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Best arts documentaries: The art, theatre, dance and opera films to watch online

For now, we're all keeping in touch with the world of arts from a distance.

The time may be right to move on from bingeing endless rom-coms and get into some real-life drama from the world that we're all missing in lockdown - and it's the arts, so there's a lot of it.

A number of documentaries provide a rare opportunity to see the inner workings of an artist's brain, whether they're painting, performing of creating masterpieces of movement.

From David Hockney's biggest artwork to Stephen Sondheim's biggest failure, here are some of the best documentaries to sate your appetite for art, theatre, dance and opera:

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

Marina Abramović has been using her body as her artistic canvas for her whole career. This documentary traces the build-up to her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was the biggest exhibition of performance art in the museum’s history, and saw her sit silently across from an empty chair, waiting for people to fill it and look into her eyes. More than 1,000 people took part, including her former lover and long-time collaborator Ulay (who passed away earlier this year), who she hadn’t spoken to for 20 years. “Nobody could imagine that anyone would take time to sit and just engage in mutual gaze with me,” she said: “It was a complete surprise – this enormous need of humans to actually have contact.”

Where to watch: Amazon Prime

Nothing Like A Dame

For decades, four grand-dames of British theatre have been meeting up to chat, drink and reminisce – and just once, they let the cameras join them. Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins – the Holy Quadrumvirate – talk to each other and director Roger Michell about their incomparable influence on the British stage. A highlight includes their discussion of Dame Maggie’s “merry war” with Dame Joan’s husband Sir Lawrence Olivier, who terrified everyone, but she terrified him. Always a legend.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, YouTube

Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened

Stephen Sondheim’s legacy is so vast that it’s difficult to imagine his now hallowed musicals flopping. But that’s exactly what happened when Merrily We Roll Along opened. His collaboration with Hal Prince was one of the most anticipated shows of the 80s, with hoards of actors falling over themselves to audition. Original cast member Lonny Price directs this documentary, which combines interviews with newly discovered footage from rehearsals to show just how everything went so badly wrong – and how the show survived and thrived in the years to come.

Where to watch: Netflix

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

“She wanted this art as a mirror for her own strangeness.” Peggy Guggenheim was a collector both of art and of artists. Samuel Beckett, Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder all fell into her orbit, along with many others. Not simply an heiress, she helped artists such as Salvador Dalí and Man Ray to leave Europe for the United States, saving them from the horrors of World War II. Never-before-heard tapes of her final interview were unearthed for this documentary by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, in which she delves into the unique legacy of this remarkable woman.

Where to watch: BBC iPlayer, YouTube

Pina

Wim Wenders’s tribute to choreographer Pina Bausch and her dance troupe very nearly didn’t come to be made. Two days before shooting was due to begin, she died unexpectedly of cancer, just five days after being diagnosed. But the dancers of Tanztheater Wuppertal convinced him to carry on in honour of her. The film showcases these dancers in extracts from four of her pieces – Le sacre du printemps, Café Müller, Kontakthof, and Vollmond – performed in various locations around the city of Wuppertal in Germany. Wenders’s film shows us not only the magic of her movements but the impact she had on the people who danced them.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime

Maria By Callas

She has been called the greatest singer of the 20th century. This film about Greek-American soprano Maria Callas tells her life through her own words. With interviews, letters and unpublished memoirs – the vast majority of which had never been seen by the public – her life from humble beginnings to an operatic diva unfolds. Not only that, we see the enthusiasm of her fans, who would flock to her concerts and queue around the corner and through the night to see her sing. Many of her arias are allowed to play in full to show the depth of her voice – it’s a blessing because, frankly, it would be a travesty to cut them short.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, YouTube

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

Relive the vibrancy of the Royal Academy’s 2012 David Hockney exhibition, which saw him fill the main galleries with monumental works of East Yorkshire landscapes. Filmed over three years, Bruno Wollheim’s film follows the artist’s return from 25 years in California to the landscape of his native county, where he paints in all seasons and weathers to create the largest picture ever made outdoors. The RA has also released a documentary about the exhibition itself, as well as another four years later – together they attracted 750,000 visitors.

Where to watch: Vimeo, Royal Academy

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

There is no shortage of films about Jean-Michel Basquiat; there’s Boom For Real, on his early years, and Rages to Riches, which features interviews with his sisters. The Radiant Child comes out top, though. In 1986, director Tamra Davis filmed an interview with her friend and a number of people close to him, when the artist was 25 years old. Two years later, he died and Davis shut the footage away from everyone, including herself. She returned to it two decades later to make this highly personal film about his life and work.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, YouTube

Cunningham

Merce Cunningham is lauded for pushing the boundaries of dance. Not only that; his influence bled into the other arts. Director Alla Kovgan’s documentary explores his creativity and the journey he made to become one of the most influential choreographers of the last century. Focusing on the period between 1942 and 1972, the film brings in excerpts of his shows, rehearsals, interviews and new performances of his works by the dancers he inspired.

Where to watch: BFI Player, Amazon Prime

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Any of the years of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s life could be ripe for a documentary film. The two years between 2008 and 2010 have been chosen by filmmaker Alison Klayman. Just before his arrest in 2011, we see him preparing for exhibitions in Munich and Tate Modern (his 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds), as well as how he expresses himself and is pursued by the Chinese authorities for doing so.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime