From topdocumentaryfilms:
Unreported and almost unseen approach that capital and capital markets have taken since 1945 to gradually take control of the political systems of the USA and the United Kingdom. Adam Curtis outlines several key points and analyses at great length various events and personalities.

These so called market movers were all members of the Clermont Club in Mayfair, London. What at first seemed to be an audacious and unrealistic strategy to take control of the market economy turned into something almost unstoppable, destructive, cruel and completely bereft of feeling or scruple.

What is so shocking is that the corruption and immorality did not start as commonly assumed in the 1980’s with the ascent of Reagan and Thatcher to power but with the beginning of the global economy in the late 1950s. There is much material shown here that should be much more discussed and explained because it depicts aptly how moribund and fragile the economies of the developed world have become.

How they are built up on tenuous and shallow assumptions that market cycles are no longer applicable. The greed and deception of the business elite reaches far further and far wider than beyond anyone’s common knowledge or understanding of politics.

1. Who Pays Wins – The opening episode, Who Pays Wins, focuses on Colonel David Stirling.

2. Entrepreneur Spelt S.P.I.V. – The rise of Jim Slater who became famous for writing an investment column in The Sunday Telegraph under the nom de plume of The Capitalist.

3. Destroy the Technostructure – This episode recounts the story of how James Goldsmith became one of the richest men in the world.

4. Twilight of the Dogs – By the 80s, the day of the buccaneering tycoons was over. Tiny Rowland, James Goldsmith and Mohammed Al Fayed were the only ones who were not finished.

The.Mayfair.Set.S01E01.Who.Pays.Wins.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-420D.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	58 min 48 s
Size: 	714 MiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	960x540 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 600 kb/s
BPP: 	0.123
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC SBR @ 96.0 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/1F08FF43725A241/The.Mayfair.Set.S01E01.Who.Pays.Wins.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-420D.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/E88B1A861906709/The.Mayfair.Set.S01E02.Entrepreneur.Spelt.SPIV.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-420D.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/D0F82A6422E4733/The.Mayfair.Set.S01E03.Destroy.the.Technostructure.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-420D.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/173E98445030C3C/The.Mayfair.Set.S01E04.Twilight.of.the.Dogs.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-420D.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

Many thanks to @Marcio for this copy

The post Adam Curtis & Annabel Hobley – The Mayfair Set (1999) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Plot:
This series shows in a new and imaginative way how over the past 40 years in Britain extreme money and hyper-individualism came together in an unspoken alliance. Together they undermined one of the fundamental structures of mass democracy – that it could create a shared idea of what was real. And as that fell apart, with it went the language and the ideas that people had turned to for the last 150 years to make sense of the world they lived in.

Shifty.2025.Part1.The.Land.of.Make.Believe.iP.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-ZooeyDes.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 8 min
Size: 	2.46 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1280x720 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	50.000 fps
Bit rate: 	5 014 kb/s
BPP: 	0.109
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC SBR @ 96.0 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/94EC55831F32CA7/Shifty.2025.Part1.The.Land.of.Make.Believe.iP.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-ZooeyDes.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/8FFA2FF60F85B8E/Shifty.2025.Part2.Suspicion.iP.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-ZooeyDes.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/E057FFC72664C1D/Shifty.2025.Part3.I.Love.a.Millionaire.iP.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-ZooeyDes.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/A949906F63E01A0/Shifty.2025.Part4.The.Grinder.iP.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-ZooeyDes.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/C443B04FF329AD9/Shifty.2025.Part5.The.Democratisation.of.Everything.iP.720p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-ZooeyDes.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Adam Curtis – Shifty (2025) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

At the start of the 1990s the Soviet Union – one the largest empires in the world – imploded.

It was not a slow collapse like the British Empire, but one that collapsed suddenly – in just a few months.

In the west we didn’t really see or understand what then happened because we were blinded by victory in the cold war. In reality what the Russian people experienced was a profound disaster which left behind it deep scars and a furious anger – that led to what is happening in Russia now and in Ukraine.

This series of films is a record of what it felt like to live through that catastrophe.

It is also the story how a society of millions of people stopped believing in all politics. Not just communism, but democracy too. Something that no-one else has experienced in the modern world. Yet.

Episode 1.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	58 min 52 s
Size: 	832 MiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	854x480 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 812 kb/s
BPP: 	0.177
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#1:  	2.0ch AC-3 @ 160 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/E9DC16080731FCA/Episode_1(2).mkv https://nitro.download/view/D459681E9AAF15B/Episode_2(2).mkv https://nitro.download/view/E548D15FB8C36AF/Episode_3(2).mkv https://nitro.download/view/E630F621D63596B/Episode_4.mkv https://nitro.download/view/9A26EBBCEFAFFDA/Episode_5(1).mkv https://nitro.download/view/5D61D38978F4D24/Episode_6.mkv https://nitro.download/view/324A83444569CA6/Episode_7(1).mkv

Language(s):English, Russian
Subtitles:English hard subs where needed

The post Adam Curtis – Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone (2022) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Love, power, money, ghosts of empire, conspiracies, artificial intelligence and You. An emotional history of the modern world by Adam Curtis.

