2022 marked another banner year for documentary cinema. They have inspired us, informed us, and taken us on unforgettable journeys. Documentarians have given us second looks at entertainers we thought we knew. They’ve examined systematic inequalities and looked inward at themselves. They’ve told personal stories that cover vast expanses of the human condition. 

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2022

This year we at The Playlist have expanded the list to twenty documentaries, from ecological pleas to a reconsideration of the film canon to portraits of artists of singular talent and vision.

Continue reading The Best Documentaries Of 2022 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.

From 1955 until his death, the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover targeted civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in an increasingly invasive surveillance program meant to destabilize the man and the movement. This fact is well documented, but filmmaker Sam Pollard‘s (“Two Trains Runnin‘,” “Eyes on the Prize“) new documentary “MLK/FBI,” pulls back the curtain on the story in a way that hasn’t been told on film.

Continue reading ‘MLK/FBI’ Trailer: How The FBI Tried To Destroy The Legacy Of Martin Luther King Jr. at The Playlist.

We’re not sure exactly why the Television Academy thought it was necessary to refresh everyone’s memory about its new rule regarding streaming and television eligibility for the Emmys announced this past March. Perhaps they just wanted to remind submitting networks or clear the air following the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ recent temporary rule change due to the coronavirus pandemic. And yet, here we are.

In a statement, the Television Academy noted:

“The Television Academy supports the recent decision from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to allow feature films, originally intended for theatrical distribution but made available via streaming or video on demand during the current pandemic crisis, to compete at the 2021 Oscars.  Further, the Television Academy ruled in March that effective in 2021, programs that have been nominated for an Oscar will no longer be eligible for the Emmys competition.”

The rule change was a long-overdue decision on the Television Academy’s part to ensure that films don’t double-dip into both the Emmy and Oscar award pools.

Continue reading Television Academy Reminds Everyone Oscar-Nominated Films Not Eligible For Emmys…in 2021 at The Playlist.

The ’80s had arrived. Disco was dead, and for many, new wave synth wasn’t cutting it. People hungered for a new sound. Before hip-hop would take shape in the region, thrash metal was born in the Bay Area. If you aren’t familiar with the Bay Area thrash metal scene, “Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story“— based on photographer Brian Lew and metal bassist and photographer Harald Oimoen‘s semi-eponymous book— is a phenomenal, in-depth look at a genre of music that spawned such musical heavy-metal legends as Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, and Megadeth.

Continue reading ‘Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story’: Poseurs Take Heed & Hide, This Doc Bleeds With Pride at The Playlist.

In what has become a rewarding Christmas tradition, the last couple of weeks have been spent, in between shopping, cooking, arguing, eating, boozing and crying jags, catching up on some of the non-fiction releases from the past year. In recent times, the increase in quality documentary filmmaking — more about an increase in availability and profile, perhaps, but a borderline Cambrian explosion nonetheless — has been an incredible bounty, but also a bit of a daunting prospect.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Remember when “truth is stranger than fiction” used to be a thing that boring people said to fill awkward post-anecdote gaps at dinner parties and before it became the literal truth of every waking moment living in the Western world in 2017? Yeah, us neither. But of all cinematic forms perhaps it’s our appreciation of documentary filmmaking that has been most affected by the experience of living in such unsettled times — with only a few exceptions the docs we’ve been most impressed by this year have commented on the state we’re in right now, even when they ostensibly have done nothing of the sort.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2017 So Far at The Playlist.

…Aaand now the days are getting shorter as we’ve passed the midpoint of the year, meaning it’s high time we brought you the last but very far from the least feature in our 2016 So Far series. We’ve already regaled you with Best (Narrative) Films, Best TV Shows and our most popular hate-read Worst Films of the Year So Far, so that only leaves Best Documentaries of 2016 to fill you in on. Since the doc landscape is, if anything, changing even faster than that of traditional broadcast TV or theatrically distributed features, we’ve relaxed our rules a little here and allowed titles that we caught online or at festivals that have not yet been widely released to sneak onto this list.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2016 So Far at The Playlist.

Continue reading ‘Amy,’ ‘Meru,’ ‘The Look Of Silence’ Make Oscar Documentary Shortlist, ‘The Wolfpack,’ Kurt Cobain Doc Miss Out at The Playlist.

We’re just about midway through 2015, and that means taking stock of the cinematic year so far. In terms of feature films, it’s been a stellar year, with everything from “Inside Out” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” to “The Duke Of Burgundy” and “L’il Quinquin” making it one of the strongest first six months of a moviegoing calendar that we can remember (read our 20 Best Films Of The Year So Far feature), with a plethora of equally excellent movies having cropped up at festivals (read our 20 Best Film Festival Debuts Of The Year So Far feature too).

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2015 So Far at The Playlist.