You’re going to start seeing a LOT of these various, “end of the decade” lists pop up over the next few months. Heck, we even jumped on the bandwagon before there even was a bandwagon to jump on.
But sheer quantity of lists has never stopped me from seeking them out before and it sure isn’t going to stop me from creating more. Rank lists aren’t for everyone (mostly they’re just fun for the author to put them together), but if nothing else you’re likely to see something on these lists over the next 60 days that you haven’t heard about before or maybe simply forgot about. Finding or rediscovering these hidden gems is often reason enough to hash through these lists.
Enter Paste magazine (link includes artwork, trailers and written commentary) with their choices for the Top 25 Documentaries of the Decade:
25. Food, Inc. (2009)
24. Dig! (2004)
23. Gleaners and I (2000)
22. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006)
21. No End In Sight (2007)
20. No Direction Home (2005)
19. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
18. Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)
17. The White Diamond (2004)
16. God Grew Tired of Us (2007)
15. Super Size Me (2004)
14. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
13. Jesus Camp (2006)
12. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
11. Born into Brothels (2004)
10. Waltz with Bashir (2008)
9. Murderball (2005)
8. Spellbound (2002)
7. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
6. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
5. Bowling For Columbine (2002)
4. The Fog of War (2003)
3. Grizzly Man (2005)
2. Iraq in Fragments (2007)
1. Man On Wire (2008)
As much I talk about how I’m not a big fan of docs and I don’t see that many, I can actually claim that I have seen 19 of these films and yeah, they’re all pretty great. I would’ve liked to see The Cove or Dear Zachary up there (actually I’m surprised they’re not) and Waltz with Bashir could probably stand to be moved up a couple of notches, but otherwise this is a solid list. If nothing else it’s a jumping off point to check out some docs I’ve not heard of before that if sitting in the company of these others, must be pretty darn good.
Aside from my two glaring omission mentions, what titles need to be moved around, added or subtracted here?
via: Thanks to The Documentary Blog for retyping them all out in a quick and readable format so we could repost!
I’m happy to see MURDERBALL and IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS on the list. Overall, on the surface it seems like a good list but I don’t watch enough documentaries to make that call – that said, the ones on the list are pretty impressive and like you Andrew, I’ve seen most of them.
I was not a fan of Murderball. By about the halfway mark I was like, “okay I get the idea.” *click*
And aside from the two I mentioned, I’m a little surprised Who Killed the Electric Car? isn’t on this list. Though I feel the same way about that movie as I do Murderball.
I guess I need to rewatch Man on a Wire. I didn’t think much of it when I saw it in theaters. But everyone raves about it.
I just rewatched An Inconvenient Truth last night, I would not have it on this list. Even for its importance of subject matter, I think the hype outweighs what it actually delivers.
I agree with Andrew, The Cove and Dear Zachary ought to have been on this list.
I never even heard of Iraq in Fragments and it is #2?
When The Levees Broke ought to be #1
IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS is excellent. I cried my little eyes out when I saw it – very effective.
I guess I liked MURDERBALL because it was entertaining. That’s always a big plus for me. Sad to admit I still haven’t seen THE COVE or WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE
I didn’t find Iraq in Fragments or Born into Brothels particularly memorable, or even all that well made. I also thought No End In Sight was actually pretty boring.
To balance out the ‘meh’ of those, I would slot Why We Fight, Control Room and Startup.com in there.
So awesome to see King of Kong at #6
Hmmm, a solid list for sure. Still haven’t seen several of them. I won’t quibble about the actual ranking order – that’s kind of a crap shoot usually anyway.
A few that I think REALLY should be there though:
Stevie
9/11
Stone Reader
Deadline
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
Street Fight
In The Shadow Of The Moon
And some others that at least merit consideration:
Revelations: Paradise Lost 2
Calle 54
Winged Migration
Rivers And Tides
The True Meaning Of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia
The Five Obstructions
The Aristocrats
Anytown U.S.A.
Wordplay
Soul Power
Plages D’Agnes
Not Quite Hollywood (just because it’s so damn fun)
Best Worst Movie (ditto)
Love At The Twilight Motel
Oh yes Bob! Forgot about In the Shadow of the Moon. DEFINITELY should be there. And Winged Migration for that matter. Good call.
Still haven’t seen Paradise Lost 2. Part one was great though. Gotta get on that.
The problem with the two Paradise Lost films is that they made me angry. I’ve been a bit afraid to follow up on the story because I’d probably get all enraged again…
In The Shadow Of The Moon really got to me. There’s that one shot when the camera is inside the pod blasting off the moon and you see the tracks of their driving expedition left behind and the shadow of the pod itself…Man, it’s such a gorgeous and beautiful sight. And all the talking heads? It’s like 10 different grandfathers – with the best stories ever.
And Winged Migration’s trailer alone is an amazing piece of filmmaking (with one of the better marriages of image and sound that I’ve seen).
The second Paradise Lost chapter is not as good as the first, because the filmmaker spends too much time looking for reaction shots and craziness from the out-of-control Mark Byers. It loses sight of things in its effort to implicate Byers as the guilty party…my read on it anyway…
I agree with Kurt, I actually think the first one was more effective setting Byers up as a creepy undisclosed entity. The second one is just boring stuff like him doing random shit, and then some people who are now part of the case accuse him of being guilty, BASED ON WHAT THEY SAY IN THE FIRST MOVIE, and afterwards, he passes their test to show he’s innocent. What’s the story here?
Part 1 was fucking creepy, but part 2 was mostly stretching the subject matter, and got a bit boring. It seemed to me obvious, that Byers had serious mental issues, and that he was completely excited by having a camera around, so he would do pretty much whatever the filmmakers found reasonable to ask him, to keep the camera around. It felt a bit exploitative. I much prefer the first one.
The second one is definitely more exploitive, it plays like a wacky genre flick. I know some people like it for that reason, but yea, the first one is a better film by far.
Hmmm, you guys may be right about that second one…I watched them together so I really think of the story as one long piece. While all that is happening, the boys were still in jail…
But I suppose Byers was really the focus of number two.
I agree with some other comments. Street Fight would be a good addition, as would perhaps Winged Migration. Much as I love Goldworthy’s art, I wouldn’t include Rivers and Tides. I would put Fog of War at #1.
@Bob, I am a broken record on this point, but anyone who over-praises Shadow of the Moon, I suspect has not seen For All Mankind. For All Mankind elevates the subject to art, and on blu-ray my god is it beautiful.
Also, what the hell is this Street Fight? Just looked it up, never heard of it, but looks interesting.
It’s Goldworthy’s art that puts it on the list for me. I find it fascinating and there are some pretty gorgeous images throughout. Of course, that doesn’t make it a great doc, but I found the rest of it interesting as well (though not as compelling as the art itself).
I’ve seen both In The Shadow Of The Moon and For All Mankind. No need to pit them against each other – they are both incredible and approach things from different angles. Shadow adds more of a personal perspective with the interviews of all surviving astronauts (except Neil Armstrong) while Mankind uses a lot more NASA footage (haven’t seen it on Blu-Ray, but that certainly is one film that could pull me over to the format). If someone loves Shadow, I think they would love Mankind and vice versa.
I mention only Shadow in this context because we’re talking about this decade’s best docs. Mankind is from 1989.
Street Fight is one of those local election political docs that shows the campaigning tactics, tricks and dirty maneuvers of candidates and their teams. It’s actually somewhat one sided in that it follows the “good guy” (in a Newark NJ mayoral race) while the incumbent of 16-20 years pulls all kinds of nasty things (my understanding is that they wanted to follow both candidates, but the incumbent did not let them). You’ll be shaking your head for much of it.
Anytown USA is similar in that it too follows a mayoral race, but in its case there are three candidates – two of whom are legally blind with the third having questionable criminal ties. Both docs show the partisan games played as well as the many strategies used to lie to, uh I mean, convince the public of the other candidates shortcomings.
Shadow does add some extra stories of the astronauts, but to me it has none of the power of Mankind. It almost feels like a commentary track for Mankind, which is the main feature.
The director of Mankind used footage never seen before by the public, it is pristine footage and on blu-ray it looks surreal because you have images of the moon as crisp as anything you would see on Attenborough’s Planet Earth series.
Shadow: 4.5/5 stars.
http://moviepatron.com/blog2/index.php/reviews/comments/in_the_shadow_of_the_moon/
that’s a dodgy source, Movie Patron is known for being the Rex Reed of the blogosphere
I have to say, I think Shadow has all the power of Mankind. It just comes at you differently. To hear these astronauts speak – with clarity, intelligence, eloquence and passion – was invigorating and inspiring. Did I hate leaving the amazing footage to go back to a talking head? Yeah sometimes, but it wouldn’t have been the same without being able to see these guys individually. Especially Michael Collins – I love that guy! To hear the people who experienced firsthand one of mankind’s most amazing technological accomplishments is not only a fascinating document, but an essential one as well.
