We could write something really meaningful about documentaries and how they impacted the decade, changed our lives, made us cry, made us angry, gave us a call to action, or shined a light on something we otherwise might not know about. We could talk about the portraits of people we adored, people we lost, or chronicles of injustice or venality or obscure spotlights on little-known subjects. And we’ll do that, eventually, but right now, it’s Friday, and we just want to sleep and drink and possibly never wake up, so please enjoy our Best Documentaries of The Decade feature, this placeholder we may or may not update when we’re feeling alive, and our genuine thanks and appreciation for all your reading, sharing, clicking, etc.

Continue reading The Best Documentaries Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

Any discussion featuring Werner Herzog describing his filmmaking process is going to be interesting, and The Hollywood Reporter’s documentary roundtable was no exception. In addition to Herzog discussing his two most recent documentaries “Into The Inferno” and “Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World,” filmmakers Ezra Edelman (“O.J.: Made In America“), Kirsten Johnson (“Cameraperson”), Josh Kriegman (“Weiner”), Raoul Peck (“I Am Not Your Negro”), and Roger Ross Williams (“Life, Animated”) also provided insight into their cinematic approach.

Continue reading 66-Minute Documentary Director Roundtable Talk With Werner Herzog, Ezra Edelman, Kirsten Johnson & More at The Playlist.

People get excited about Oscar nominations day in part to see how their favorite films or actors do with the Academy. But we also get to see, after months of prognostication, precursors and predictions, what curveballs are thrown by voters, which sure bets end up missing out, and which seeming no-hopers suddenly become Oscar nominees.

The 2017 batch, revealed this morning by some awkward pre-shot interview clips and the voice of a “Westworld” murderbot, delivered on both fronts.

Continue reading The Snubs & Surprises Of The 2017 Oscar Nominations at The Playlist.

Prediction used on nominees [Feb. 5]

NOMINEES
1. “O.J.: Made in America”
2. “13th”
3. “I Am Not Your Negro”
4. “Life, Animated”
5. “Fire at Sea”

PREVIOUS CONTENDERS (for historical context)
“Cameraperson”
“Command and Control”
“Fire at Sea”
“Gleason”
“Hooligan Sparrow”
“The Ivory Game”
“Tower”
“Weiner”
“The Witness”
“Zero Days”

Gregory Ellwood’s Current Oscar Predictions:
Best Picture
Director
Best Actress
Best Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Original Screenplay
Adapted Screenplay
Editing
Cinematography 
Production Design
Animated Feature Film
Foreign Language Film
Documentary Feature
Original Score
Original Song
Costume Design
Makeup and Hairstyling
Visual Effects
Sound Mixing
Sound Editing

Continue reading 2017 Best Documentary Oscars Predictions at The Playlist.

Howard Hawks once defined a good movie as one with “three good scenes and no bad ones.” Whether or not you think he’s right — and he’s not massively wrong — it’s often the moments that make the movies for us, and there’s no better way to make a moment memorable than with some music.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2016

From the chorus lines of Busby Berkeley and “The Sound Of Silence” in “The Graduate” to Chuck Berry in “Pulp Fiction” and “Where Is My Mind” in “Fight Club,” movies and cinema are intrinsically linked together, with songs made indelible by scenes in films, and scenes made by indelible songs.

Continue reading The 25 Best Movie Music Moments Of 2016 at The Playlist.

We’re deep into the week before Christmas and still cutting a swath through our Best/Worst/It’s Complicated Year-End coverage, most of which we hope you’ve all read and enjoyed, or at least been engaged by (it’s okay, you can disagree). This year, a few documentaries made it onto our collective 25 Best Films of the Year list; in 2016, it seems that many of the achievements in non-fiction cinema have rendered moot the notion of keeping narrative and documentary separate for evaluation.

Continue reading The 22 Best Documentaries Of 2016 at The Playlist.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the field of 15 for the 2017 Documentary Feature Academy Award and while there were some notable snubs the only one that is cringeworthy is the absence of “Miss Sharon Jones!”

“O.J.: Made In America,” which has taken almost every major critics prize so far, made the cut as did 2016 Sundance Grand Jury prize winner “Weiner.”  The notable omissions are actually mostly from Park City debuts and include “Newtown,” “Jim” (the Audience Award winner), “Trapped,”Tickled” and “Audrie & Daisy.”

Other docs that didn’t make the list include “Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds,” Werner Herzog’s “Into The Inferno” and “Amanda Knox.”

105 documentaries were submitted this year and the Academy’s Documentary branch will now pick the final five nominees from the following 15 films.

Continue reading ‘O.J.: Made In America’ And ‘Weiner’ Make The 2017 Documentary Feature Oscars Cut at The Playlist.

It’s too bad that who dismissively write off 2016 as “a bad movie year” couldn’t find more than a few films to treasure across the last twelve months. Sure, blockbuster movies were pretty terrible all around, but even a glimpse of indie cinema and foreign films this year (South Korea alone yielded the excellent likes of “The Handmaiden,” “The Wailing” and “Age Of Shadows“) reveals some tremendous work.

Continue reading Celebrating The Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Both Ezra Edelman‘s ‘OJ’ and Raoul Peck‘s ‘I Am Not’ earned nods for the top prize, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, alongside Kirsten Johnson‘s “Cameraperson,” Gianfranco Rosi‘s “Fire at Sea,“ and Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg‘s “Weiner.

Continue reading ‘OJ: Made in America’ Leads Nominees For 2017 Cinema Eye Honors at The Playlist.

For sheer twists, turns, stakes and nail-biting drama, nothing at the movies this year has been able to compete with the 2016 Election. We’re still a week away from election day, and we’ve already worn out a mouse and got carpal tunnel syndrome from refreshing FiveThirtyEight, so gripping has the battle been between the potential first ever female President of the United States Hillary Clinton, and grope-happy steak salesman Donald Trump.

Continue reading The 25 Best Movies About Politics at The Playlist.

Attention by anyone who is panicked that “La La Land,” “Jackie,” “Hell or High Water” or a movie that hasn’t been released yet didn’t earn a nomination for Best Film (or something else) when the 2016 Gotham Awards nods were announced this morning. Newsflash for you, the Gothams are chosen by panels made up of just five to six critics or industry figures. Most are from the New York area and most are deeply connected to the city’s indie filmmaking scene.

Continue reading Making Sense Of The ‘La La Land’-Less 2016 Gotham Awards Nominations at The Playlist.

September is here, and the fall film festivals have started —check out our Venice coverage so far, and our Telluride coverage starts tomorrow and TIFF next week. Nevertheless, the days are getting shorter and the temperature a little cooler, so it’s time to look back on 2016’s moviegoing summer.

In most respects, it was a bad one. Most tentpoles disappointed, and unusually, it seemed that most underperformed at the box office (though it’s interesting to note that total box office is up about 3% from last year, thanks to a few monster hits).

Continue reading The Winners & Losers Of The 2016 Summer Movie Season 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.

The crackling political documentary “Weiner” opens with a self-reflective admission from its subject, the embattled New York politician Anthony Weiner. “I can’t believe I’m doing a documentary on my scandal,” he sighs. Believe it, Anthony, and believe me, it’s one of the sharpest and most entertaining pieces of political farce on the current media-saturated moment.

Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, “Weiner” hums with energy, mimicking the hyperactivity of its subject, the passionate, mouthy, and hubristic Brooklyn politician Anthony Weiner.

Continue reading Review: Crackling Political Doc ‘Weiner’ Is Sharp And Entertaining at The Playlist.