Arrival

Arrival 2016

7.61

Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.

2016

Spinning Man

Spinning Man 2018

5.56

Evan Birch is a family man and esteemed professor at a distinguished university. When a female student goes missing, police Detective Malloy has reason to be suspicious when crucial evidence makes Evan the prime suspect in her disappearance.

2018

Project Nim

Project Nim 2011

6.80

From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.

2011

Do I Sound Gay?

Do I Sound Gay? 2015

5.70

What makes a voice “gay”? A breakup with his boyfriend sets journalist David Thorpe on a quest to unravel a linguistic mystery.

2015

Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?

Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? 2013

6.90

A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation.

2013

Mockingbird Don't Sing

Mockingbird Don't Sing 2001

6.40

The tragic true story of one of the worst cases of child abuse ever documented (in which a girl was locked in a room without social contact for nearly thirteen years) and what happened when she was finally rescued.

2001

The Unanswered Question IV : The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity

The Unanswered Question IV : The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity 1976

9.00

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Bernstein provides two distinct meanings of the term ambiguity. The first is "doubtful or uncertain" and the second, "capable of being understood in two or more possible senses"

1976

We Will Speak

We Will Speak 2023

10.00

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

2023

Noam Chomsky: Knowledge and Power

Noam Chomsky: Knowledge and Power 2015

10.00

An in-depth look at the work and views of the man described as 'one of the greatest minds in human history'. He first emerged through his pioneering work in linguistics in the 1950s but later became a political activist and a critic of US foreign policy in Vietnam, its neo-liberal capitalism, and mainstream media. Consisting primarily of interviews with Chomsky and other writers, academics, philosophers, social commentators and broadcasters, this film explores the breadth, originality and importance of his work; and the alternative narratives he has advanced at some of the most critical periods in recent history.

2015

The Unanswered Question V : The Twentieth Century Crisis

The Unanswered Question V : The Twentieth Century Crisis 1976

9.00

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Lecture 5 picks up at the early twentieth century with an oncoming crisis in Western Music. As these lectures have traced the gradual increase and oversaturation of ambiguity, Bernstein now designates a point in history that took ambiguity too far.

1976

Wave

Wave 2017

5.10

A man wakes from a coma speaking a fully formed but unrecognizable language baffling linguistic experts from around the globe.

2017

To Save a Language

To Save a Language 2020

1

Linguist Indrek Park has been working with Native American languages for over ten years. The film sees him recording the language of the Mandan tribe, who live in the prairies of North Dakota, on the banks of the Missouri River. The job involves a lot of responsibility, and he is running out of time – his language guide, the 84-year-old Edwin Benson, is the last native speaker of Mandan.

2020

The Unanswered Question VI : The Poetry of Earth

The Unanswered Question VI : The Poetry of Earth 1976

9.00

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: This lecture takes its name from a line in John Keats' poem, "On the Grasshopper and Cricket". Bernstein does not discuss Keats' poem directly in this chapter, but he provides his own definition of the poetry of earth, which is tonality. Tonality is the poetry of earth because of the phonological universals discussed in lecture 1. This lecture discusses predominantly Stravinsky, whom Bernstein considers the poet of earth.

1976

The Unanswered Question I : Musical Phonology

The Unanswered Question I : Musical Phonology 1976

9.00

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Phonology is the linguistic study of sounds, or phonemes. Bernstein's application of this term to music results in what he calls "musical phonology".

1976

Yeah You Rite!

Yeah You Rite! 1985

8.00

This award winning film is a fast paced, humorous look at the colorful way the residents of New Orleans express themselves - why they talk the way they do, where the words come from, and what it means to talk with a New Orleans accent.

1985

The Unanswered Question II : Musical Syntax

The Unanswered Question II : Musical Syntax 1976

9.00

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse: Syntax refers to the study of the structural organization of a sentence, or as Bernstein summarizes, "the actual structures that arise from that phonological stuff."

1976

American Tongues

American Tongues 1987

7.00

Rich in humor and regional color, this sometimes hilarious film uses the prism of language to reveal our attitudes about the way other people speak. From Boston Brahmins to Black Louisiana teenagers, from Texas cowboys to New York professionals, American Tongues elicits funny, perceptive, sometimes shocking, and always telling comments on American English in all its diversity. (PBS)

1987

The Unanswered Question III : Musical Semantics

The Unanswered Question III : Musical Semantics 1976

9.00

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse:Semantics is the study of meaning in language, and Bernstein's third lecture, "musical semantics", accordingly, is Bernstein's first attempt to explain meaning in music. Although Bernstein defines musical semantics as "meaning, both musical and extramusical" this lecture focuses exclusively on the "musical" version of meaning.

1976

What She Said

What She Said 2021

6.70

Sam decides to stop pursuing charges against her rapist and spend Thanksgiving alone on her family's Virginia farm. Her brother stages an intervention with seven of Sam’s friends to persuade her to return.

2021

CodeSwitching

CodeSwitching 2019

1

CodeSwitching is a mash-up of personal stories from three generations of African American students who participated in a landmark voluntary desegregation program. Shuttling between their inner-city Boston neighborhoods and predominantly white suburban schools in pursuit of a better education, they find themselves swapping elements of culture, language, and behavior to fit in with their suburban counterparts – Often acting or speaking differently based on their surroundings, called code-switching.

2019

Crash Course Linguistics

Crash Course Linguistics 2020

1

Welcome to Crash Course Linguistics! Linguistics is everywhere and is super useful for pretty much everyone. Over 16 episodes, Taylor Behnke will teach you all about language, from its structure, to the relationship between language and our identity, the brain, and computers, to writing, language acquisition, and the diversity of human languages!

2020

Spell-Mageddon

Spell-Mageddon 2013

1

Spell-Mageddon is an American spelling bee game show on ABC Family and is hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro. It premiered on July 24, 2013. Its season finale aired on September 11, 2013.

2013

Wordplay

Wordplay 1986

0.50

Wordplay is an American game show which ran on NBC from December 29, 1986 to September 4, 1987. It was hosted by Tom Kennedy and announced by Charlie O'Donnell. The show was produced by Scotti Bros.-Syd Vinnedge Television in association with Fiedler-Berlin Productions and Rick Ambrose Productions. The show is notable for replacing the long-running soap opera Search For Tomorrow on the NBC schedule.

1986