Abstract In London in 1956 people were talking about Free Cinema. That was the title of showings organized at the National Film Theatre by Karel Reisz, Lindsay Anderson, and others—young critics and film makers intent on prodding film into new paths. The title had the ring of a manifesto. Actually it was a convenient label for a potpourri of items that even included public-relations films, such as the touching Thursday’s Children (1954), made by Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton for a school for deaf children, and Anderson’s Every Day Except Christmas (1957), made under Ford Company auspices. But the films that caused a stir—they included British films, and others from abroad— were documentaries of a very different sort, all having certain traits in common.