Best Singaporean documentary movies

Free to Play (2014)

Follow three professional video game players as they overcome personal adversity, family pressures, and the realities of life to compete in a $1,000,000 tournament that could change their lives forever.

The Tree House (2019)

In 2045, a filmmaker lands on Mars and tries to make a film. “Home… Far away from home”, he recalls faces of people, thus a collection of moving images emerge.

Marco Polo: The China Mystery Revealed (2004)

Marco Polo became a legend after his epic, 24 year trek across Asia. Was he the world's greatest overland explorer? Or the biggest liar? National Geographic's own legend, Michael Yamashita, used Polo's book as a guide to find the truth.

Shirkers (2018)

In 1992, teenager Sandi Tan shot Singapore's first indie road movie with her enigmatic American mentor Georges – who then vanished with all the footage. Twenty years later, the 16mm film is recovered, sending Tan, now a novelist in Los Angeles, on a personal odyssey in search of Georges' vanishing footprints.

The Songs We Sang (2016)

The Songs We Sang is a 2015 Singaporean documentary directed by Eva Tang. It is about Xinyao, Singaporean folk music that was popular in the 1980s.

Coral Reef Adventure (2003)

Coral Reef Adventure follows the real-life expedition of ocean explorers and underwater filmmakers Howard and Michele Hall. Using large-format cameras, the Halls guide us to the islands and sun-drenched waters of the South Pacific to document the health and beauty of coral reefs. Featuring songs written and recorded by Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Hock Hiap Leong (2001)

Hock Hiap Leong pays tribute to this a 55-year old coffee shop on Armenian Street that has been an incessant inspiration to many people. The urban re-development board’s demolishing plans in 2001 inspired the filmmaker to capture this epitaph of history.

The Skin We Wear (2021)

This documentary follows four people living with Harlequin ichthyosis, a rare genetic skin disorder, in Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Japan’s Comeback Game (2021)

Elsa (2021)

Six-year-old Stanley has a year left to be Disney's Queen Elsa to his heart's content, before formal education starts.

Chaplin in Bali (2017)

In 1932, Chaplin, in full midlife crisis, escapes to Bali in search of himself to find the artistic rejuvenation and inspiration to do his difficult transition to sound film.

Some Women (2021)

With bracing honesty, filmmaker Quen Wong shares her journey as a transgender woman in Singapore—from her days as a teenage boy coming out to her uncommonly supportive family, to the present as a woman about to marry the love of her life. Locating herself within the local trans community, the documentary also weaves in interviews with different generations of trans women including ‘Anita’, a former legend of Bugis Street—a world-famous stomping ground for trans women in the 1950s to the ’80s—and Lune LOH, a trans youth activist.

Menstrual Man (2013)

Some folks squirm at mention of a woman’s period…not Arunachalam Muruganantham. Considered a madman and pervert by his community, he ignores his detractors and makes his dream—low-cost sanitary pads made by and for rural Indian women—a reality. Using manually operated machines, Muruganantham’s microbusiness model is focused on something more important than profits: providing sustainable employment, hygiene and emancipation to women who would otherwise go without. He’s a man with a million-dollar idea—except money has nothing to do with it. His goal is to make a livelihood, not to accumulate wealth; to operate at a human scale, not a multinational one. Menstrual Man is the inspiring story of a hero who rises above poverty and a lack of education to become a superstar social entrepreneur in the business of breaking cultural taboos and re-inventing the economic pyramid. Muruganantham is leading a movement, not a company. And it’s spreading.

Lee Kuan Yew: In His Own Words (2023)

This documentary examines the values, philosophies and ideas that defined his leadership.

Death of Soldier (2021)

Truong Minh Qúy’s found footage film brings together multiple scenes depicting soldier’s deaths in Vietnamese propaganda films, revealing aesthetic patterns that speak to a nationalist agenda while hinting at a broader value system within Vietnamese society.

Moveable Feast (1996)

Narrated by a teenage boy, he brings us through to the various sights, sounds and characters ranging from a coffeeshop, to a Chinese wedding dinner in a traditional Chinese restaurant.

A Day with the Labourers (1985)

This film is an expository documentary that discusses the livelihood of migrant workers in Singapore and how they are treated as a transient and disposable workforce in the 1980s. The demand and influx of migrant construction workers reached a high in the early 1980s as Singapore started the tunnelling works and construction of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. The film was a response in defending the dignity of the workers and highlighting the contribution of foreign labour towards Singapore’s development.

Feathered Friends (1988)

A wildlife documentary highlighting some of the 300-over species of birds that were native to Singapore. It also addressed the diminishing population of birds due to Singapore’s urbanisation.

Mad About English! (2008)

The amazing story of 1,000,000,000 people and their MAD MAD MAD rush to learn English! China 's love affair with the English language has reached feverish proportions. With half a million or more visitors descending on Beijing for the Games, can the Chinese pull it off with their newly-acquired English? Mad About English! follows the inspiring and heart-warming efforts of a city preparing to host the world by learning a once-forbidden tongue.

Absent Smile (2022)

Absent Smile is a loving document of Clang’s parents and their mixed feelings of longing yet support for their son. Using the age-old format of family portraiture augmented with digital means, the spectral quality of absent family members projects a tentative reunion across time and space.

Small Hours of the Night (2024)

A woman is being interrogated in a dark room by a stern young man on a rainy night. As the hours pass, identities and historical time periods begin to blur. Her testimony becomes a scrambled, personal record of her country’s complicated legal history.