149 Best Releases From the Genre Documentary
Conan O'Brien Must Go
NetworkMax,
SimilarScully, The Wimbledon Poisoner, Troubles,
It's been four long years since Conan O'Brien has graced our television screens, ever since his late-night TBS show, Conan, ended in 2021. Since then, he's kept busy, of course, with podcasts like Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend and guest spots on shows like Murderville. But the late-night legend couldn't possibly keep away from the limelight for long; even at the ripe age of sixty, the guy is still the same spry, lanky chaos demon he always was, a tall column of Irish awkwardness more than willing to play the fool for a laugh. That's most acutely felt in his remote travel segments, like Conan Without Borders, where he travels everywhere from Finland to Ireland to suss out the sights, tastes, and people of Earth. Think of him like Anthony Bourdain, with absolutely zero shame or culinary knowledge.
For those who missed those segments, rest easy, as Max has gifted us with four episodes of full-length travelogue mayhem in the form of Conan O'Brien Must Go. Each installment, funny enough, spins off from an episode of his podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan: He speaks to an interesting new guy or gal from a foreign country, then flies out to meet them and take in the surrounding environs. Of course, he does this the only way he knows how: By making a complete spectacle of himself.
Conan O'Brien Must Go (Max)
In the show's opening minutes, a deceptively Werner Herzog-ian voice purrs to us that to appreciate the grandeur of our mother Earth, you must sometimes defile it. Cut to Conan: "Behold the defiler." That's the tack Must Go takes in its exploration of countries as exotic and beautiful as Norway, Argentina, Thailand, and Ireland: Let Conan loose in these nations, sometimes (but not always) with a game companion or fan along the way, and witness the devastation. One week, he'll make a Norwegian hip-hop song with an enthusiastic fan; the next, he'll try to help another fan get his podcast from four listeners to a whopping five -- all through the power of aggressive ad reads for yerba mate. Continue Reading →
Lion Country: Night and Day
Season 4 of True Detective wasn't perfect, but it treated a hard subject with empathy & realism.
(CW: suicide. Spoilers ahead.)
The finale of True Detective: Night Country aired this past Sunday, and it was met with the usual measured response. Those who liked it thought it was pretty good, those who didn’t were convinced it was the worst thing to ever happen to eyes. Nic Pizzolatto, the original creator of the series, was particularly petty and uncharitable, taking to Instagram to repost some of the harshest criticisms of the season, which, unsurprisingly, he was not involved in. Continue Reading →
Stamped from the Beginning
SimilarI've Always Liked You (2016),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022),
Barbie (2023) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Inception (2010),
Oppenheimer (2023) Parasite (2019), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Suicide Squad (2021),
The Netflix documentary uses historical evidence and modern scholarship to demonstrate racism's continued role in US society.
At the start of the new documentary Stamped from the Beginning, filmmaker Roger Ross Williams asks his various interview subjects, “What is wrong with Black people?” Considering that all the interviewees in question are also Black, it is unsurprising that the question’s seeming hostility initially throws many. However, once they recognize the context of that query—Williams is asking for a historical context as to what Blacks have done to deserve centuries of institutionalized racism and violence—they are more than willing and able to discuss the subject at length throughout this strong and often provocative film.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name inspired the Williams’ film, a karmic debt the director pays back by including the doctor among a number of knowledgeable Black female scholars and activists. