7 Best Street Art Documentaries And Videos To Watch Online For Free
If you’re obsessed with street art and graffiti culture and want more than a scroll of endless new pieces from around the world on Instagram, it could be time to get yourself into a YouTube hole of video content. With hundreds, if not thousands, of videos to be found online, there is really an endless supply of cool stuff to educate and entertain.
When admiring contemporary street art, it can be easy to forget that it all came from somewhere. Like every culture, it has history and key figures who were responsible for bringing the movement to life. Like the pieces themselves, the documentation of the movement was instrumental in elevating graffiti and street art.
If you want to get to know the art form you love on a deeper level, you’ll want to check out these seven street art documentaries, movies and videos — we’ve got you a good selection of full-length features, and bite-sized goodies to get your street art and graffiti documentary fix.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a perfect start to get you into the street art video groove, causing YouTube to recommend you some more.
Full-Length Graffiti and Street Art Movies
If you’re looking for a good graffiti film or street art doco, these three should definitely be added to your list.
1. Wild Style
One of the OG graffiti movies, Wild Style essentially introduced Hip Hop culture to the world, shining a light on the graffiti writing scene that had before been in the dark. It’s a movie, rather than a documentary, but it features loads of prominent figures of the early hip hop and graffiti scene, and it’s an interesting look into the early days of the movement.
2. Beautiful Losers
Beautiful Losers is one of our favourites on this list, highlighting the unique characters that make up the street art scene — particularly in San Francisco, but relatable to all –, paying respect to the kind of un-cool elements of being a creative and how these people are often losers or outcasts in their young years because they march to the beat of their own drum. It’s a great inspiring documentary featuring some of America’s top names in street art.
3. Jean Michel Basquiat Documentary The Radiant Child
The Radiant Child is an interesting look into the life of Jean Michel Basquiat; who he got into the scene, what he was known for and how he made a name for himself as one of the most poetic graffiti writers, to eventually becoming one of the most famous street artists of his time.
4. Exit Through the Gift Shop
This Banksy documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, is possibly the most popular of the Banksy documentaries online. It looks at both Banksy and the man obsessed with documenting his every move, Thierry Guetta, who gets access that Banksy fans could barely dream of, before going on to somewhat rip off his work.
Street Art and Graffiti Quick Fix Videos
If you don’t want to commit yourself to a full-length street art documentary, you can take a look at some of these bite-sized beauties to get your fix.
5. CORNBREAD Lives
CORNBREAD is a Philadelphian graffiti writer, recognised amongst graffiti and street art scenes as the first-ever graffiti writer, having started spraying his name in 1965 to capture the attention of a romantic interest. Since his cute attempted to grab attention, he discovered that the more crazy places he could put his name, the more notorious he would become. CORNBREAD Lives is CORNBREAD telling his story.
6. SOFLES — Limitless
From the crew at Ironlak, this f-ing awesome video, SOFLES — LIMITLESS, by legendary Selina Miles, features Aussie heavyweight street artists, Sofles, Drapl, Fintan Magee, and Ironlak going to town on some sweet abandoned walls. So perfectly created, we’re constantly torn between which art takes the spotlight — the videography or the street art. If you want more cool stuff like this, just search Selina Miles on YouTube, and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of other awesome videos.
7. No Free Walls | Street Art & Gentrification Collide in Bushwick
Gentrification is a topic that follows street art around. We touched on this on a podcast episode with Jack Fran, and this 30-minute documentary takes a good look at how Bushwick — an area in NYC now synonymous with street art — went from being a derelict area, to now some of the most prized real estate in NYC. This doco tells the story, from founder and inadvertent art curator of The Bushwick Collective, Joseph Ficalora, of how he played a role in bringing joy to his area through art, which subsequently collided with gentrification and the challenges that unintentionally put onto the community.
Let us know what you think and if there are any we should add next time! ✌️
