Film
Banksy Does New York
Banksy Does New York captures the British street artist's audacious 2013 New York residency through the eyes of obsessive fans hunting daily secret installations. It's a document of how social media transforms urban art from isolation into real-time treasure hunt, where anonymity meets celebrity. A film about attention, ownership, and what happens when the streets meet the internet.
If you liked this
Exit Through the Gift Shop2010
Banksy's first feature, a playful, mind-bending documentary about street art and commerce. It's funny, visually brilliant, and raises genuine questions about authenticity and hype without becoming preachy.
But The film itself might be a hoax or elaborate prank, which either delights you or makes you feel foolish for caring either way.
Helvetica2007
A 79-minute meditation on a typeface that changed how we see the world. It's about design, control, taste, and how something invisible shapes everything. Hypnotic for anyone who cares how things look.
But It's literally a documentary about a font. If that sentence makes you roll your eyes, this will feel like watching paint dry.
The Toys That Made Us2017
Same DNA as Banksy Does NY—an object that became a cultural phenomenon through obsession and social infrastructure. How a cute cat conquered the world is oddly illuminating about modern fandom.
But It's more celebratory than critical. There's no tension, no real stakes, just affection for a brand.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Banksy Does New York
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Nightcrawler2014
Both are about how social media and real-time documentation transform events into commodities, and how the hunt becomes more important than what's being hunted.
Same year, same city, same obsession with chasing images to sell—but Jake Gyllenhaal's videographer is hunting car crashes and crime, livestreaming to the highest bidder. It's a dark mirror of the hunters in Banksy's film, asking what we're really feeding and why.
But It's vicious and despairing in ways that make you feel complicit. The satire lands hard and won't let you laugh it off.
More like this (6)
14 Cameras2018
A low-budget thriller about surveillance and intrusion that captures how it feels to be watched, hunted, exposed. The paranoia is crushing and real.
But It's genuinely disturbing and grim—nothing playful about it. The found-footage style can feel claustrophobic and cheap.
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz2014
A crushing portrait of how the internet was supposed to liberate us, and how systems punished that dream. Essential watching about what we've actually built.
But It's heavy and heartbreaking. No resolution, no redemption. You'll need to sit with your anger afterward.
Citizenfour2014
A tense real-time account of Edward Snowden's leak, told as it unfolds. Documentary filmmaking as thriller—you know the outcome but feel the danger anyway.
But Dense with technical detail and political complexity. Some sections drag, and the stakes might numb you rather than move you.
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto2008
A DIY manifesto about appropriation, remix culture, and ownership in the digital age. Anarchic and wildly inventive, formally brilliant.
But Made on a fraction of a budget and it shows. The production values are intentionally rough, which some find liberating and others find amateurish.
Graffiti Bridge1990
Street art as a form of neighborhood expression and reclamation. Prince's film treats dancers like Banksy treats walls—both ask what it means to mark your city as your own.
Prince made a film about street dancers in a Minneapolis neighborhood, mixing live performance, narrative, music video, and documentary. It's wildly uneven and utterly of its moment, yet captures something true about art and community that outlasts its era.
But It's bizarre, formally chaotic, and doesn't fit neatly into any category. Your tolerance for '90s excess and Prince's ego will determine everything.
The Act of Killing2012
Both examine how creating media changes our relationship to truth. In Banksy's film, the hunt creates the art. Here, the camera creates the performance of murderers as heroes. Both ask what we become when we film.
Indonesian death squad leaders recreate their mass murders for the camera, treating it like a film set. It's a documentary where subjects perform themselves, bending reality until you can't trust anything you're seeing. Hypnotic, horrifying, brilliant.
But It's three hours of complicity, moral vertigo, and images you won't unsee. You will need to process this afterward, possibly with someone.
People
Directing
- Chris MoukarbelDirector
Production
- Collin KimAssociate Producer
- Vincent FarrellAssociate Producer
- Jay PetersonExecutive Producer
- Sheila NevinsExecutive Producer
- Todd LubinExecutive Producer
- Stephane CantaveLine Producer
- Chris MoukarbelProducer
- Jack TurnerProducer