A half century after its release, 'Midnight Cowboy' remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. With beguiling performances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two loners who join forces out of desperation, blacklist survivor Waldo Salt's brilliant screenplay, and John Schlesinger's fearless direction, the 1969 film became the only X-rated film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Its vivid and compassionate depiction of a more realistic, unsanitized New York City and its inhabitants paved the way for a generation’s worth of gritty movies with complex characters and adult themes.But this is not a documentary about the making of 'Midnight Cowboy': it is about the deeply gifted and flawed people behind a dark and difficult masterpiece; New York City in a troubled time of cultural ferment; and the era that made a movie and the movie that made an era. Featuring extensive archival material and compelling new interviews, director Nancy Buirski illuminates how one film captured the essence of a time and a place, reflecting a rapidly changing society with striking clarity.

In 1966 in a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans a young Black fisherman tries to break up a fight between white and black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. That night police arrest him for assault on a minor…with the help of a young attorney, they bravely stand up to systemic racism in courtroom battles, including the US Supreme Court. Hate is vanquished by a powerful story of friendship that will last a lifetime. With the rise of white nationalism in the world, there is no more important story to tell today.

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. A common occurrence in the Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who instead bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its rape investigator Rosa Parks to Alabama, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. This film exposes the legacy of physical abuse inflicted upon black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story. An attempted rape against Parks was but one inspiration for her ongoing fight for justice for countless women like Taylor. Parks’ 1955 bus boycott was the result of decades of activist work, not the beginning. More and more women are now speaking up after their assault. THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR shines a light on the black women who spoke up when danger was greatest; it was their noble efforts to reclaim control of their bodies that paved the way for today’s generation of activists. The 2017 Women's March and the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement are directly linked to their courage.

In a never before seen interview filmed a few years before his death, Sidney Lumet guides us through his life and work. Weaving it through his films, director Nancy Buirski reveals the man and artist.

In 1958, in the state of Virginia, the idea of interracial marriage was not only considered to be immoral to many, it was also illegal. When Richard (Joel Edgerton, Black Mass) and Mildred (Ruth Negga, World War Z) fall in love, they are aware of the eyes staring at them and the words said behind their backs. It is when they get married, however, that words and looks become actions, and the two are arrested. The couple decide to take their case all of the way to the Supreme Court in order to fight for their love in this passionate and gripping drama that critics are calling "a masterpiece." – Jason Gorber, ScreenAnarchy.com

Of the great ballerinas, Tanaquil Le Clercq may have been the most transcendent. She mesmerized viewers and choreographers alike. Her elongated, race-horse physique became the new prototype for the great George Balanchine. The muse to both Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, they loved her as a dancer and a woman. Balanchine married her and Robbins created his famous Afternoon of a Faun for Tanny. She was the foremost dancer of her day until it suddenly all stopped. At age 27, Tanny was struck down by polio and paralyzed. She never danced again.

A racially charged criminal trial and a heartrending love story converge in this documentary about Mildred and Richard Loving, set during the turbulent Civil Rights era. For the first time, the story of the couple at the heart of marriage equality in America is revealed in full detail. As they struggle for dignity and tolerance in the face of anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S., they are paired with two young lawyers driven to pave the way for social justice and equal rights in an historic Supreme Court case. Told through recently uncovered archival footage and photographs, the film unfolds in an authentic, poetic narrative. Though The Loving Story takes us on a journey into the heart of the Civil Rights movement and race relations, it is, at its core, a powerful love story of two people who wanted to live and raise children in the place they called home.