Where to watch it: HBO Go and HBO Now (Watch the trailer. Where to watch it: Hulu; rent on YouTube, Google Play, etc. ), Release date: April 17Director: Penny Lane (Our Nixon)Why it's a great doc: While Satan has been around for a long time, The Temple of Satan, the primary focus of this sly documentary, was founded in 2013 by Malcolm Jerry and Lucien Greaves. This shockingly intimate exposé, in which Wade Robson and James Safechuck describe the experience of being sexually abused as boys by Michael Jackson, stands as a vital reckoning, one that reveals the greatest pop star of his time to have been a monster. This time, we get close-up glimpses of the raging flame-thrower: the carny barker of hate. ), Release date: July 26Directors: Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo StefanovWhy it's a great doc: Honeyland offers such a straightforward allegory in its 90 minutes that it almost seems contrived, a fictionalized narrative designed to accommodate whatever message a viewer wants to read into it. This year, more than 15 documentaries crossed the $1 million mark in theaters, ranging from high-profile concert films (such as Bruce Springsteen’s “Western Stars” and “Bring the Soul: The Movie”) to powerful human interest stories (“Maiden” and “The Biggest Little Farm”). Who knew? Carter had met her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, only a handful of times over their two-year relationship that existed primary over text messages and Gchats; Roy was incredibly depressed, and Carter, prescribed SSRIs herself, was a horribly lonely person convinced she was helping Roy by badgering him to take his own life. ), Release date: May 10Director: John ChesterWhy it's a great doc: The Biggest Little Farm sure has the look and feel of an Oscar winner for Best Documentary feature (Unfortunately, it got snubbed). “The Brink” Release date: January 24Director: Joel Berlinger (Paradise Lost trilogy)Why it's a great doc: Joel Berlinger's iconic work on the Paradise Lost trilogy centered on the myriad miscarriages of justice in the case of the West Memphis 3, who were convicted of murdering three boys in the mid-'90s, and while his Netflix docuseries focuses on a man whose guilt is never in question, Berlinger still manages to work in sly critiques of the justice system. You'll find streaming hits, obscure treasures, and theatrical releases, but they all share one common trait: They'll help you better understand the world, for better or for worse. Where to watch it: Hulu; rent on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, VOD (Watch the trailer. After Judge Rosemarie Aquilina opened her courtroom to speakers during Nassar’s sentencing, Americans were transfixed as more than 160 witnesses, including many of his victims, addressed the convicted serial sexual abuser. Need help finding something to watch? Using archival material of Sunday school cartoons and news programs, Lane gives the viewer a crash course on Satanism's place in history while also emphasizing the activist nature of modern Satanists. We're not going to focus on them, because that would be a dumb list! Where to watch it: Hulu (Watch the trailer. —Justin Kirkland, Hulu’s meditation on adolescence is a coming of age story which looks at the strange role technology plays in the lives of Generation Z. He's a showman with an understanding of the dramatic -- the movie centers around a "farewell tour" he embarks on following a bleak medical diagnosis -- but he also has the self-loathing streak of many successful stand-up comedians and he's not afraid to turn his anger against his wife, his fans, or, most essentially here, his director. She was promised a documentary with the cultural impact of Woodstock, and instead Pollock and his crew botched the recording so badly that they failed to sync the sound, making a release impossible for decades. Want more recommendations like this? By placing this issue on the table the way it does, Dan Reed’s two-part HBO film created a cultural earthquake whose aftershocks are still being felt. (Of course, she evicted hundreds of families from their homes to make way for the wildlife.) —OG, 5. The film is methodically paced, but the lengths to which Magid goes -- including acts that, for some, pushed the limits of good taste -- to convince Federica to agree to her proposal will keep you on the edge of your seat.Where to watch it: Rent on Amazon, Vudu (Watch the trailer. She's singing, obviously, but the cameras return again and again to the men who surround her: the Reverend James Cleveland, Franklin's father, and charismatic choir director Alexander Hamilton. The whole film—from each interview to the modern-day footage HBO captured for the movie—bursts with Be Kind, Rewind-esque heart, the kind of energy that comes when a community makes a testament to the place they love.—Brady Langmann, Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 film The Queen of Versailles cataloged a family of timeshare billionaires and their efforts to build the largest house in America. Where to watch it: PBS Passport (Watch the trailer. Executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and directed and shot by environmental filmmaker Richard Ladkani, the suspenseful, high-stakes doc traces the many efforts to save the Vaquita, expose the dangerous ring of totoaba cartels, and trace the networks that keep poachers active. ), Release date: October 1Director: Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy)Why it's a great doc: Oscar-winning documentarian Kapadia's work tends to focus on tragic genius, a theme that continues in his examination of perhaps the greatest soccer player ever to live. Natural beauty contrasts with crude modernism as Hatidze first embraces the family of nine who bring livestock and chaos with their RV, until their own beekeeping ambitions threaten the careful balance with which Hatidze practices her craft.
