlocutors from various spheres of society, from music to sports, described how Gru was synonymous with the spirit of Belgrade.
You Leave, I Won't! (2015)
Nikola Kalabić (2020)
Nikola Kalabić (2020)
A documentary about the commander of the King Peter II Karađorđević's Mountain King's Guard - Nikola Kalabić.
Serbia in the Great War (2014)
Serbia in the Great War (2014)
Brief history of Serbian history from the World War I
Belgrade Underground Resistance (2020)
Belgrade Underground Resistance (2020)
The movie follows the story of actual historical figures on which the characters of popular Yugoslav TV series "Otpisani" were based, who were all undercover combatants of the royalist Yugoslav faction.
Persistent Invocation of Angels (2013)
Persistent Invocation of Angels (2013)
Stories About Bora Đorđević and Riblja Čorba, commercially most successful Serbian rock band.
The Principality of Serbia (2008)
The Principality of Serbia (2008)
The main plot of the film "The Principality of Serbia" was put in the first seven decades of the nineteenth century when the state was being formed and strengthened together with its historical fate. This film shows the Serbs as people who fought during the two Risings while trying to liberate by themselves hardly and for a long time. It also shows how they hardly got the recognition to their liberty and the international recognition to the right to have their own state.
Voivode Đujić (2020)
Voivode Đujić (2020)
The film is based on Chetnik, Italian and German documents, as well as on the testimonies of the duke's comrades-in-arms, along with film footage of the scene.
The Kingdom of Serbia (2008)
The Kingdom of Serbia (2008)
A documentary re-enactment of the last few hundred years in Serbian history.
Walter (2012)
Walter (2012)
In 1945 the forgotten Serbian World War II Hero Walter got killed while defending the occupied city of Sarajevo. In 1972 the actor Velimir Bata Zivojinovic changed the history of China portraying Walter in a Yugoslav partisan movie. More than a billion people saw that film until today. Myth. Legend.
Village Without Women (2010)
Village Without Women (2010)
On a mountaintop in southwest Serbia lies the womanless hamlet of Zabrdje, where the Jankovic brothers hold the fort. Veering between the utterly hilarious and deeply poignant, this beautifully-crafted film follows one brother's quest to introduce women back into the once-vibrant community. But with no roads or running water, convincing a Serbian woman is out of the question.
The Banished (2018)
The Banished (2018)
The film consists of the testimonies of eight exiles, interwoven with footage of the area where they were at the time, as well as their photographs.
Masks (2016)
Masks (2016)
It is difficult to characterize Slobodan Tišma. He is unique and versatile. He wanders with joy throughout the artistic landscape, drawing it with his words since the early sixties. He started as a poet, he was a conceptualist, an "invisible artist" and a rock musician ("Luna"/"La Strada"- former Yugoslav New Wave bands). Currently, he is a prose writer, and sometimes he engages in minimalistic performances. Wearing different masks he moved from one artistic space to another breaking the stereotypes and creating an aesthetic phenomenon out of his own existence. His mainstay is margin. Through trees and ocean he communicates with the universe. He loves the game of seeking, and hiding again. He is a persistent walker. With his silent steps he pops up daily in the corners of Novi Sad, searching for his own pleasure. Similar to his writings, this film has no formal completeness and comprehensiveness. It wonders who Slobodan Tišma is.
Zivan Makes a Punk Festival (2014)
Zivan Makes a Punk Festival (2014)
Like Don Quixote, Zivan Pujic Jimmy fights for his annual punk festival. A film about failure, ambition, friendship and clinging to your dreams. Glavonic received much praise for this exceptional film that doesn't reveal what's fact and what's fiction.
In Praise of Nothing (2019)
In Praise of Nothing (2019)
A feelgood documentary about Nothing, in which Nothing, tired of being misunderstood, tries to defend its cause. Filmed worldwide by 100+ complementary DoPs, scored by cabaret grandmasters Pascal Comelade & The Tiger Lillies, narrated - in simple childish verse - by Iggy Pop.
The Graduates (2023)
The Graduates (2023)
Serbian high school graduates get together, 30 years later, in their former Belgrade classroom. They finished school in 1989. It was the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and their horizons seemed wide open towards Europe and the world. But instead, the Yugoslav wars broke out.