5.55GB | 7h 55m | 960×540 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/AB50EA98F19223D/Cant.Get.You.Out.of.My.Head.S01E01.Part.One.Bloodshed.on.Wolf.Mountain.540p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MH.mkv https://nitro.download/view/283B85A2A94301C/Cant.Get.You.Out.of.My.Head.S01E02.Part.Two.Shooting.and.Fking.are.the.Same.Thing.540p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MH.mkv https://nitro.download/view/F5649472BC6EE2A/Cant.Get.You.Out.of.My.Head.S01E03.Part.Three.Money.Changes.Everything.540p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MH.mkv https://nitro.download/view/399D6C019FA9205/Cant.Get.You.Out.of.My.Head.S01E04.Part.Four.But.What.If.the.People.Are.Stupid.540p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MH.mkv https://nitro.download/view/91342F413AD6FEB/Cant.Get.You.Out.of.My.Head.S01E05.Part.Five.The.Lordly.Ones.540p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MH.mkv https://nitro.download/view/7C1738BD8B44114/Cant.Get.You.Out.of.My.Head.S01E06.Part.Six.Are.We.Pigeon.Or.Are.We.Dancer.540p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MH.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Adam Curtis – Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (2021) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

BBC documentary in three parts written and produced by Adam Curtis on the history and influence of the ideologies of Islamic fundamentalism and neoconservatism

Part 1 Baby It’s Cold Outside (originally broadcast on October 20, 2004)
Part 2 The Phantom Victory (originally broadcast on October 27, 2004)
Part 3 The Shadows in the Cave (originally broadcast on November 3, 2004)

https://nitro.download/view/98BBB4E12822290/The_Power_Of_Nightmares_pt1.avi
https://nitro.download/view/9C468E7A7C1D959/The_Power_of_Nightmares,_The_Rise_of_the_Politics_of_Fear_-_E02_-_The_Phantom_Victory__digitaldistractions_.avi
https://nitro.download/view/0C964FAFC7BB5C2/the_power_of_nightmares_03.avi

Language(s):English
Subtitles:none

The post Adam Curtis – The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Century of The Self
4 Part series on how psychoanalitic theory was used by advertisers and governments in an attempt to control the public.
01 Happiness Machines: Edward Bernays and the invention of public relations and modern advertising
02 The Engineering of Consent: How the US Government turned to psychoanalytic principles after WWII as a reaction against the Nazi state. Focusing on the rise and fall of Anna Freud.
03 There Is A Policeman Inside All Our Heads. He Must Be Destroyed: How the reaction against Freudian ideas in the 1950s and 60s ended up making it even easier to control the public
04 Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering: How the left turned to psychoanalytic principles to regain power in the US and Britain in the 1990s.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/44B1BC29910DFEB/Century.of.the.Self.Part1.2002.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/E6691112A9CDB9C/Century.of.the.Self.Part2.2002.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/B67A9B1881B2255/Century.of.the.Self.Part3.2002.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/1702D6CABB92274/Century.of.the.Self.Part4.2002.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Adam Curtis – The Century of the Self (2002) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Newest series of polemical essay film/documentaries by Adam Curtis is both maddening and occasionally brilliant… frustrating for their reductivism and eliptical approach to complex subjects, but frankly staggering for the allusive leaps of the narrative. Truly inspired selection of music on the soundtrack, also. Anyways:

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

A series of films by Adam Curtis about how humans have been colonised by the machines they have built. Although we don’t realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.

1/3 – Love and Power, BBC2 – 23 May 2011

This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems – without hierarchy.

The film tells the story of two perfect worlds. One is the small group of disciples around the novelist Ayn Rand in the 1950s. They saw themselves as a prototype for a future society where everyone could follow their own selfish desires. The other is the global utopia that digital entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley set out to create in the 1990s. Many of them were also disciples of Ayn Rand. They believed that the new computer networks would allow the creation of a society where everyone could follow their own desires, yet there would not be anarchy. They were joined by Alan Greenspan who had also been a disciple of Ayn Rand. He became convinced that the computers were creating a new kind of stable capitalism – “Like a New Planet”, he said.

But the dream of stability in both worlds would be torn apart by the two dynamic human forces – love and power.

2/3 – The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts, BBC2 – 30 May 2011

This is the story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components – cogs – in a system.

But in an age disillusioned with politics, the self-regulating ecosystem has become the model for utopian ideas of human ‘self-organizing networks’ – dreams of new ways of organising societies without leaders, as in the Facebook and Twitter revolutions, and in global visions of connectivity like the Gaia theory.

This powerful idea emerged out of the hippie communes in America in the 1960s, and from counterculture computer scientists who believed that global webs of computers could liberate the world.

But, at the very moment this was happening, the science of ecology discovered that the theory of the self-regulating ecosystem wasn’t true. Instead they found that nature was really dynamic and constantly changing in unpredictable ways. But the dream of the self-organizing network had by now captured our imaginations – because it offered an alternative to the dangerous and discredited ideas of politics.

3/3 – The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey, BBC2 – 6 June 2011

This episode looks at why we humans find this machine vision so beguiling. The film argues it is because all political dreams of changing the world for the better seem to have failed – so we have retreated into machine-fantasies that say we have no control over our actions because they excuse our failure.

At the heart of the film is one of the most famous scientists in the world – Bill Hamilton. He argued that human behaviour is really guided by codes buried deep within us. It was later popularised by Richard Dawkins as ‘the selfish gene’. It said that individual human beings are really just machines whose only job is to make sure the codes are passed on for eternity.

The film begins in 2000 in the jungles of the Congo and Rwanda. Hamilton is there to help prove his dark theories. But all around him the Congo is being torn apart by ‘Africa’s First World War’. The film then interweaves the two stories – the strange roots of Hamilton’s theories, and the history of the West’s tortured relationship with the Congo over the past 100 years.

https://nitro.download/view/02611E67C5617C0/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_-_Part_1_of_3_(23_May_2011)_PDTV(XviD)_.avi
https://nitro.download/view/4ADC081BE5FE026/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_-_Part_2_of_3_(30_May_2011)_PDTV(XviD)_.avi
https://nitro.download/view/57572FCB0848739/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_-_Part_3_of_3_(6_June_2011)_PDTV(XviD)_.avi

no pass

The post Adam Curtis – All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011) first appeared on Cinema of the World.