All the Documentaries You Need to See in January 2023

Welcome to Documental, a monthly column keeping fans of nonfiction films and docuseries up to date on all the documentary content coming to theaters and your favorite streaming services. Here’s a guide to all the essential documentary titles to watch in January 2023.

It’s a new year, and with it comes new documentaries. Well, some of the highlights this month are older documentaries, including some of the top films of the previous year. In fact, one of the spotlighted picks for this month ranked high among the best documentaries of 2022. But the others are brand-new nonfiction features and docuseries premiering — in an official commercial release, at least — for the first time this month. Who needs to go to Sundance when you have new works by Joe Berlinger and the Naudet brothers to watch at home?

Here are some of the essentials from the month followed by a calendar marking all the notable documentaries and other nonfiction programs to watch in January 2023 (many to be added as the month goes on).

Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street

When you think of true crime, Joe Berlinger’s name should be at the forefront of your brain. He helped to pioneer the genre of true-crime documentaries with classics like Brother’s Keeper and the Paradise Lost trilogy and has recently become one of the most prolific producers of docs about serial killers and other murderers. But he’s also ventured out to stories involving non-homicidal criminals such as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and now Bernie Madoff.

Sure, we’ve seen a lot of docs and dramas about Madoff in recent years, but the four-part series Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street is sure to be a definitive account of his mega Ponzi scheme. Not that anyone could really explain how someone could get away with such seemingly obvious fraud to the tune of $60 billion over many decades. It’s worth noting that Berlinger is no stranger to financial subjects, as 10 years ago he made Hank: 5 Years from the Brink, about Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson. Like that film, this series will be distributed by Netflix.

Watch all three parts of Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street on Netflix on January 4, 2023.

January 6th

Another subject that might seem overdone right now is the U.S. Capitol attack. But nobody does documentaries about date-defining tragedies and catastrophes like Gédéon and Jules Naudet. Their 2002 feature 9/11 was an immediate standout in the documentation of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Years later, they directed the three-part docuseries November 13: Attack on Paris, which delivers harrowing accounts of the city-wide terrorist activity in the French capital on the titular date in 2015.

We can expect another conclusive work with January 6th, a feature documentary that focuses on the attempted coup in the name of Donald Trump that occurred on January 6, 2021. Unlike the balanced accounts of HBO’s Four Hours at the Capital, the Naudets’ film seems to be centered on the victims and the survivors of the attack that day, from the Capitol police officers to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and Chuck Schumer. It looks to be a talky affair, but with November 13: Attack on Paris, the filmmakers showed that close-up interviews with witnesses can be stronger than any first-hand footage.

Watch January 6th when it debuts on Discovery+ on January 5, 2023.

Riotsville, U.S.A.

When Sierra Pettengill isn’t working as an archives producer and researcher for other filmmakers, she’s making some of the best archival documentaries around (also check out The Reagan Show streaming on The Criterion Channel this month), and she’s reached another peak with Riotsville, U.S.A. The documentary presents footage shot by the U.S. military of a fabricated town used for the purpose of training soldiers to deal with protestors in the 1960s. It would be stunning footage to watch on its own, but it’s perfectly edited and accompanied by academically toned narration turning it into a sort of essay film that makes it resonate on a whole other level. One would not be surprised if this footage turned out to actually be more recent.

We first wrote about the documentary on our list of the best documentaries of Sundance ’22, noting that this film’s precise selection of footage is “not so much to showcase that material as it is to spotlight, repurpose, and recontextualize it for a story that involves — but is also about more than — that material.” Since then, it’s been nominated for two Critics Choice Documentary Awards, a Cinema Eye Honor, and an Independent Spirit Award. And it just landed in the top 10 list of the best documentaries of the year based on our annual poll results. Now, after a theatrical release and a recent VOD window, Riotsville, U.S.A. is heading to one of the best streaming services for docs.

Watch Riotsville, U.S.A. on Hulu beginning January 12, 2023.

The Day After Trinity

If you want to see classic documentaries in January 2023, The Criterion Channel has the motherload. Their big program this month is Cinema Verite, which spotlights essential films by D A Pennebaker, the Maysles brothers, Barbara Kopple, Les Blank, and other legends of observational direct cinema. They’ve got the usual, but one highlight there is the often hard-to-find American Dream, Kopple’s second Oscar winner. The Criterion Channel also has a showcase of masterpieces that have been curated at New York City’s Maysles Documentary Center, ranging from 1948’s Strange Victory to the recent A Night of Knowing Nothing. But that’s not all! There’s the streaming premiere of Juliet Bashore’s Kamikaze Hearts!

But what am I picking out of the entire bunch to recommend highest, at least for this month in this year? Jon H. Else’s 1980 documentary The Day After Trinity. This is the one I’m most excited to watch. This Oscar-nominated film hasn’t been the most accessible, so it’s worth watching it now while you can. It’s also the perfect time to see the doc as it’s about J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the team that developed the first atomic bomb. Millions of people will be seeing his story dramatized on the big screen in 2023 courtesy of writer-director Christopher Nolan and actor Cillian Murphy and their blockbuster biopic Oppenheimer, but the doc option is necessary viewing as an accompaniment or alternative to that.

The Day After Trinity will be available all month on The Criterion Channel but officially premieres on January 9, 2023.

Documentary Release Calendar for January 2023