Charles Chaplin was born in a tough area of London and came to America not only to reinvent himself but partially to invent the language of the then-new art of cinema itself. Through pluck, luck and sheer determination, Chaplin became a leading man and director—often playing the familiar “Little Tramp” character for decades, first in silent films and then, most famously, with a rousing closing speech in “The Great Dictator.”

When “Saturday Night Fever” came out in 1977, the small film about an Italian kid from Brooklyn who moonlighted as a disco dancer became a force of nature. It rocketed star John Travolta into the stratosphere, and the soundtrack album, heavy on the Bee Gees, sold 25 million copies—many before the film was even out in theaters.

Director John Maggio’s new documentary

This past week marked eighty years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, which lured the United States into WWII. Sixteen million Americans answered the call to join the armed forces against the Axis of Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and fascist Italy. Over 400,000 servicemen lost their lives in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, with approximately 80,000 more still classified as missing in action, their final resting places unknown.

When Bill Simmons put out the call for documentaries for his “Music Box” series on HBO he made sure to get in touch with Penny Lane. He had seen Lane’s previous documentary, “Hail, Satan?” and asked if she had any ideas on artists to profile for “Music Box.”

Lane did have an idea: Why not ask Kenny G, whom she had first seen at the Blue Note

Filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West make documentaries about extraordinary women. Their Oscar-nominated 2018 “RBG” followed around the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Cohen and West have returned with “Julia,” which traces the rise of Julia Child from her Southern California beginnings to becoming the world’s first celebrity chef. “Like a lot of people in my generation, I

After making the documentary “Boys State,” about a Texas program wherein adolescent males practice what it might be like to experience a real electoral campaign, filmmaker Jesse Moss turned his attention to a man running for real. For several months he and his crew followed then-South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg on his ultimately unsuccessful bid to win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

There’s what goes on in the film biz and then there’s what really goes on in Tinseltown. That’s what documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich (director of last year’s “Lance,” about disgraced biker Lance Armstrong) was seeking to get at with her new film, “What Happens in Hollywood.”

The documentary, which is now available on Roku, shows women, and some men, speaking candidly about the sexism and misogyny that is absolutely baked into the film industry, and has been since its founding by a group of rich men a century ago.