Netflix hasn’t been adding a lot of documentaries lately, but at least they just won another Oscar with an exclusive work, the surprisingly satisfying short film Period. End of Sentence. And while we can’t offer a guaranteed recommendation just yet, there’s a new sports series that looks good called Losers. Hopefully, given its link to the new Netflix drama The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the doc feature William and the Windmill can find its way to the service.
Meanwhile, we’ve added Abducted in Plain Sight, since everyone is talking about this unbelievable true crime doc. Other additions to the future list include Errol Morris‘ The Unknown Known, which we reviewed negatively by one critic yet highlighted as one of the best docs of 2014 as championed by another critic, and the recent favorite Studio 54. There’s also an installment of the ReMastered series that we like about Sam Cooke, an underrated film about astronaut Gene Cernan, and a revealing doc about Mike Tyson.
All these additions replace two docs that have expired from Netflix — Meru (by Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin), which can be found on Amazon Prime instead, and Oscar nominee Finding Vivian Maier, which is on iTunes. I removed the no-good Oscar winner Icarus, once again, plus City of Joy, 42 Grams and, for good reason, the Michael Jackson concert film This Is It.
Here is a reminder of how the Netflix 100 titles are (otherwise) numerically arranged:
They are mostly ranked in order of our favor with some objective authority, but there are some clumps throughout the list that obviously fit together. Some are by director, some are by genre or subject matter and some are by series. In fact, we see this whole list as being best watched in order of the rankings.
There are a few double features in the bunch (LA 92 and Let It Fall, for example) and some groupings where we truly think the higher ranking title is best watched before a certain title or titles below it (Into the Inferno is sort of a sequel to Encounters at the End of the World, for one example set). Docs of the same genre are mostly grouped, too.
First up, though, some Oscar history covering the span of the Academy’s recogition of documentary.
- The Unknown Known (Errol Morris, 2013)
“Instead of providing new insight into the Bush era (an administration that has been given infinite hours of documentary investigation), The Unknown Known explores the logistical processes of one of its principle members, and in so doing reveals how the specious, interchangeable wielding of knowledge and truth can become its own weapon of mass destruction.” – Landon Palmer - Studio 54 (Matt Tyrnauer, 2018)
- Abducted in Plain Sight (Skye Borgman, 2017)
- ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (Kelly Duane, 2019)
- Tyson (James Toback, 2008)
- The Last Man on the Moon (Mark Craig, 2014)
“The Last Man on the Moon is kind of sleepy and slow, but it is quite beautiful as a work of personal rumination. It’s not just another history lesson to add to the pile of mostly great astronaut docs. And it’s more than an autobiography, too. The film offers a different sort of space travel than expected, taking us into a man’s headspace, which may not be as exciting but seems to be a more interesting place than the Moon.” – Christopher Campbell - The Look of Silence (Joshua Opppenheimer, 2014) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“The most striking aspect of this film alone is in the specific reactions of the killers and their loved ones, since there’s a concentration on family and the effects the killings have on those related to both victim and perpetrator….The Look of Silence is a record and a tool for changing the world.” — Christopher Campbell - Brother’s Keeper (Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, 1992)
- Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)
“Takes us inside the African American and Latino drag ball culture of the 1980s in Harlem. And it’s even more fabulous than you can possibly imagine.” — Christopher Campbell - Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog, 2007) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Into the Inferno (Werner Herzog, 2016)
“As a whole, Herzog delivers yet another essential doc on par with his best.” — Christopher Campbell - Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, 2010)
- Lessons of Darkness (Werner Herzog, 1992)
“Using truly breathtaking 16mm images (many of them aerial shots), a sweeping orchestral score (Mahler, for example) and sparse but heavily biblical voice over, Herzog creates an apocalyptic opera of observation on war, environmental calamity and absurd human folly.” — Robert Greene - Finders Keepers (Bryan Carberry and J. Clay Tweel, 2015)
“Lays it on us hard that this isn’t just some fool’s folly where we laugh at the yokels…the initial comical stuff suddenly gains a new perspective, as this whole ridiculous tale is revealed to be a comedy rooted in disaster.” — Christopher Campbell - Rats (Morgan Spurlock, 2016)
“Features human life to the fullest. Like Spurlock’s best film until this one, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, it is a celebration of people’s passions.” — Christopher Campbell - The Nightmare (Rodney Ascher, 2015)
