The Best Documentaries of 2018 (So Far)

17. Hitler’s Hollywood

Released: April 11
Director: Rüdiger Suchsland (From Caligari to Hitler)
Why it’s great: With actor Udo Kier (Iron Sky) serving as our instructor-narrator, watching Hitler’s Hollywood is like taking an in-depth film history course in the span of about 100 minutes. Whether it’s for curiosity sake or adding to our education about cinema, this documentary teaches us about the theatrical propaganda and entertainment -- and where those two things combined -- that were produced in Germany during the Third Reich. We see clips from those films, including Leni Riefenstahl's infamous propaganda movie Triumph of the Will and the Nazis’ own Titanic disaster drama, while Kier discusses them.
Where to see it: Home video (watch the trailer)

16. Andre the Giant

Released: April 10
Director: Jason Hehir (The Fab Five)
Why it’s great: Andre the Giant was great, in so many ways. The towering professional wrestler, also known for starring in The Princess Bride and being an all-around pop culture icon, was an easily lovable figure in his lifetime, and he fortunately continues his appeal in this biographical sports documentary. Not that he’s simply given an exalting profile, but Hehir is certainly in awe of his subject and paints an adoring portrait with few warts on display. The film covers Andre the myth, Andre the legend, Andre the ladies man, and, yep, Andre the flatulent. It showcases him as a champion and a tragic human being. Even if you’re not a wrestling fan, you’ll appreciate and enjoy Andre the Giant.
Where to see it: Stream on HBO (watch the trailer)

15. That Summer

Released: May 18
Director: Göran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975)
Why it’s great: Best appreciated, if not exclusively so, if you’re familiar with the classic Maysles brothers documentary, Grey Gardens, and its subjects, Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, That Summer is a treasure trove of previously unearthed material. The new feature functions as an unofficial prequel to the 1975 film, which has already spawned a sequel, stage play, dramatic retelling, and more. The reclusive mother and daughter remain two of the most delightful and perplexing on-screen personalities, and it’s no wonder they wound up taking over as the Maysles’ focus when Lee Radziwell’s own original project, detailed here as a broader look at her family and their East Hampton neighbors, went unfinished. It’s primarily for Grey Gardens fans, but everyone ought to be a Grey Gardens fan.
Where to see it: Home video (watch the trailer)

14. Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities

Released: February 19
Director: Stanley Nelson (The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution)
Why it’s great: Nelson is PBS' go-to filmmaker for documentaries on black history topics, but unlike his usual work, this one leaves you with more than just a lesson on the past. Chronicling the milestones of and discourse around African-American education, from the slavery years through today, Tell Them We Are Rising focuses on the establishment of Historically Black Colleges and Universities while also highlighting the general importance of learning for the sake of empowerment and progress. Hearing from historians and seeing the compiled archival footage here, we’re reminded of the taken-for-granted significance of education to influencing culture and inspiring past, present, and future civil rights movements. The history may be specific, but the encouragement should affect anyone.    
Where to see it: Home video (watch the trailer)

13. RBG

Released: May 4
Director: Julie Cohen (American Veteran) and Betsy West
Why it’s great: Benefited by its timeliness, which has become even more apparent since its release, RBG is a celebratory spotlight on the life and work and recent memetic notoriety of the 85-year-old U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The documentary mixes biography, mostly highlighting significant legal cases involving Ginsburg before and since joining the highest bench in the land, and character study, following the subject in her routines. Friends, family, and colleagues honor her with favorable anecdotes and praise while Ginsburg herself appears for a charming personal interview. The whole thing, but especially scenes focused on her health, seems aimed at convincing the audience that she needs to be around a while longer, and for that it’s very effective.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

12. John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Released: May 28
Director: George Kunhardt, Peter K. Kunhardt, and Teddy Kunhardt (Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words)
Why it’s great: While Senator John McCain can be a problematic politician, he has also bridged the aisle on numerous occasions. That makes him not just a distinct figure in American government but also an interesting subject for a movie. This balanced and often melancholy documentary showcases the war hero, longtime public servant, and former presidential candidate as a symbol of bipartisanship and of a seemingly bygone era in U.S. politics. Because McCain has also been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, he knows he will be gone soon, and his voiceover narration serves as a self-eulogizing look back through life and career, reflecting on good and bad moments with equal recognition.
Where to see it: Stream on HBO (watch the trailer)

