Documentaries You Need to See in March 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 the essential documentary titles to watch in March 2023.

The third month of the year on this third planet from the Sun brings a lot of incredible nonfiction content for your viewing pleasure. March is Women’s History Month, of course, and that means the streaming services are spotlighting films made by and about women, which like Black History selections deserve to be showcased all the time. As long as they’re given the platform, though, we’re going to direct your attention toward these must-see documentaries. For instance, a couple of our favorite films by and about women from 2022 are finally making their debut on streaming services this month. Meanwhile, one of our favorite new discoveries hitting theaters this month has no calendrical theme related to its release.

Here are some of the essentials from this month, including many works by women:

Nonfics Pick of the Month: Laura Poitras’s Third Oscar-Nominated Documentary Feature – All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

Neon

On March 12, another lucky film will be named the Best Documentary Feature by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. One of the contenders is the latest from Laura Poitras, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, and it marks her third nomination in the category — she won with her second time, for Citizenfour. Whether it wins or not, we recommend watching the film when it arrives on HBO Max one week later. The doc is one of the richest nonfiction works in some time, as it’s a biographical artist profile and a powerful issue film in one. Photographer Nan Goldin shares her creative genius, her life’s tragedies, and her triumphant activism against the Sackler family for their part in the opioid crisis, all of which come together for a deep and emotional ride.

In addition to its recognition at the Oscars, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was nominated for two Critics Choice Documentary Awards and the BAFTA Film Award for Best Documentary, and it came in second place on Nonfics’ own poll-driven list of the best documentaries of 2022. Before that, it debuted at the Venice Film Festival and took home its top prize, a rarity for documentaries, and it’s been racking up numerous other accolades ever since. Now it’s just time for home viewers to get to know Goldin and see her strength and her very difficult but very inspiring efforts toward personal and global justice. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed premieres on HBO Max on March 19.

Hidden Letters

Cargo Films and Releasing

Another new documentary directed by women and focused on rebellious women arriving in March 2023, Violet Du Feng and Qing Zhao’s Hidden Letters was surprisingly overlooked among the best of 2022. Its festival run, which began at Tribeca, and its late-December theatrical release were very quiet, but hopefully, audiences will tune in when it airs and then streams at the end of the month. The doc follows two millennial-age feminist Chinese women who are both challenging and embracing their culture and its traditions through their interest in the secret written language Nüshu, which itself was historically a form of women’s liberation. Hidden Letters makes its broadcast debut on PBS via Independent Lens on March 27, with free streaming likely beginning on the PBS website the following day.

Gods Of Mexico

Oscilloscope

While both of the above films have some beautiful visuals, Gods of Mexico is an extraordinary treat for your eyes, as well as for your ears, and it’s really terrific that the documentary is being released on the big screen. Directed and shot by Helmut Dosantos, much of it in monochrome, the film takes viewers on a trip around Mexico to witness rural life and labor, from an extensive look at the workers in salt pans to portraits of people in the country’s deserts and jungles. Like Hidden Letters, Gods of Mexico celebrates the ways of the past, though it’s much more concentrated on maintaining those traditions and not at all embracing modernization in land or culture. Gods of Mexico opens in theaters on March 3 along with two other Mexican documentaries: Teodora Ana Mihai’s La Civil and Rodrigo Reyes’s Sansón and Me.

In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis

Magnolia Pictures

It would be easy to dismiss the numerous documentaries being made about the pope if so many weren’t being made by great filmmakers: Wim Wenders, Evgeny Afineevsky, and now Gianfranco Rosi. This one is a particular must-see for any fan of Rosi (that should be all documentary enthusiasts) as it was inspired by trips made by Pope Francis that reminded the filmmaker of his recent docs Fire at Sea and Notturno. For the non-devout, it helps that the subject of In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis is a more interesting pope than some of his predecessors, particularly for his progressive and just plain modern views that better reflect the world of today. In Viaggio opens in theaters on March 31.

Documentary Release Calendar for March 2023