An astonishing time capsule featuring footage few us even realized existed, Todd Douglas Miller’s mind-blowing documentary takes audiences inside the Apollo 11 mission. In a series of absurd twists that recall David Farrier's nail-biter Tickled and Nathan Fiedler's gonzo reporting project Finding Frances, Untitled Amazing Jonathan Documentary transforms from a showbiz bio into a clever, often shocking variation on a reliably absorbing type of documentary: the meta non-fiction film about the tricky responsibility a director has to his or her subject. Where to watch it: Netflix (Watch the trailer. Revolutionary “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson pushed the boundaries of the medium yet again, bringing fresh dimension to century-old World War I footage in his 3D doc “They Shall Not Grow Old” (that film was technically a 2018 release, but earned more than $12 million in 2019), while high-frame-rate eco doc “Aquarela” changed the way we look at water. Apollo 11 may not have any visual effects, but it still may make you gulp in wonder. Russian director Victor Kossakovsky, who's responsible for 2011's mind-bending, similarly mute nature doc ¡Vivan las Antípodas!, miraculously captures water in a swath of evocative emotional forms: "breathing" as tides ebb and flow, "screaming" as it thrashes in a nasty storm, "gurgling" as ice slowly melts. —Justin Kirkland, The 2020 Movies That Are Streaming Online Early, What Happens If Trump Can't Fulfill His Duties, Dickies Work Pants Are the Brand at Its Best, The Turntable to Buy for Killer Sound and Style, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. Co-directors Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang examined the consequence of the policy, designed to slow the growth of the most populous nation in the world, and which leaves a legacy of forced abortions and sterilizations, and the state-sanctioned kidnapping and adoption of children whose very existences were criminalized. Together they have a vision: a music festival in the Bahamas that promises all the FOMO-inducing opulence of a well-curated Instagram feed. Photographer Edward Burtynsky has dedicated his career to documenting mankind’s impact on the planet, primarily through stunning, ultra-high-resolution photographs of “manufactured landscapes” — of strip-mining sites, surreal irrigation circles, and mountains of garbage. The Penny Lane documentary was released through Magnolia Pictures and continues to be an unsurprisingly polarizing work, but one that is a must-see. —PD, 2. What begins as a portrait of mental illness eventually explores Kathy's evolving relationship with her husband as both their lives change dramatically in the face of outside interference. —PD, 8. ), Release date: TBDDirector: Alex Rivera and Cristina IbarraWhy it's a great doc: Half tense prison-break thriller and half earnest political documentary, The Infiltrators is a hybrid of dramatic and non-fiction storytelling that's difficult to describe and even harder to shake.
Even if the Netflix version is perhaps the more ethically dubious of the two documentaries, one could argue that meta-layer of behind-the-scenes turmoil also adds to the experience: You start to feel like the scam will never end.Where to watch it: Netflix (Watch the trailer. —OG, 7. Not anymore—since streaming services brought documentaries into our homes, viewers have thoroughly caught the doc bug.