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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 45 movies from Breakwater Studios
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
Feb 2024
Oscar®-winning director Ben Proudfoot brings the inspiring untold story of UNICEF to life through first-person interviews and UNICEF’s never-before-seen archive. Discover this story of optimism as UNICEF celebrates 75 years of defending the rights of the world's youngest and most vulnerable citizens.
Apr 2022
The Final Copy of Ilon Sprecht is an intimate deathbed account of the unsung advertising genius who coined L'Oréal's iconic "Because I'm Worth It" slogan in 1971, a four-word feminist manifesto that, against all odds, changed advertising forever.
Jun 2024
Told by her daughter Wendy, MINK! chronicles the remarkable Patsy Takemoto Mink, a Japanese American from Hawai'i who became the first woman of color elected to the U.S. Congress, on her harrowing mission to co-author and defend Title IX, the law that transformed athletics for generations in America for girls and women.
Jun 2022
During World War II, Fred Conrad was taken from a troop train in Europe and sent home to Canada to use his pre-war chicken raising skills to stop war-time food shortages. Fred and his wife Hilda turn a misfortunate change-of-plans into a career in humane poultry science that proves to hold meaning and purpose beyond Fred's wildest dreams.
Mar 2011
A virtuoso jazz pianist and film composer tracks his family's lineage through his 91-year-old grandfather from Jim Crow Florida to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Nov 2020
Six legendary film composers each write an original piece for a classic pianist to perform.
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Part of the Almost Famous series. Kim Hill was a rising singer when she met a young rapper named will.i.am, but she quit the Black Eyed Peas just before they became famous.
Dec 2019
Part of the Almost Famous series. In 1963, Ed Dwight Jr. was poised to be NASA’s first African-American astronaut, until suddenly he wasn’t.
93-year-old documentarian Chris Hesse—personal cinematographer to forgotten African icon Kwame Nkrumah—races against blindness and time to rescue and repatriate a secret trove of over 1,300 films that captured the birth of African independence in the fifties and sixties. Yet unseen by the public, these films may not only rewrite Ghanaian and African history—but world history itself.
Sep 2025
A veteran glassmaker explains his work in avant-garde stained glass designs.
Sep 2017
Part of the Almost Famous series. She was arguably the greatest women's basketball player. She won three national trophies; she played in the ’76 Olympics; she was drafted to the NBA. But have you ever heard of Lucy Harris?
Jun 2021
A devoted Philadelphia Phillies fan inspires his city to give a struggling shortstop a game-changing standing ovation in this rousing short documentary.
Oct 2024
A world-renowned pastry chef, reflects on his relationship with his deceased father Milton Abel Sr., famed Kansas City jazz musician.
Jun 2019
Part of the Almost Famous series. Jocelyn Bell was a graduate student at Cambridge in 1967 when she pushed through the skepticism from her superiors to make one of the greatest astrophysical discoveries of the twentieth century. While Jocelyn was belittled and sexually harassed by the media, the Nobel Prize was awarded to her professor and his boss.
Jul 2021
Part of the Life's Work series. Mother Earth is a portrait of Louise Pentz, a production potter turned feminist sculptor.
Apr 2015
A record in 35mm film of the first drenching rain on Los Angeles after the devastation of the wildfires.
Mar 2025
Jarrett Harper and his younger brother Baylon share raw memories of abuse in LA's foster system, their unshakeable bond tested when the elder takes violent revenge on their abuser and faces life behind bars.
Mar 2026
Part of the Cause of Life series. A devout Christian, Jerry Givens was Virginia’s chief executioner, before he became an advocate of abolishing the death penalty.
Jan 2021
Memories of the first World War told by an elderly man who remembers moments from the past while he wanders around his Nova Scotia farm. Using a combination of rescanned and remastered archival documentary footage and new cinematic recreations, George tells the story of one soldier’s experience and memory as a Canadian soldier in the First World War, which ended a century ago on 11 November 1918.
Oct 2018