“The Nightmare doesn’t settle on giving us the willies. It wants to shake us up. It wants to actually leave us restless…don’t take anyone’s word on the film being good or bad, because it’s still a very unique documentary, one worth experiencing for yourself whether it turns out to be your thing or not and either way whether it affects you in any way.” — Christopher Campbell - Notes on Blindness (Peter Middleton and James Spinney, 2016)
“A fascinating stylistic endeavor, one that takes flight from the many detailed observations that fill the audio tapes. It is not, however, inspiring. And that’s something to be thankful for.” — Daniel Walber - My Beautiful Broken Brain (Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland, 2014)
“The film, which also involves David Lynch on screen and off (he gets a producer credit), puts us in Sodderland’s mind to the best of nonfiction cinema’s capabilities. In addition to candidly sharing the struggles and insights of its subject, Brain also represents her newly enhanced sensory perception through augmented POV shots, using visual effects that could have been cheesy in a lesser work.” — Christopher Campbell - Unrest (Jennifer Brea, 2017)
- Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — Featuring A Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton (Chris Smith, 2017)
- Shirkers (Sandi Tan, 2018)
- Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (Alexandra Dean, 2017)
“Lamarr’s story is so important today because uncovering women who defied definition rewrites the history that never included them when they influenced the world…Lamarr should’ve been a celebrated scientist as well as a beautiful movie star. She could’ve been a role model for girls while she was alive. But telling her story now allows her to be more than that.” — Emily Kubincanek - The Pixar Story (Leslie Iwerks, 2007)
- Filmworker (Tony Zierra, 2017)
- They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (Morgan Neville, 2018)
- De Palma (Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, 2015)
- Walt: The Man Behind the Myth (Jean-Pierre Isbouts, 2001)
“An interesting case study in how Disney spins its own mythology…Though it purports to go ‘behind the myth,’ it instead actually builds Walt Disney up as a mythological being. Events like the invention of Mickey Mouse are elevated to titanic importance.” — Dan Schindel - The Last Laugh (Ferne Pearlstein, 2016)
“A movie partially interested in Jewish comedians making jokes about the Holocaust…When it floats away from its star talent, The Last Laugh becomes a viciously humane work, on a journey as vigorous as any contemplated by D.A. Pennebaker.” — Andrew Karpan - The Rachel Divide (Laura Brownson, 2018)
“One of the most fascinating and complicated documentaries of the year. Diallo’s self-proclaimed trans-racial identity is only one part of the bizarre puzzle; there’s also her fraught family history, her attempts to regain a livelihood following the 2015 scandal, the actual racism that motivated her outing, and her deep but self-centered love for her put-upon sons. Brownson is in no way overly sympathetic to Diallo, but she succeeds in capturing each and every one of her subject’s dizzying dimensions.” – Valerie Ettenhofer - One Of Us (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2017)
“The duo behind the Oscar-nominated documentary Jesus Camp take another jab at religious fundamentalism, this time turning their cameras on the Hasidic Jewish community….a woman escaping an abusive husband and now fighting an impossible custody battle for their many children is not only the standout subject of the triptych, but her courage and the film’s portrayal of her transition into general society makes the whole thing a must-see.” — Christopher Campbell - My Scientology Movie (John Dower, 2015)
“As journalism, it’s a goof, but the film uses a conceit where actors are cast as Miscavige and Cruise for staged studies of Scientology’s processes and productions that offers a curious consideration of the Church’s theatrics.” — Christopher Campbell - Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (Wim Wenders, 2018)
- Why We Fight: Prelude to War (Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak, 1942) * OSCAR WINNER
- Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia (Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak, 1943) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Report from the Aleutians (John Huston, 1943) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines (John Ford, 1943)
- Tunisian Victory (Frank Capra, Hugh Stewart, and John Huston, 1944)
- Know Your Enemy (Frank Capra and Joris Ivens, 1945)
- Nazi Concentration Camps (George Stevens, 1945)
- Let There Be Light (John Huston, 1946)
- Best of Enemies (Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, 2015)
“This masterfully assembled recounting of William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal’s ten oral sparring matches during the 1968 Republican and Democratic National Conventions and their surrounding events is appropriately bittersweet: it both revels in the party and observes its consequential hangover.” — Landon Palmer - Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997)
- LA 92 (Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, 2017)