Mankind kept me glued, absolutely glued to its images. It was a brilliant idea to create an entire film of NASA’s stock footage. And it did it perfectly. So why redo it? Sington had a great idea to talk to all the remaining astronauts while they were still alive – something no one had really done yet. So I see the two as companion pieces. And I love ‘em both.
FROM THE DAILY SWARM:
http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/anvil-moves-one-step-closer-oscar-nomination/
The International Documentary Association on Thursday unveiled nominees for its widely-watched awards, putting its spotlight on non-fiction films that might also compete for Oscars early next year.
The key category of distinguished documentary achievement finds five nominees ranging from a film about four people competing in a television talent show in Afghanistan, “Afghan Star” to the story of a pair of faded rockers hoping for one last grasp at stardom, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil.”
The three other nominees are “Food, Inc.” about the U.S. food industry, “Diary of a Times Square Thief,” which tells of a search for the writer of a diary that was sold on Ebay, and “Mugabe and the White African,” the story of a white African farmer who defies the government of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.
Anvil, the little movie that could.
I would like to point out that I’ve been pinping this movie for over a year.
I too have not seen many of the movies on this Top 25 list -
(I am trying to amend this by work through a stack of DVDs.)
However one documentary that I seem to keep revisiting is
Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire (2005). (This is not to be confused with the 2009 movie dramatization.)
For those of you unfamiliar with Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire and his command of the small UN Peacekeeping force in Rwanda in late 1994, I highly recommend this documentary. It follows Gen. Dallaire on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide when he and his wife make a return visit to Rwanda.
In early 1994, when Gen. Dalliere initially arrived in Rwanda, he described it as “paradise on earth.” However, by April 1994 it had became hell when the genocide began and the international community and the UN itself refused to intervene in spite of his pleas to the UN Security Council. Gen. Dalliere refused to leave.
The documentary is not simply a retelling of the atrocities in that it also delves into Gen. Dalliers’s personal demons and his struggle to conquer depression and post-traumatic stress after the events.
This would be in my “Top 25″ however I have probably only seen about eight of those on the list!
Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s Murder on a Sunday Morning and the Staircase should both be on this list. Both astounding.
I finally am watching Wanted and Desired, and man, I don’t know what to think anymore. I mean it doesn’t change any of my opinions on Polanski specifically, but its so convoluted that it’s both wrong to throw out everything and as well to completely abide existing rulings, so much corruption, and then going along with it from both the proscecutors and attorneys, and then Polanski bails when it seems it isn’t going out the way they hoped… and yet it seems at the same time they bent over backwards for him a lot more than I’d figured, for a judge with a Hammer reputation he certainly did a number of things for Polanski that any non-celebrity would certainly never get.
It doesn’t help that one of the attorney’s has admitted to lying in the doc to help prop up the accusations against the judge.
The lack of 49 Up is a complete joke. Easily the best documentary series ever created and it really isn’t even close.
Matt, I agree about 49 Up, though I didn’t list it because of the “Best of Decade” title (since it really begins back in the 60s). Having said that, it probably should be there – each installment gets more and more interesting.
I think that’s interesting. The 7 Up series didn’t enter my mind because yeah, each one individually doesn’t really measure up to other titles on (or not on) this list. Maybe that’s not fair as the series as a whole is groundbreaking and fascinating. But the one released in this particular decade must stand alone – as Bob said, the nature of the title of the list kind of demands that. So therefore probably shouldn’t be there.
UP series is incredible, would definitely add 49 Up to the list.
Can’t wait to see 56 Up in a couple years.
I went and caught GOOD HAIR and it was pretty great. It takes a seemingly very trivial subject and examines it in great depth, about how it effects relationships, culture. The things it has to say about vanity, etc make it a good partner both in feel and style to something like Bigger Stronger Faster* – I wasn’t sure about what I’d think going in but highly recommend it. Interesting, funny, entertaining.
I agree that The Cove should have been on the list. It’s an amazing documentary that’s making an impact that few films do. I’m sure it’ll get an Oscar nomination
I just watched “Dear Zachary” and I’m a goddamn mess…
Amen