Film
City of Ghosts
This is a tense, close-up documentary about the anonymous founders of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, Syrian citizen journalists who expose ISIS atrocities from hiding while ISIS hunts their families back home. Matthew Heineman's camera stays uncomfortably near its subjects' fear and grief. It's for anyone who wants to feel what resisting propaganda actually costs, not just admire the idea of it.
If you liked this
For Sama2019
A young mother in besieged Aleppo turns her camera on her own family and city, creating one of the most devastating and tender records of the Syrian war ever made.
But It offers almost no distance from the horror—expect to feel gutted rather than informed, with no relief in sight.
Cartel Land2015
Heineman's earlier film turns his same immersive, embedded style on Mexican vigilantes fighting drug cartels, showing ordinary people taking terrifying risks against organized evil.
But The moral lines blur more than expected, and its heroes are messier and harder to root for cleanly.
The White Helmets2016
This Oscar-winning short follows Syrian rescue volunteers pulling survivors from bombed buildings, capturing the same grim, unglamorous courage running through Raqqa's citizen journalists.
But At around 40 minutes it's more vignette than deep dive, and won't satisfy anyone wanting full context.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Nightcrawler2014
Same core act—filming atrocity to deliver truth to an audience—but flipped from moral duty into pure exploitation; watching it after City of Ghosts recalibrates what 'citizen journalism' can mean when the motive turns rotten.
A fictional thriller about a freelance cameraman who profits from filming other people's tragedies, its cold cynicism throws the earnest heroism of Raqqa's journalists into sharp relief.
But It's a slick, stylish genre film with a sociopathic protagonist—tonally about as far from City of Ghosts as you can get.
More like this (8)
Last Men in Aleppo2017
An intimate, unflinching look at Syrian Civil Defense workers living inside the siege, showing daily life under bombardment with a rawness few films achieve.
But It's slow and repetitive by design, mirroring the exhausting monotony of survival rather than building dramatic momentum.
The Square2013
Filmed inside Cairo's Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, it captures ordinary citizens turning into reluctant journalists and activists, risking everything to broadcast the truth.
But Its optimism curdles as the revolution stalls, and the political detail can overwhelm viewers unfamiliar with Egypt's history.
Restrepo2010
This ground-level Afghanistan war documentary drops you into a remote US outpost with no narration and no analysis—just the terror and tedium of combat.
But There's no political framing at all, which can feel frustrating if you're hoping for context on the wider conflict.
Citizenfour2014
Laura Poitras's real-time record of Edward Snowden's leaks captures the same claustrophobic dread of people risking everything to expose a hidden power.
But It's talkier and more procedural, built around hotel-room interviews rather than the visceral urgency of a warzone.
Nowhere to Hide2016no page yet
An Iraqi nurse films his own community's collapse after the US withdrawal, handing his camera to people risking their lives just by appearing in it.
But The shaky, first-person style is deliberately disorienting and can be genuinely tough to sit through.
Zero Days2016
Alex Gibney's dense thriller-doc about the Stuxnet cyberweapon reveals a quieter, stranger kind of modern warfare fought with code instead of bullets.
But It's heavy on technical explanation and lacks the human faces that make City of Ghosts so gripping.
Flee2021
Both films are built around people concealing their identities to protect themselves while telling the truth about persecution—one hides behind pseudonyms and blurred faces, the other behind drawn frames.
An animated documentary about a man reconstructing his hidden past as a refugee, it uses a wholly different form to tell an equally urgent story about danger, memory and staying anonymous to survive.
But Its animation and slower emotional pacing feel worlds away from the raw immediacy of handheld war footage.
The Battle of Algiers1966
Long before ISIS or RBSS, this film showed occupation as a war of images and narrative as much as bullets—the same battlefield City of Ghosts documents for real.
Shot like a documentary decades before 'docufiction' was a word, this Algerian independence drama shows insurgents and colonial forces fighting as much through propaganda and information as through violence.
But It's a 1966 political drama with a slower burn and no actual documentary footage—viewers expecting nonfiction will be disappointed.
People
Cast
Directing
- Matthew HeinemanDirector
Production
- Alex GibneyExecutive Producer
- Matthew HeinemanProducer