“Watching LA 92 is something like a two-hour museum trip into a certain place and a certain time…the sheer aesthetic assault of LA 92is what justifies its existence: there’s a reason why so much of it is sourced from TV coverage of the events. We like to watch.” — Andrew Karpan - Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992 (John Ridley, 2017)
- The Force (Peter Nicks, 2017)
- Strong Island (Yance Ford, 2017) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“First-time director Yance Ford takes a first-person approach to documenting the case of his brother’s murder in this emotionally gut-wrenching film memoir…Ford centers himself so close up that you can almost touch his tears.” — Christopher Campbell - 13th (Ava DuVernay, 2016) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“With such an ambitious goal, it’s frankly miraculous that 13thmoves as assuredly as it does…13th crams an astonishing amount of historical material into less than two hours of informative, emotionally potent segments.” — Daniel Walber - The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (Stanley Nelson, 2015)
“In certain sections, this doc manages to shine. A sequence about the tragically brief work of Fred Hampton…truly conveys the hope he inspired in the community and how crushed they were by his death.” — Dan Schindel - Winnie (Pascale Lamche, 2017)
“Winnie assumes quite a simplistic form. Chronological archive footage is intercut with talking heads interviews. Biographers and journalists, as well as Apartheid government figures and even one of the Mandela daughters all shed light on the titular woman. But most rousing of all in the film is Winnie herself. She’s still going strong and is a vibrant presence through a number of interviews.” — Benedict Seal - Virunga (Orlando von Einsiedel, 2014) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“Both an almost unbelievable assembly of shocking footage and a thrilling narrative success. Von Einsiedel has taken the whirlwind of environmental conservation, civil war, investigative journalism and the hegemony of the neocolonial oil industry and brought them together with admirable confidence.” — Daniel Walber - The Ivory Game (Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani, 2016)
- Trophy (Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau, 2017)
“There is a chance that Trophycould change your mind about big-game hunting or wildlife conservation, but that doesn’t qualify its excellence. The doc’s merit is merely in its successful effort to get us thinking about a complicated issue and complex industry.” — Christopher Campbell - Mountain (Jennifer Peedom, 2017)
- Sunshine Superman (Marah Strauch, 2014)
“More than just a chronicle of Carl Boenish as he popularizes the extreme sport of BASE jumping in the early 1980s…[it has] the flare to compare to any fictional action movie found at your local multiplex. Plus it’s got a pretty hot classic rock soundtrack.” — Christopher Campbell - GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (Brett Whitcomb, 2012)
“Not just a doc that caters to nostalgia, fandom and the spectacle of this ridiculous concept and program (this is no extended episode of I Love the 80s). It’s about an era of excess and exploitation and extreme entertainment that now looks rather silly and tame decades later. It’ll make you wonder about the real, human side of every piece of forgettable pop culture and hope it could be tackled smartly and with as much sensitivity as a doc like, as opposed to via another sensational or fluff-driven TV show of today.” — Christopher Campbell - Undefeated (Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, 2011) * OSCAR WINNER
“Very hard not to like…[Undefeated] tracks a potentially monumental year for the Manassas Tigers of Memphis, considerably the worst high school football team in Tennessee.” — Christopher Campbell - Senna (Asif Kapadia, 2010)
“Blows apart all conventional ideas about a documentary’s ability to convey action.” – Dan Schindel - Street Fight (Marshall Curry, 2005) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Get Me Roger Stone (Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro, Morgan Pehme, 2017)
- Democrats (Camilla Nielsson, 2014)
- The Square (Jehane Noujaim, 2013) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (Evgeny Afineevsky, 2015) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Last Men in Aleppo (Firas Fayyad, Steen Johannessen, and Hasan Kattan, 2017) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“One of this year’s most riveting documentaries on the Syrian Civil War…The documentary’s use of gorgeous colors embellish every corner of the tragic tale Fayad tells. Beyond the contrasting realism of the bloodied bodies torn apart by explosions, which are ample. Beyond the rich and very human stories of the volunteers themselves, many of whom contemplate abandoning the mission, and three or four of whom have died by the time the movie was released, as the end credits reveal.” — Andrew Karpan - Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi, 2016)* OSCAR NOMINEE
- Sacro GRA (Gianfranco Rosi, 2013)
“The attitude of Sacro GRA is one of unassuming humanity, a confidence in the lives of Rome’s people without the need to dress any of them up in glitter or expensive hats. It’s an essential counterpoint to the city’s life in cinema, the wisest Roman film in years.” — Daniel Walber - Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (Steve James, 2017) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Saving Capitalism (Sari Gelman and Jacob Kornbluth, 2017)
