The third day of Peabody Awards results are in and in a wonderful reminder to Emmy voters, today’s big winner was Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You.” The HBO limited series was the only entertainment category winner announced today along with “La Llorona,” an International Film Oscar shortlist film that somehow qualified for a Peabody (I guess…streaming?). It’s in good company, however, as the organization also honors documentaries, this year’s Academy Award nominees “Crip Camp” and “Collective” were among the winners.

Continue reading ‘I May Destroy You,’ ‘Collective’ & ‘Crip Camp’ Win 2021 Peabody Awards at The Playlist.

283 films were submitted for the Academy Award’s Documentary Feature Oscar and now just 15 remain. AMPAS revealed the shortlist for both the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short with the former category featuring few upsets. Acclaimed titles such as “Boys State,” “Time,” “Dick Johnson is Dead,” “Collective” and “Time” are still in the running for the eventual five Oscar nominations.

READ MORE: “Minari” and “The Crown” rule 2021 SAG Awards nominations

Snubbed contenders in a very competitive field include “The Dissident,” “A Thousand Cuts,” “The Way I See It,” “Totally Under Control” and “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” among others.

Continue reading ‘Time,’ ‘Collective’ Make 2021 Best Documentary Oscars Shortlist at The Playlist.

“If only I had time,” I remember sighing at some point in late 2019, probably in a pub or a restaurant among a cluster of friends separated by <1 ft of space, lipstick doubtless boozily smeared across my maskless face. “If only I somehow had the time to do nothing but stay in and catch up on all the non-fiction releases I’ve missed through the year!” Little did I know that at that exact moment, the Ministry of Be Careful What You Wish For was listening in.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2020 at The Playlist.

Despite a lack of theatrical distribution, 2020 has been another banner year for documentaries. It’s no surprise then that a number of acclaimed Oscar contenders didn’t make the cut for the prestigious IDA Documentary Awards. More on that in a minute, but first kudos to Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht’s “Crip Camp” which led all films with five nominations.

READ MORE: “Crip Camp,” a hopeful, joyous documentary with an activist spirit [Review]

Among other contenders, Garrett Bradley’s “Time” and Sam Pollard’s “MLK/FBI” both earned four nods while Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s “The Truffle Hunters” earned three.

Continue reading ‘Crip Camp’ Earns Five IDA Documentary Awards Nominations at The Playlist.

The first half of 2020 has been one of the most tumultuous periods in the century-plus history of the motion picture industry, as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the entire activity of theatrical movie-going for the first time since… well, since the last pandemic, back in 1918. As rules have been (literally, in some cases) rewritten, high-profile releases have been delayed, rescheduled, and delayed again, in an increasingly desperate and depressing game of Kick the Can. 

Continue reading The Best Films Of 2020… So Far at The Playlist.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This weekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. 

This week, one of the most divisive movies of the holidays hits disc and VOD today, and that’s not all; we’ve got critically acclaimed choices streaming on both Netflix and Hulu, plus a quartet of catalog classics on disc from Criterion and KL Studio Classics.

Continue reading The 7 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘The Rise Of Skywalker,’ ‘Portrait of A Lady on Fire’ & More at The Playlist.

“Making your mark on the world is hard,” said Barack Obama in a 2006 speech, long before he became President or even the executive producer of the Netflix documentary “Crip Camp.” He continued, “It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”

While the first documentary that he and wife Michelle lent their name to on the streaming giant, Oscar-winning “American Factory,” cast an uncertain but clear-eyed look into the future of America’s global ties, the executive producers’ second title captures something more akin to the 2008 magic.

Continue reading ‘Crip Camp’: A Hopeful, Joyous Documentary With An Activist Spirit [Review] at The Playlist.

While “Stranger Things” and scripted series of that ilk carry the headlines for Netflix, it’s clear, by now, the streaming service’s bread and butter are documentaries and docuseries. And with the upcoming release of “Crip Camp,” the streaming platform adds another must-see doc to its library.

As seen in the new trailer for the film, “Crip Camp” tells the story of a camp for teenagers with disabilities that was run by hippies during the era of Woodstock and free love.

Continue reading ‘Crip Camp’ Trailer: The Sundance Award-Winning Doc Produced By The Obamas Is Bound For Netflix at The Playlist.