Photography documentaries coming out soon
This year we’re releasing two documentaries about pioneering photographers Martin Parr and Ernest, read more below.
I Am Martin Parr (2025) explores the life and work of the extraordinary photographer who revolutionised contemporary photography by inventing a political‚ humanist and accessible photographic language.
In UK cinemas from 21 February. More info here.
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (2025) is a portrait from acclaimed director Raoul Peck of Ernest Cole, a South African photographer who was the first to expose the horrors of apartheid to a world audience.
In UK cinemas from 7 March, more info here.
Photography is more than just capturing moments it’s about storytelling, emotion, and perspective. To get you in the mood for these new releases here are some photography documentaries to watch online that explore the lives of legendary photographers and uncover the stories behind iconic images.
Photography documentaries to watch
FINDING VIVIAN MAIER (2013)
Finding Vivian Maier is the critically acclaimed documentary about a mysterious nanny, who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and, discovered decades later, is now among the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never-before-seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her.
Watch on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime.
SHOOTING THE MAFIA (2019)
In the streets of Sicily, beautiful, gutsy Letizia Battaglia pointed her camera straight into the heart of the Mafia that surrounded her and began to shoot. The striking, life-threatening photos she took documenting the rule of the Cosa Nostra define her career.
Shooting The Mafia weaves together Battaglia’s striking black-and-white photographs, rare archival footage, classic Italian films, and the now 84-year-old’s own memories, to paint a portrait of a remarkable woman whose whose bravery and defiance helped expose the Mafia’s brutal crimes.
Watch on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime
Steve McCurry: the pursuit of color (2021)
McCurry: In Pursuit of Color is the first intimate feature length portrait of the contemporary photojournalist Steve McCurry. The one thing more poignant than McCurry’s pictures is his tumultuous 40-year career, which he’s spent travelling the globe essentially alone, capturing candid snapshots depicting the complexity of human life. Exclusive interviews with family, friends, colleagues, and with the photographer himself, bring to life the stories behind some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century. With unique access to the photographer's creative process and unpublished images, we discover how McCurry’s vulnerabilities set him on the path to greatness and we witness first-hand his commitment to record what defines and unites humankind -a race against time in an increasingly fractured and culturally homogenous world.
Watch on Google Play, Amazon Prime & Apple TV+.
BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK (2010)
For decades, this Schwinn-riding cultural anthropologist has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirées for the Times Style section in his columns “On the Street” and “Evening Hours.” Documenting uptown fixtures (Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller—who all appear in the film out of their love for Bill), downtown eccentrics and everyone in between, Cunningham’s enormous body of work is more reliable than any catwalk as an expression of time, place and individual flair. In turn, Bill Cunningham New York is a delicate, funny and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace.
Watch on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.
THE SALT OF THE EARTH (2014)
For the last 40 years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed some of the major events of our recent history; international conflicts, starvation and exodus. He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of wild fauna and flora, and of grandiose landscapes as part of a huge photographic project, which is a tribute to the planet's beauty.
Sebastião Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last travels, and by Wim Wenders, himself a photographer.
Watch on Curzon, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Apple TV+.
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (2022)
Directed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, All The Beauty And The Bloodshed is an epic, emotional and interconnected story about internationally renowned photographer, artist and activist Nan Goldin told through her slide shows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.
Watch on BBC IPlayer, Amazon Prime
MAPPLETHORPE: LOOK AT THE PICTURES (2016)
Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures is the first definitive, feature length portrait of the controversial American artist Robert Mapplethorpe since his death from AIDS in 1989. The one thing more outrageous than Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs was his life. Intimate revelations from family, friends and lovers are topped only by Mapplethorpe's candor, revealed in a series of rediscovered, never before heard interviews, made public here for the first time. This is the unique portrait of an artist who turned photography into contemporary fine art with a bold vision that ignited a culture war still raging to this day.
Available to watch on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.