- Oklahoma City (Barak Goodman, 2017)
- (T)error (Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe, 2015)
- Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (Chris Smith, 2019)
- Mercury 13 (David Sington and Heather Walsh, 2018)
- Reversing Roe (Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, 2018)
- Seeing Allred (Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain, 2018)
“The filmmakers have an eye for a great cinematic story and present Allred’s life as such, framing her cases within a context that reminds us of the all-too-recent era during which women, LGBT people, and people of color weren’t seen as full citizens. Allred was in the thick of it during these fights for equality, and Grossman and Sartain elevate her story to a riveting lesson in hard-won democracy.” – Valerie Ettenhofer - Growing Up Coy (Eric Juhola, 2016)
“A family drama in which the family happens to be fighting the State of Colorado over their daughter’s right to use the girls bathroom at her school. Is she a trans child? Yes. Is the battle over civil rights for trans persons at play? Yes. But most of the film is focused on the story of a specific couple, their five kids, and their struggle with an unaccepting community. Any issue could be in play. The beauty is that it’s also a powerfully empathic film for the cause of trans rights.” — Christopher Campbell - Bully (Lee Hirsch, 2011)
- Presenting Princess Shaw (Ido Haar, 2015)
- 20 Feet From Stardom (Morgan Neville, 2013) * OSCAR WINNER
- What Happened, Miss Simone? (Liz Garbus, 2015) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Miss Sharon Jones! (Barbara Kopple, 2015)
- Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015) * OSCAR WINNER
“Asif Kapadia’s documentary on Amy Winehouse, titled Amy, is another affecting rush of archival footage, like his previous, breakout film, Senna. But this one has a more interesting, sometimes troubling relationship between the footage and the subject.” — Christopher Campbell - Gaga: Five Foot Two (Chris Moukarbel, 2017)
“Something the documentary consistently reinforces is the humanity behind the superstar…At the end of the day, the larger than life musician writes music for her family, looking to share a cathartic experience with her grandmother, which emphasizes the human part of the superhuman she is. Her grandmother calling her Stefani is also a nice reminder that there is indeed a woman behind the icon.” — Natalie Mokry - Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (Jon M. Chu, 2011)
- Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown (Alex Gibney, 2014)
“This is a rather conventional affair, with talking heads telling the history supplemented by a valuable bunch of archival clips, but it’s edited perfectly by Geeta Gandbhir (When the Levees Broke) and Maya Mumma (Moms Mabley: I Got Somethin’ to Tell You) and does what it needs to do very effectively…this doc produced by Mick Jagger will make you feel good.” — Christopher Campbell - I Called Him Morgan (Kasper Collin, 2016)
“A uniquely captivating music doc…[it] might be the most pulpy biographical film ever.” — Christopher Campbell - ReMastered Track 2: Tricky Dick & the Man in Black (Barbara Kopple, 2018)
- Springsteen on Broadway (Thom Zimny, 2018)
“The Boss looks back on his own life, stripping back the artifice both figuratively and literally to create a show that is essential viewing for fans and non-fans alike.” – Hayden Cornmell - Kurt & Courtney (Nick Broomfield, 1998)
- Biggie & Tupac (Nick Broomfield, 2002)
- Bobbi Jene (Elvira Lind, 2017)
“An incredibly moving portrait of an artist producing incredibly moving work, this film follows American dancer Bobbi Jene Smith during her attempt to go independent as a performer following a nine-year stint as a member of Israel’s renowned Batsheva Dance Company…a rare artist profile that’s an achievement on its own, beyond its subject.” — Christopher Campbell - Jiro Dreams of Sushi (David Gelb, 2011)
“Like the food on display in beautiful close-ups, the film is a sleek reminder that simple can be fulfilling, and maybe even brilliant.” – Christopher Campbell - Print the Legend (Luis Lopez and J. Clay Tweel, 2014)
- Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry (Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell, 2016)
“Very few documentary filmmakers have burst onto the scene as extraordinarily as Laura Dunn.” — Daniel Clarkson Fisher - The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (Errol Morris, 2016)
“The fact that Morris made a small film about a friend and turned her into a sort of archetypical vector for musings on art and life is a testament to his skill…even at his most relaxed, he’s inspired.” — Dan Schindel - Faces Places (Agnes Varda and JR, 2017) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“Faces Places is many things — a meditation on art and memory, a road trip movie, a portrait of a charming intergenerational friendship. Even with its many layers, the film remains light and playful, a wonderful reminder that documentaries can be both joyous and deep at the same time.” — Ciara Wardlow - Cutie and the Boxer (Zachary Heinzerling, 2013) * OSCAR NOMINEE
