John Grierson Movies

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of...

Part of BFI collection "Police and Thieves."

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the...

The story of the North Sea herring fleets from Yarmouth and Lowestoft to Shetland.

Grierson set out to make "propaganda," and this film--with it's voice-over proclaiming the great value of the British industrial worker, without a...

Short documentary showing the workings of a large London sorting office.

Legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock pays tribute to the "father of the documentary", John Grierson, exploring what made his work so...

Filmed in Uganda, Man of Africa was assembled by legendary documentary producer John Grierson. The film depicts the mass migration of the Bakija and...

Documentary about shipbuilding on the Clyde. In 1960, Glasgow and other towns and ports on the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland, were still...

The history of Scotland and the factors that have shaped the character of its people.

Documentary following an Edinburgh fishing trawler, the "Isabella Grieg".

Marionette parody of Buster Keaton.

In this parody of Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective goes to an opium den of inequity in the dangerous London district of London and challenges...

The building and launch of a new long-wave radio transmitter - just as the TV age is about to be born.

A record of an educational experiment in the small town of Chesterfield in Derbyshire.

Humphrey Jennings' first film as a director, a brief overview of the British postal service.

Early documentary, slung together from footage depicting the first invasion of North America by Europeans, designed to show industrial technology's...

A look at the work of Glasgow's Medical Officer of Health.

A BFI-produced documentary about documentary filmmaker John Grierson speaking about documentary.

Short documentary about weather forecasting, emphasising the importance of the GPO's telecommunications systems.