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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 29 movies from Chicago Media Project
Determined to turn unfathomable tragedy into action, the teenage survivors of Parkland, Florida catalyze a powerful, unprecedented youth movement that spreads with lightning speed across the country, as a generation of mobilized youth take back democracy in this powerful coming-of-age story.
Jan 2020
A year in the life of an underdog competitive high school mariachi band in the Texas borderlands.
Jan 2023
Radical Love explores the subversive political activism and fierce love connection of Michael and Eleanora Kennedy, a husband-wife legal team who represented a who’s who of the politically subversive class in the 1960s and 70s. At the center of the story is their most notorious clients and closest friends, founding members of The Weather Underground Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. Now as a widow, Eleanora reflects on a marriage and life in the crosshairs of politic activism, government surveillance, and deep passion.
Jun 2021
Unfolding over the course of one very eventful day in his life, at 17-year-old preacher’s kid Henry's afternoon birthday pool party, the guests include an assortment of grown-ups from the family church, as well as Henry’s secular and religious teen friends — including the closeted young Logan, who clearly has eyes for Henry.
Dec 2015
Follow the Indianapolis Star reporters that broke the story about USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar's abuse and hear from gymnasts.
Jun 2020
Teacher Wang works as a 'mistress dispeller' in China, hired to break up affairs by any means necessary. Through one of her cases, we explore the ways class, capital, and culture collide to shape romantic relationships in contemporary China.
Jan 2025
The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.
Jul 2017
When, in the late 1990s, Israeli student Teddy Katz exposed the massacre of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the village of Tantura, in May 1948, during the first Arab-Israeli war, he was initially praised for his pioneering work; but he was soon infamous and branded a traitor. Decades later, incendiary new evidence emerges that corroborates Teddy's findings.
Jan 2022
Behind the scenes of Sarah McLachlan’s legendary all-women music festival and features interviews with performers including Bonnie Raitt, Erykah Badu, Olivia Rodrigo, and Emmylou Harris.
Sep 2025
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
Oct 2017
A documentary film following the rise of Ebony and Jet and their growth into a brand with a readership base in the millions which has had an undeniable effect on American culture.
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A documentary following JR's artwork giving a global voice to everyday people.
Nov 2021
Over seven years, three couples involved in the extreme sport of BASE jumping test the limits of love and life itself. Risking everything for the thrill of the jump, their dedication is put to the ultimate test.
Sep 2024
Three Navy SEALs leave their tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with treatment-resistant, unrelenting psychological pain. They find themselves at the cutting edge of a different frontline: a lifesaving psychedelic therapy that brings healing to a community in urgent need.
Aug 2024
With his signature gospel sound on the Hammond B3, Billy Preston doublehandedly elevated the greatest artists of his time – from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, from Aretha Franklin to Eric Clapton, from Ray Charles to Barbra Streisand to Sly and the Family Stone. In our film, we explore Billy's career and influence on generations of musicians, as he scored several number one hits of his own and became one of the most sought-after musicians in the world. He did all of this as a soul divided -- by his deep roots in the church, in constant conflict with his identity as a gay Black man, searching for a family of his own that would accept him for who he was.
Feb 2026
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
Jun 2017
When two siblings undertake an archaeological excavation of their late grandmother’s house, they embark on a magical-realist journey from her home in New Jersey to ancient Rome, from fashion to physics, in search of what life remains in the objects we leave behind.
Jan 2018
Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. As a way to imagine a more equitable future, Disney uses her family's story to explore how this systemic injustice took hold.
Sep 2022
A generation of California men endure decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launch a protest to regain their freedom.
Apr 2024
The history of New York City's Apollo Theater in Harlem is given the full treatment.
Apr 2019