Ascending an 8,000-meter peak is never easy. In winter, with temperatures plummeting to 30 below and colder and with snowstorms raging, it is nearly unthinkable. In fact, of the seventeen efforts to ascend an 8,000-meter peak in Pakistan in winter only one has been successful. That winter ascent of Gasherbrum II by Simone Moro, Denis Urubko and Cory Richards is the subject of Cold.

Johnny Barnes is one of the happiest people in the world, and his main goal in life is to share that happiness. This humble and lovable Bermudan wakes up at 3 a.m. every morning and heads to one particularly busy intersection to stand, wave, blow kisses and shout, “I love you!” to passers-by. Crazy or not, Johnny has a lot to say about what it takes to be optimistic and happy. And he has brought smiles to the faces of thousands who would have an otherwise dreary morning commute.

These days a river that flows freely from its headwaters to the sea is a rare creature. Of the few that do remain unchained, many are threatened by development or damming. Power in the Pristine, a short film created by Rios Libres, a group of adventurers who include professional climber and longtime Mountainfilm guest Timmy O’Neill and writer Craig Childs, is a portrait of one such river: the Baker in Chilean Patagonia.

Winter. Brian Ward discovers an unexpected and new-found love for water in its frozen and expanded form.

“The worst thing a man can do is live for nothing.” So says James Armstrong, a barber in Birmingham who was one of thousands of unknown and unsung heroes of the civil rights struggle of the '60s. Living by his own creed, Armstrong willingly risked his own life in the often-brutal fight for basic rights—to vote, hold a job, use a public facility or go to school without the oppression of racial segregation or fear of violence. In the decades since, he has kept the faith that enduring what he and his fellow foot soldiers called the “terrible days” would be worth it.

The Goldman Environmental Prize is perhaps the most important—and generous—environmental tribute of its kind with an annual financial award that goes to grassroots environmental heroes from each of the world’s six inhabited continents. In The Grid we meet one of the winners, Ursula Sladek of Germany, for whom the idea of 100-percent reliance on renewable energy by 2050 is not a hope or a dream, but simply a matter of time. Having led a successful 10-year effort to take over her regional power grid through a citizen’s collective, Sladek is accustomed to taking her time.

Most people come to New York City to see the sights, and understandably they look up. Steve Duncan, a historian and self-described urban explorer, looks down–way down–into the maze of tunnels that run beneath the city. Directed by Andrew Wonder, Undercity, is a short documentary that follows Duncan as he shows us some of the city’s secrets and introduces us to some of the peculiar characters that that lurk below the streets. Not content to explore underground, Duncan sets his sights on some hard-to-reach landmarks above–way above–ground.

With trial bike in hand, Danny MacAskill returns to the old country to try a few new school tricks. Filmmaker Dave Sowerby captured MacAskill at play in his hometown of Dunvegan, Scotland.