• After the coal miners at Brookside Mine in southeast Kentucky vote to form a union, Duke Power Company refuses to acknowledge their labor contract. Once the miners begin to strike, the company responds by hiring scabs to fill the jobs of the regular employees. This year-long strike effort becomes increasingly violent - for the miners, their families, and the filmmakers.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 1976

    Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature

  • When employees at a Hormel meatpacking plant in Minnesota have both their wages and benefits cut, the local union endorses a strike. However, complications arise when the national branch of the union doesn't follow suit. As the strike drags on, friends become enemies, families are divided, and the very fabric of this quintessential American town is threatened.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 1990

    Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary

  • Driven by a mutual determination not to be “the generation that allows progress to slip,” national social justice leaders Marc Morial of National Urban League and Janet Murguía of UnidosUS join forces to fight structural racism amid a troubling resurgence of white supremacy in the Trump era.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2022

    Centerpiece Film at DOCNYC

  • Operation Eagle Claw was an honorable yet ill-fated attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 embassy staff held hostage. The film plays out as a thriller, drawing upon never-before-heard audiotapes from inside the White House, as well as new interviews with hostages, rescuers, Iranians, and President Carter himself.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2019

    World Premiere at Toronto International Film Festival

  • Camp Pathfinder, a summer camp located in Canada’s idyllic Algonquin Park, invites boys from across the country to spend a few weeks in the backcountry. Heartbroken by a growing global refugee crisis, camp director Mike Sladden decides to bring a group of displaced boys from war-torn Syria and Iraq to spend their summer at the camp.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2018

    World Premiere at DOCNYC

  • A family's capacity for acceptance is tested when a champion diver, destined for the Olympics, announces her transition and invites her YouTube followers along for every moment. The film offers a raw and revealing glimpse into a life that never compromises happiness, through a combination of never-before-seen archival footage and personal diaries from Gigi herself.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2017

    World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival

  • In 1990, prominent small-town physician John Boyle was arrested for the murder of his wife, Noreen; the testimony of his 12-year-old son Collier led to his father's conviction. 26 years later, Collier is now an adult; he returns to Mansfield, Ohio to visit his imprisoned father, still seeking an admission of guilt and his own sense of closure.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2017

    International Premiere at IDFA

  • In the most challenging year of her life, gregarious soul singer Sharon Jones confronts a pancreatic cancer diagnosis while touring with her band, the Dap-Kings. As she struggles to recover her health and rediscover her voice, the film intimately uncovers the willful spirit of a powerful woman determined to regain the explosive singing career that has eluded her for 50 years.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2015

    World Premiere at Toronto International Film Festival

  • A vivid look at the country’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, the film charts a journey into the soul of American journalism. With unfettered access and unfiltered honesty, we follow the day-to-day pressures and challenges of editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, as the film grapples with how the past continues to shape our current events.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2015

  • Rather than hide from her past, Mariel Hemingway has chosen to face her family history of mental illness with clarity and deliberation. Tracing the family’s struggles back to the suicide of her grandfather Ernest, Mariel reflects upon her own career as an actress and advocate, alongside her sisters Margaux and Muffet.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2013

    World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival

  • Almost eight years after the tragedy at Columbine High School, history repeated itself - thirty-three students were killed in a shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Director Barbara Kopple takes an in-depth look at the issue of gun control, interviewing both pro-gun and anti-gun advocates in an effort to shed light on this not-quite black-and-white issue.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 2011

  • In 2003, the Chicks (formerly Dixie) were at the top of their game as a successful country act. After the US invasion of Iraq, outspoken singer Natalie Maines publicly criticizes President Bush; the ensuing firestorm against the band threatens not only their lives, but the very idea of free speech in America.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, Cecelia Peck, 2006

    World Premiere at Toronto International Film Festival

  • The film follows a group of intrepid female reporters in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. This includes Molly Bingham, an experienced photographer held for days at Abu Ghraib; Marie Colvin, who lost her eye in the line of duty; Janine di Giovanni, who balances her duties as both a journalist and a mother; and Mary Rogers, a camerawoman who puts life on the line for her stories.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, Marijana Wotton, 2005

    Winner of the Golden Eagle Award at CINE

  • Borrowing its name from a jazz composition sometimes attributed to Louis Armstrong, the film chronicles film director Woody Allen and his love of early 20th century New Orleans music, as illustrated by his 1996 tour of Europe with his New Orleans Jazz Band.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 1997

    Winner of the Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary

  • Legendary actor Gregory Peck was known for his integrity both on and off-screen over the course of his storied and successful career. Now, as an aging Peck performs a one-man retrospective stage show marked by keen storytelling and a gracious sense of humor, the film paints an intimate profile of an American icon.

    dir. Barbara Kopple, 1999

    World Premiere at Cannes Film Festival

  • Produced by the Winterfilm Collective, which included Barbara Kopple alongside Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker, Joe Bangert, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, and Jeff Holstein, among others, the film follows the Vietnam Veterans Against the War as they protest and march in Washington, DC. At the same time, the 1971 Winter Soldier hearings begin in Detroit.

    dir. Winterfilm Collective, 1972

    Winner of the Forum Award at Berlin International Film Festival