101 nonfiction releases ranked by critics and pros.
The previous three years we conducted this poll of critics, filmmakers, and other documentary industry folk, we saw a clear winner from a mile away. In 2013, the obvious number one was The Act of Killing. In 2014, it was Citizenfour. And in 2015, it was The Look of Silence. This year, four titles kept shuffling around the top four spots on the list. Maybe with more entries we would have seen Weiner, Cameraperson, or I Am Not Your Negro named best.
But after tallying lists submitted by 53 individuals, including myself and other Nonfics writers, the crown goes to Ezra Edelman’s epic documentary O.J.: Made in America. The 467 minute-long feature (or miniseries, not that it matters for this poll) has been winning tons of awards already (including the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Feature), so it’s not surprising that we’re still again part of a consistent reign with our own honor.
Joining the winner below are 100 other docs released in the U.S. in 2016, ranked based on the poll voting (the number in parenthesis is their final point value). Also you can find a short list of unreleased films to hopefully look forward to if distribution eventually comes for them. And be sure to check out all the contributors’ individual lists here.
1. O.J.: Made in America (664)
2. I Am Not Your Negro (640)
3. Cameraperson (626)
4. Weiner (617)
5. 13th (443)
6. Tower (327)
7. Kate Plays Christine (299)
8. Tickled (277)
9. Fire at Sea (242)
10. De Palma (235)
11. Under the Sun (197)
12. Life, Animated (158)
13. Gleason (144)
14. The Other Side (131)
15. Nuts! (129)
16. Zero Days (110)
17. Author: The JT LeRoy Story (107)
18. Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (91)
19. Into the Inferno(89)
Peter and the Farm (89)
21. No Home Movie (88)
22. Do Not Resist (86)
23. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (78)
24. Miss Sharon Jones! (74)
25. Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids (72)
26. Trapped (67)
27. Off the Rails (65)
28. The Eagle Huntress (61)
29. The Witness (58)
30. My Love, Don’t Cross That River (56)
31. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years (55)
The Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (55)
33. Francofonia (49)
34. The Lovers and the Despot (48)
35. The Illinois Parables (47)
36. The Bad Kids (44)
Newtown (44)
Oasis: Supersonic (44)
39. Audrie & Daisy (42)
40. The Event (34)
41. Speaking is Difficult (31)
42. Amanda Knox (30)
43. Hooligan Sparrow (29)
The Music of Stranger: Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble (29)
45. The Thoughts That We Once Had (28)
46. Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened (27)
Danny Says (27)
Holy Hell (27)
49. City of Gold (26)
Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words (26)
51. The First Monday in May (24)
Jim: The James Foley Story (24)
53. Mifune: The Last Samurai (23)
54. Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (21)
55. Presenting Princess Shaw (20)
56. For the Love of Spock (19)
Homeland: Iraq Year Zero (19)
I Think This Is the Closest to How the Footage Looked (19)
A Woman and Her Car (19)
60. Above and Below (18)
Mavis! (18)
Notfilm (18)
Pickle (18)
Seed: The Untold Story (18)
65. Breaking a Monster (17)
A Brief History of Princess X (17)
Thank You For Playing (17)
Uncondemned (17)
69. Eva Hesse (16)
How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change (16)
Maya Angelou and Still I Rise (16)
Planet Earth II (16)
Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru (16)
74. Among the Believers (15)
The Birth of Sake (15)
Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands (15)
Requiem for the American Dream (15)
78. Almost Holy (14)
Before the Flood (14)
Everything is Copy (14)
No More Babies (No Mas Bebes) (14)
Notes on Blindness (14)
One More Time with Feeling 3D (14)
84. Building Star Trek (13)
Gimme Danger (13)
National Bird (13)
Olympic Pride, American Prejudice (13)
Pervert Park (13)
89. Bacon & God’s Wrath (12)
Doc & Darryl (12)
Hamilton’s America (12)
Homo Sapiens (12)
Project X (12)
Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang (12)
95. The Bandit (11)
Lost and Beautiful (11)
Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (11)
Rats (11)
99. Chicken People (10)
100. Fursonas (9)
101. Dark Horse (3)
The following 29 titles mentioned on individual lists or given a special mention have not yet officially been released in the U.S.:
All These Sleepless Nights
António, Dashing António (António, lindo António)
The Apology
Before the Flight (Avant l’envol)
Boone
Capital Cuba
Check It
Contemporary Color
Fear Itself
Forever Pure
Fragment 53
The French Road (aka The French Road, Detroit MI)
Gorse and Flowers (Toxos e flores)
Havababy
Hotel Dallas
HyperNormalisation
In Transit
measuring change
Miss Kiet’s Children (De kinderen van Juf Kiet)
No’i
Olmo & the Seagull
On Football
Raising Bertie
Sonita
Starless Dreams
Tempestad
Uzu
We’ll Go to Neuilly, Inshallah (On ira à Neuilly, inch’allah)
What He Did