“Cutie and the Boxer is not an art documentary, or a love story. It’s a film about two artists, a rocky but persistent marriage and their work…The film shines because it lets these two individuals shine, allowing them to define themselves and then carefully crafting them into a beautiful portrait.” — Daniel Walber - Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (Alison Klayman, 2012)
- Hooligan Sparrow (Nanfu Wang, 2016)
- Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (Joe Piscatella, 2017)
“Once you realize Joshua Wong is a tough egg to crack, this straightforward yet comprehensive chronicle of his triumphs is more than engrossing enough.” — Christopher Campbell - Casting JonBenet (Kitty Green, 2017)
“While the 1996 murder of the 6-year-old pageant queen, an incident that dominates tabloids even today, has been the subject of countless documentaries and dramatized films, the latest investigation subverts expectations by investigating the mythology that surrounds the tragic case. Casting JonBenet is barely a film about the case, offering instead a unique perspective on the legacy of a 20-year-old mystery and how onlookers perceive murders.” — Christopher Campbell - All These Sleepless Nights (Michael Marczak, 2016)
“The film is cut with a vengeance…its ideas don’t really stick out, but some of its mood may wander into your dreams.” — Daniel Walber
And here are 20 must-see documentary miniseries and series:
- Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (Joe Berlinger, 2019)
“A fascinating peek behind the myth of Bundy, and through interviews featuring Bundy on death row and other reels of found footage, the myth becomes self-immolated and the viewer sees the man for who he really was. A monstrous man whose narcissism and self-hubris knew no bounds; he waxes philosophical but never really manages to say anything at all.” – Cole Henry - One Strange Rock (Graham Booth, Nicholas Jordan, Alice Jones, Christopher Riley, Nat Sharman, and Nic Stacey, 2018)
- The Staircase (Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, 2004–2018)
- Bobby Kennedy for President (Dawn Porter, 2018)
“Bobby Kennedy for President stokes speculative conclusions about whether or not RFK should have run for president at all, or if the country would have been better if he had lived and won. The real takeaway, however, is a deeper personal understanding of both Robert F. Kennedy, his supporters, and the road to the presidential campaign, which wasn’t as smooth and straight shot as it might have seemed then, or in retrospect today.” — Christopher Campbell - Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist (Trey Borzillieri and Barbara Schroeder, 2018)
- Wild Wild Country (Chapman Way and Maclain Way, 2018)
- Ugly Delicious (Eddie Schmidt, Morgan Neville, Jason Zeldes and Laura Gabbert, 2018)
“You’re sure to want a second helping when you’ve devoured all eight parts…the show seems to have it all covered with regards to the concept of and the concentration on the ugly and the delicious. But I want some more, please. You will, too.” — Christopher Campbell - Flint Town (Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper and Jessica Dimmock, 2018)
“There’s a likelihood that after watching the whole thing, whether or not you have a better appreciation for the police, you’ll at least take local government and agencies and community into greater consideration. Because ‘Flint Town’ could, outside of some obvious specifics, could be Anytown.” — Christopher Campbell - Wormwood (Errol Morris, 2017)
- The Innocent Man (Ross M. Dinerstein and Clay Tweel, 2018)
- The Keepers (Ryan White, 2017)
- November 13: Attack on Paris (Gedeon Naudet and Jules Naudet, 2018)
- The Civil War (Ken Burns, 1990)
- The War (Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, 2007)
- The Vietnam War (Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, 2017)
- Prohibition (Ken Burns, 2011)
- The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (Ken Burns, 2014)
- Planet Earth (Alastair Fothergill, 2006)
- Planet Earth II (Justin Anderson, Ed Charles, Fredi Devas, Chadden Hunter, Emma Napper, and Elizabeth White, 2016)
- Five Came Back (Laurent Bouzereau, 2017)
And here are the 12 must-see documentary shorts:
- Period. End of Sentence (Rayka Zehtabchi, 2018) * OSCAR WINNER
“Period. End of Sentence is informative about an issue, setting up the stigma of and ignorance about menstruation in rural India, and enlightening about a project dealing with that issue, following empowered women as they use a sanitary pad manufacturing machine donated to them and establishing a business and brand to sell them in the area.” – Christopher Campbell - End Game (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 2018) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- The White Helmets (Orlando von Einsiedel, 2016) * OSCAR WINNER
- Extremis (Dan Krauss, 2016) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Heroin(e) (Elaine McMillion Sheldon, 2017) * OSCAR NOMINEE
- Out of Many, One: The Immigrant’s Story (John Hoffman and Nanfu Wang, 2018)
- The Battle of Midway (John Ford, 1942)* OSCAR WINNER
- The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (William Wyler, 1944)
- The Negro Soldier (Stuart Heisler, 1944)
- San Pietro (John Ford, 1945)
- Thunderbolt (John Sturges and William Wyler, 1947)
- Zion (Floyd Russ, 2018)
