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Feb 6, 2018 · From JonBenet Ramsey to the LA Riots to Turkish cats to Trump, 2017's best documentaries run the gamut of riveting.
- The Defiant Ones (HBO) HBO’s The Defiant Ones, a four-part documentary series, reaches soaring heights by getting vulnerable. Director Allen Hughes locates the necessary trust from the two towering men, masterfully finding their humanity.
- Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond—Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton (Netflix) When Jim Carrey prepared to play Andy Kaufman in 1999’s Man on the Moon, he went beyond method.
- Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (Netflix) The best kind of journalism takes you on a journey you didn’t expect. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press starts with a wrestler’s sex tape, then pivots into both a celebration of the fourth estate and a stark warning about the ability of a free and independent press to survive the machinations of the billionaire class.
- Casting JonBenét (Netflix) This documentary looks at the infamous and unsolved murder of JonBenét Ramsey and takes an unusual approach. Director Kitty Green interviews young actresses who are vying for the part of JonBenét.
These are the best-reviewed documentary movies released in 2017. Real life can be every bit as dramatic as fiction, and the best documentaries demonstrate that with style and poignancy. This...
- 'Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond'
- 'I called Him Morgan'
- 'Trophy'
- 'The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography'
- 'Behemoth'
- 'Strong Island'
- 'Rat film'
- 'Dawson City: Frozen Time'
- 'Faces, Places'
- 'Ex Libris - The New York Public Library'
Chris Smith’s latest study of creative obsession vaults between extensive footage shot behind the scenes of Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon and a present-day interview with Jim Carrey. The most remarkable element of Forman’s amiable biopic of Andy Kaufman is Carrey’s performance as the legendary Taxi actor and avant-garde comedian, and his process f...
What drives Kasper Collin’s rapturous documentary about the brilliant jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan is a single interview with his common-law wife, Helen, from inside prison. In February, 1972, Helen shot Lee dead in a Manhattan club, after years of physical abuse and drug addiction that rotted away their already troubled relationship. Hearing her side...
Those who erupted in anger over the dentist who shot the lion or Donald Trump Jr.’s psychotic grin when he was pictured holding up a severed elephant’s tail will likely not leave Trophy happy. Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz’s tough-minded documentary came out of Sundance with a notorious reputation, thanks largely to its even-handed study of t...
Elsa Dorfman does not get name-checked in the same breath as Richard Avedon or Anna Leibowitz, and that’s kind of the point for Errol Morris. Dorfman was known primarily for large-scale Polaraid portraits, done with a camera that can handle her chosen format. She also shot with smaller Polaroid cameras, and with one, she snapped iconic images of Al...
The title says it all in Zhao Liang’s bleak vision of modern China. Each one of the director’s images are centered largely on China’s iron mines and the workers that toil within its deadly catacombs. On the big screen, the size of the people and their equipment, as well as the noise, is overwhelming, and that’s not even getting into the factory con...
The killing of William Ford Jr. in 1992 is the focal point of Yance Ford’s viscerally personal documentary but it’s white society’s disrespect and seeming indifference to his family’s need for closure that comes ringing out most loudly. Ford introduces the facts of the murder of her older brother early on and interweaves the studying of the crime s...
Theo Anthony’s essay film constantly cuts from the denizens of Baltimore’s black neighborhoods to the film’s composer, Dan Deacon, sculpting the warbling synths that will become the score. It’s a nod not only to the self-referential style of Anthony’s film but to the heart of the matter in Rat Film: race. Deacon comes from Wham City, the famed Balt...
The director Bill Morrison utilized a treasure trove of footage at the Dawson City Film Fund to create this wondrous experimental documentary. The glut of the movie is made up of passages from films we will likely never seen in full, only rescued in snippets after poor storage and preservation standards led to them being essentially destroyed. Othe...
Agnes Varda has always had a soft spot for workers. Decades ago, she traced the quotidian lives of the shop owners and tradesman on her street in the tremendously influential Daguerreotypes, and The Gleaners and I, her 2001 ode to those who live off the discarded food of others in France, highlighted the usefulness of what becomes food waste in hel...
Ta-Nehisi Coates has a conversation about the history and perspective of being black in America at one point in Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris. Later on, a teacher questions the ultimate value of capitalism and America’s not-so-subtle obsession with empire. Toward the end, a largely black community reckons with the value of libraries and their fundi...
- Chris Cabin
- 13th (2016) The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, but this searing documentary argues that both have only taken on different forms in the years since its adoption.
- American Factory (2019) This first film from Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground — and winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature — is an even-handed look at the trials and tribulations of a Chinese-owned windshield factory in Dayton, Ohio.
- Bad Vegan (2022) The New York food scene has never seen a story like Sarma Melngailis, the celebrity restaurateur who was responsible for successful upscale vegan eateries like Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck.
- Crip Camp (2020) Following the success of American Factory, Higher Ground released this Oscar-nominated documentary about a New York summer camp called Camp Jened, which served as a haven for people with disabilities.
Dec 20, 2017 · Alongside the standout dramas, comedies, and action-adventure blockbusters, a crop of superlative documentary films have helped turn 2017 into an exceptional cinematic year.
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Across every branch of entertainment, 2017 has been an especially incredible year. However, few categories better represent the power and innovative strides in pop culture we've seen...
