Joshua Oppenheimer

An Indonesian man with a communist background named Ramli was brutally murdered when the "Communist" purge occurred in 1965. His remaining family members lived in fear and silence until the making of this documentary. Adi, a brother of his, decided to revisit the horrific incident and visited the men who were responsible for the killings and one survivor of the purge. These meetings uncovered sadistic details of the murders and exposed raw emotions and reactions of the killers' family members about what happened in the past - much to Adi's disappointment.

After befriending documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various American film genres. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia's 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.

Twenty-five years after environmental collapse left the Earth uninhabitable, Mother, Father and Son are confined to their palatial bunker, where they struggle to maintain hope and a sense of normalcy by clinging to the rituals of daily life—until the arrival of a stranger, Girl, upends their happy routine. As tensions rise, their seemingly idyllic existence starts to crumble.

In 1969, bankrupt pizzeria owner Richard Davis invented the modern-day bulletproof vest. To prove that it worked, he shot himself — point-blank — 192 times.

In minimalist villas that already resemble film sets, we meet a community of aging citizens. With the help of technology, they plan to have themselves frozen after death until they can be resurrected. A disturbing visit to an environment where the question arises: Is it still self-deception if everyone else is on board with the idea?

Animals are killed and processed for fast food. A man is tarred and feathered. A collage of ordinary horrors on the way to the millennium.

Joshua Oppenheimer reimagines a sixty-second stock market update as maniacal monologue by a mumbling madman giving a bizarre play-by-play of floor traders and urban pedestrians as the trading day comes to an end. Created while in the midst of production on the feature-length GLOBALIZATION TAPES, this brief film is Oppenheimer's most concentrated piece of socio-political commentary: a quick, colorful political cartoon of capitalism plucked out-of-context and set to a soundtrack that is both comic and somewhat sinister. The upbeat musical accompaniment only enhances the empty celebration of meaningless activity.

A group of flower arrangers practice their art in this second silent early short from Joshua Oppenheimer.

A kaleidoscopic history of the American heartland, nuclear weapons and the Native American genocide.

They say that when the Earth is destroyed beyond habitation, the only survivors will be the cockroaches. Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer gives the indomitable insects the floor in this perversely comic commentary on affluence and self-destruction. Leashed with thin ribbons, a small intrusion of cockroaches scramble over magazine spreads of the good life while a schizophrenic pest voice-over mutters like an asylum inmate recalling the good old days, when food was plentiful and the roach traps were the enemy. It is consumption and consumerism as empty activity and madness, played-out as a natural history documentary in the guise of an invasion picture, all set to the theme song from LOVE STORY.

At the foot of the Andes Mountains in Chile lies an idyllic German colony called Villa Baviera. However, the beauty of the place – formerly known as Colonia Dignidad – hides a grim past. Systematic child-abuse, medical experiments, torture chambers and mass graves are part of its history. Today, 120 inhabitants still live their lives in the colony which has since changed its name to Villa Baviera and where a disturbing blend of religious fanaticism and extreme conservatism still holds sway.

Filmed by Indonesian workers during their working hours on rubber and palm oil plantations, this film exposes the devastating role of militarism and repression in building the “global economy.” Through chilling first hand accounts, hilarious improvised interventions, collective debate, and archival footage, the film explores the relationships between trade, Third World debt, and international institutions like the IMF and World Bank.

Hugh is an elderly man keeping himself active in retirement. His hobbies include teaching children to play the piano, carpentry and driving into town to preach sermons on the evils of homosexuality.

For eighty cents an hour, prisoners in a New Mexico prison answer telephones for the state tourism hotline. Co-directed by Christine Cynn.

The Academy Award-winning director of the heavy documentary 'The Act of Killing' discusses his philosophies in documentary filmmaking, the horrors of 'Night and Fog,' and what makes it the impactful film that it is.

Meditation on psychlogical warfare, shopping and paramilitary death squads.

Five years in the making, this brave and level-headed documentary exposes paramilitary activity in present day Northern Ireland during a supposed time of peace.

Experimental video and performance meditating on militias, American fundamentalism, and the opening of the American West.

Joshua Oppenheimer sets images of life in a retirement community in Arizona (as seen through television commercials) to a talk radio interview with a female convict extolling the benefits of her time on Sherriff Joe Arpaio's chain gang. It is two different kinds of sale jobs working at cross-purposes. Oppenheimer takes the luster off the idealistic advertising images through video distortion and electronic interference and cuts-up both the video and audio tracks until the weird poetry of the chain gang prisoner's lessons in life and death gives the commercial presentation a creepy disconnection from any kind of living ideal. It follows A BRIEF HISTORY OF PARADISE AS TOLD BY THE COCKROACHES and MARKET UPDATE as another sharp jab at consumerism as an illusory promise.

An early silent short by Joshua Oppenheimer in which a figure reflects light at the camera.

What makes a body human? This science-fiction fable shot in China foreshows the rise of AI. Time behaves fluidly as we travel into the near future in the company of an unusual pair: Blue and her friend, a mannequin named Lucy.