Daniel Fienberg

Cornwell died in 2020 and it’s a treasure to have this last opportunity to glimpse into the mind of a master raconteur, to hear his erudite explanations for his thematic fascinations and to watch him tiptoe around which personal tales he’s comfortable rehashing and which are better left in forms previously written.

This documentary presents a persuasive argument for the aspirations of both MAAFA and IMAN without feeling like a commercial for either. It’s the approach, the compassion and the thoughtful mentorship that All These Sons advocates for. It’s hard to watch without feeling deeply and immediately invested.

It’s a trippy, meandering journey, but the moments of amusement and insight are ample.

Funny, sad and uncomfortable in shifting proportions, the film is at once an urgent public service announcement and a documentary memento mori — not always pleasant to watch, but far more pleasant to watch than the subject matter would suggest.

Guggenheim’s particular approach here leaves lots of room for the next documentarian who wants to celebrate Fox’s life, but with its tight focus and distinctive style, it delivers an essence of Fox’s energy and generation-spanning appeal.

It’s a reminder that you don’t need sensationalism to deliver something that’s honest and emotionally resonant.

A documentary that starts out odd and ends up oddly sweet.

I’m much more comfortable with Roadrunner as a portrait of an evolving, complicated, tragic TV personality, and as one of the best behind-the-scenes glimpses of a TV show (or shows) I’ve ever seen, than I am with it as an attempt to make sense of a man who, for whatever reason, no longer wanted to continue living.

The film is very invested in proving the validity of the social relationships created in virtual space. To me, that’s the easy part. Video games can absolutely be nourishing and substantive and healthy. And I’m not even sure Ibelin confirms that in a smart way.

The documentary isn’t as thorough or enlightening on border issues as something like Netflix’s Immigration Nation, but the young heroes make At the Ready a good vehicle through which many viewers will be able to process their own preconceptions and opinions.

Girls State, like its predecessor, benefits from strong casting and ample access to the pint-sized political proceedings.

The Australian actor taps into something miraculous here -- LaPaglia's ability to convey grief and hope works with Weaver's sensitive reactions to make this a two-actor master class.

There’s so much potency in Heineman’s snapshot of sadness, disappointment and resignation, that I frequently and ultimately found myself wishing it could be the full tapestry that a six-part miniseries might have allowed.

It’s a hoot with a bit of heart, and if you can accept that the main character’s actions ultimately hurt nobody — with the possible exception of a few Pez executives — its fizzy pleasures and compact running time are easy to enjoy.

It's definitely Brugger's most satisfyingly unsatisfying effort. A conspiracy-fueled murder mystery with some hilarious meta-commentary on the genre, Cold Case Hammarskjold is either a stunning piece of investigative reporting that builds to a revelatory climax or a wily trickster's dark critique of the audience's desperate need for answers.

A celebration of art, resilience and the mutability of the human spirit, Matthew Heineman‘s American Symphony never feels like it’s quite the documentary that its director originally intended it to be. Nor does it tell the story that featured star Jon Batiste presumably hoped for it to chronicle. But it’s all the more joyful and emotionally resonant for those deviations.

It isn’t polished and it isn’t focused, and at times there’s a rawness to its emotional exposure that left me feeling a little uncomfortable. But in those respects, it’s a wholly reasonable expression of the sort of grief that, even 14 years later, defies understanding.

Nothing in The Forever Prisoner feels all that revelatory, but the thing that’s essential in the doc is the reminder that for all of the story’s familiarity, it reflects a situation that has been barely ameliorated over more than a decade.

A neat and efficient globe-trotting journey, full of insightful trivia and fun details, driven by impeccably selected main characters, who either go through interesting personal arcs in just 87 minutes or, like Raden, unleash a nonstop torrent of cleverness.

On an intellectual and reporting level, Separated is sturdy and persuasive. Morris is angry, and if you’re watching this movie, chances are good that after 90ish minutes, you’ll be angry, too. What Separated needs, though, is a little touch of the old Errol Morris.

In Nothing Is Lost, Stiller uses the public image and private artifacts of the parents he and the world knew quite well, pondering the gap between public and private, along with his own difficulties following in his parents’ footsteps as an artist, a spouse and a father.

There’s a great deal of beauty in Porcelain War and there’s a potent artistry behind it, but I’ve never watched a documentary with so many running visual metaphors and so little faith that the audience will be able to grasp them. It’s a bit stunning and a bit insulting all at once.

Not surprisingly, it's a love letter, far more polished and smoothed-out than the genre-defying trio might have deserved in their anarchic heyday, but as warm and reflective as you might expect from the middle-aged men they are now.

It's an engaging, amusing and occasionally jaw-dropping portrait of a world that could hardly be more foreign to most documentary fans. But it's just those fans who are likely to wish it peeled back a few more layers.

It’s a good story and Bahrani has made a good film, albeit one with a tremendous closing twist that I felt pointed to what could instead have been a great film.

The Taliban wanted a 90-minute commercial and Nash’at wanted 90 minutes of truth, and what they both got was a portrait of the complicated cost of access — more vital in its universal applicability to documentary filmmaking than its immediacy as a documentary.

A documentary dork’s delight, Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall’s Subject is one of those films about which my biggest lament is that it could have been five times as long — with the caveat that while I would be down for a 10-part series on documentary ethics, this 96-minute intro will be a thoroughly effective conversation starter.

Especially in the first hour, it’s a richly satisfying tribute to an unimpeachable cinematic legend who, one could easily argue, has become even more beloved than the iconic directors he collaborated with or the movie stars whose legends his themes and cues helped burnish.