On this page, you can find some (ethnographic) documentary and film recommendations, some resources where you might find other ethnographic films, and a list of anthropological podcasts. Tap a button to go straight to that section.
(Ethnographic) Documentaries / films
Here is a small list of documentaries that might be interesting for you to watch and critically engage with (think about the film’s (re)presentation, argument, framing, positionality, etc.).
- Big Men (2013): This film follows a small group of American explorers at an oil company during the discovery of the first commercial oil field in Ghana. It also follows people in the swamps of Nigeria’s Niger Delta who “try to profit in any way possible, because they’ve given up on waiting for the money to trickle down.”
- Black Skin, White Masks (1995): Explores the life and work of the psychoanalytic theorist and activist Frantz Fanon.
- Concerning Violence (2014): Newly discovered archival material displays “the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation from colonial rule” in Africa, based on the work of Frantz Fanon, narrated by Lauryn Hill.
- For Sama (2019): Depicts a young woman’s experience of war during the revolution in Aleppo, Syria.
- The Act of Killing (2012): “A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish.”
- Scrap Odyssey (2010): A “snapshot of the shifting plates of global trade by focusing on one Kyrgyz truck driver’s route across the ancient Silk Road.”
- Strangers Abroad (1985): mini documentary series about six groundbreaking anthropologists.
- Virunga (2014): A team of park rangers risk their lives to protect the last mountain gorillas in Congo.
Ethnographic Film Resources / Platforms
- Alexander Street: A database with collections of multimedia resources for the study of anthropology, such as ethnographic videos (Ethnographic Video Online) and archived field materials. You might need to opt for a free trial to watch these films.
- Documentaries – Ethnographic Films: IMDB list of ethnographic film recommendations.
- Docuseek (Subject: Anthropology)
- Movies that Matter: Films related to human rights.
- the British Royal Anthropological Institute has a YouTube playlist of (trailers of) ethnographic films.
- the Internet Archive has a page dedicated to Cultural and Academic Films, and specifically a collection of films from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Podcasts
Here you can find some anthropological podcasts, with links to their Spotify and Apple pages. Most of them are available on other listening platforms as well, which you can find on each podcast’s website via the button.
This Society for Cultural Anthropology podcast explores “what anthropology teaches us about the world and people around us”.
Interviews with anthropologists about their new books.
A podcast that merges “human insights with cultural storytelling”.
Sapiens: A Podcast for Everything Human is the podcast of the online anthropological magazine Sapiens, that discusses human stories, exploring what it means to be human.
This new podcast by the Asian Anthropology Journal discusses recent contributions to the journal with established and emerging scholars.
This podcast has been discontinued since 2022, but you can still listen to the episodes. Each episode features one or more anthropologists, “discussing anthropology and what it has to tell us in the twenty-first century.”
The Emic: Anthropological stories from the field discusses fieldwork stories as experienced by the anthropologist-host and her guests.
The Familiar Strange discusses ‘doing anthropology’, to make what anthropologists know and do familiar. This podcast has been discontinued, but you can still listen to the episodes (and read the blogs on their website).
Wish to recommend another documentary, a podcast, or something else? You can do so here!