11. Three Identical Strangers

Released: June 29
Director: Tim Wardle (One Killer Punch)
Why it’s great: Three Identical Strangers definitely has the most incredible documentary story of the year, and the initial focus on three young men who discovered, by happenstance, that they were triplets separated at birth is only the beginning. Wardle weaves an incredible and amiable stranger-than-fiction profile of the brothers into a dark and disturbing exposé that ultimately gets viewers contemplating the nature versus nurture debate -- this isn’t a doc to see alone, because you'll need to talk about it afterward. A well-plotted nonfiction thriller (unsurprisingly, Hollywood is remaking it), the film has a lot going on, but there’s very little to share or address about the shocking narrative without spoiling its twists. It’s therefore objectively a must-see.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

10. A Dangerous Son

Released: May 7
Director: Liz Garbus (Bobby Fischer Against the World, What Happened, Miss Simone?)
Why it’s great: Liz Garbus is one of the most prolific, proficient, and versatile documentary filmmakers working today (the two-time Oscar nominee also has the Emmy-nominated political series The Fourth Estate out this year). With this important and deeply concerning feature, which is difficult to watch at moments, she tackles the ever-timely issue of children with severe emotional and mental illness while separately profiling three struggling families. Providing an alternative focus regarding the increasing problem of school violence (contrasting against the greater prevalence of gun-control-focused docs), Garbus’s emotional, character-driven film works as an alarming expose and another accomplishment in dramatic nonfiction storytelling for the director.
Where to see it: Stream on HBO (watch the trailer)

9. The Road Movie

Released: January 19
Director: Dimitrii Kalashnikov
Why it’s great: There is a disturbing pleasure to be enjoyed in dashboard-cam footage of traffic accidents, though The Road Movie isn’t just a compilation of Russia’s craziest car videos. Through these recordings, viewers also witness strange encounters with bears and brides and prostitutes and parachuters. We experience a camera’s theft by way of its own documentation of the incident. We travel into a forest in flames -- an incredibly surreal sight -- courtesy of one device. We take an inadvertent dip into a river thanks to another. There are surprises aplenty in this Warholian presentation of real-life death and destruction, and it will leave you paranoid about getting behind the wheel of your own vehicle.
Where to see it: Stream on Amazon Prime; rent on iTunes, Amazon, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

8. Generation Wealth

Released: July 20
Director: Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles)
Why it’s great: Lauren Greenfield follows her hit 2012 documentary The Queen of Versailles with a continued look at the problems -- er, problem -- of the rich and famous. The film is partly based on Greenfield’s book of the same name, both critical indictments of the increasingly popular desire around the world to be, or -- and this is apparently more psychologically concerning -- at least seem to be, affluent. On an extra level, Generation Wealth is also a deeply personal work with a compelling first-person narrative in which Greenfield reflects on her career photographing the excessively and garishly wealthy, revisiting subjects she’s captured over the decades with fresh insight.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

7. The Cage Fighter

Released: February 2
Director: Jeff Unay
Why it’s great: Calling The Cage Fighter a real-life version of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, as pretty much every review has done, is a disservice to both films but certainly gives you an easy sell on this verité profile of an aging small-time, mixed-martial-arts competitor. Unay, whose past credits are mostly in visual effects for such blockbusters as Avatar and King Kong, makes a stunningly confident and cinematic feature debut following the dramatic life of Joe Carman, who struggles with the clash between his passion for fighting and his family’s fearful disapproval of the part-time profession. The unscripted film offers a rare case of truth being more riveting than fiction.
Where to see it: Home video (watch the trailer)

6. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda

Released: July 6
Director: Stephen Nomura Schible
Why it’s great: Unlike most music documentaries, this one isn’t so much geared for fans of the artist as it is fans of intimate character portraits. Of course, those familiar with the Oscar-winning film composer aren’t lacking for an appreciation of Ryuichi Sakamoto. We see the cancer-stricken artist working on various endeavors, including his music for The Revenant, and also participating in anti-nuke activism. The doc just doesn’t tell the audience about his life and work. It follows him in both, all the while tangentially acknowledging past performances and projects through smoothly compiled archival footage -- the editing team of Hisayo Kushida and Yûji Ohshige deserve a lot of recognition for how impeccable this portrait is.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

5. McQueen

Released: July 20
Directors: Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui
Why it’s great: Fashion designer Alexander McQueen gets one of the most widely appealing biographical documentaries in some time with this perfectly constructed film. Don’t care about fashion? Don’t know who he was? Not a problem, since McQueen’s rags-to-riches story is universally compelling and thoroughly riveting, even if ultimately it has an unhappy ending. He was a rock star in the fashion world, and McQueen is appropriately sort of a rock doc. Accessibly broken up into a chaptered narrative based around audio recordings of the late subject, the film offers a portrait of an intriguingly humble, yet shockingly brilliant artist. Even if you don’t like his work, you’ll be inspired and saddened by his story.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

4. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Released: June 29
Director: Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom)
Why it’s great: Nobody can deny that Fred Rogers, aka children’s television icon, "Mister Rogers," makes for a great subject worth watching in any form (that’s one reason Won't You Be My Neighbor? is already one of the top-grossing docs of all time). Fortunately, this particular film comes in the form of a tightly focused profile on the late Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood host by the Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville. As with his other films, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? has more to it than merely spotlighting its main subject. There’s a little history lesson here, a subtle political jab there, and yes, a guaranteed tear-jerking moment (though not where you think). It’s a beautiful film for a neighbor.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

3. 24 Frames

Released: February 2
Director: Abbas Kiarostami (Close-Up)
Why it’s great: The final film of one of Iran's cinema masters, 24 Frames is an absolutely mesmerizing documentary -- although many purists will disqualify it as such. The film is an experimental work that takes 24 static images, mostly photographs by Kiarostami plus one Dutch Renaissance painting, and animates them as four-and-a-half-minute vignettes focused mainly on wildlife and its interferences. What seems to be captured nature in these perfect shots of landscapes, some through windows, is all heavily constructed, yet hardly more manipulated than any edited work of nonfiction cinema or photography. Simultaneously an appreciation of the still and the moving image, 24 Frames actually feels more genuine than most documentaries, especially for its acknowledgment of the omnipresence of birdlife.  
Where to see it: Coming soon to home video (watch the trailer)

2. The King

Released: June 22
Director: Eugene Jarecki (Reagan)
Why it’s great: One of two great looks at the legacy of Elvis Presley out this year (the other is HBO’s two-part series Elvis Presley: The Searcher), this feature paints a picture of America through the metaphoric lens of celebration and criticism of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Eugene Jarecki, who tends to swing for the fences with big ideas (see Why We Fight and The House I Live In), hits another home run. With this more gimmicky but effective effort, he drives Elvis’ 1963 Rolls Royce around the U.S., interviewing people about the legend as they sit in the backseat. If Elvis is America, is the country in the downfall years about to overdose and die? That’s the sort of rhetoric to be found in the film, also filled with terrific music performances by current artists.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

1. Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?

Released: February 28
Director: Travis Wilkerson (An Injury to One)
Why it’s great: Not since Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March has there been such a contemplative and resonating look at the South through a subjective documentary lens. In this experimental, personal-essay film, Wilkerson explores a difficult ancestral legacy as he investigates the unpunished murder of a black man committed by his own great-grandfather in Alabama more than 70 years ago. Through a powerful collage of old and new material, some of it inviting audience participation (the film was originally presented at festivals with live narration), plus examinations of more famous nearby racially motivated incidents such as the rape of Recy Taylor, we’re challenged along with Wilkerson in our ideas about family, American history, and even iconic literary heroes.
Where to see it: In theaters (watch the trailer)

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