Les Blank Movies

The definitive film on the history of the toe-tapping, foot-stomping music of French Southwest Louisiana. Includes many Cajun and Zydeco greats,...

In a mountain village in southwestern China, just south of Tibet, one of the last remaining traditional bearers of the Lisu ethnic group is amid the...

This softball umpire training film was one of Les Blank's early industrial films made in 1962 prior to his independent filmmaking career. He made...

This is Les Blank’s earliest music film, focusing on the renown trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie, who along with Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk,...

This little-known Blank gem is a portrait of the Serbian-American communities of Chicago and California, highlighting their history in this country,...

This short film features Les Blank (in a rare acting role) and Getachew Abbai. Directed by David Lawrence. This was a student film made at the USC...

Home video footage shot by Maureen Gosling during the filming of Les Blank's feature "A Poem is a Naked Person".

This short film by Les Blank with Skip Gerson features the charismatic legendary blues icon Lightnin' Hopkins sing a beautiful song about a...

The long-awaited sequel to Sprout Wings and Fly is a gentle celebration of mountain living, a once-thriving American way of life.

This creative educational film by Pieter Van Deusen features a variety of string instruments performed by noted musicians such as Shamim Ahmed Kahn....

A complex, insightful look at the Chicano experience as mirrored in the lives and music of the most acclaimed Norteño musicians of the...

The Ways of Water was made with the Earth Science Curriculum Project and the Environmental Studies Project of the American Geological Institute. A...

Les Blank continued filming the Maestro after the original film “The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists” was completed. Here are the...

A short film looking at the early married life of a young couple.

One of Les Blank's student films: a horror film following a young couple.

One of Les Blank's industrial films, which follows a Holly Farms "broiler" chicken from factory incubation to the county fair barbecue pit. A...

A film created by Les Blank and Maureen Gosling from footage that was cut from the documentary "Always for Pleasure" (1978) about Mardi Gras in New...

This aloha-filled portrait of Auntie Irmgard Farden Aluli, one of Hawaii's best loved composers, gently focuses on Hawai'ian women's contributions to...

Lightnin' Hopkins sings about playing cards with Les Blank and Skip Gerson - a card game he won which turned critical to the making of the film "The...

A lyrical recreation of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ decision at age eight to stop chopping cotton and start singing for a living. Preserved by...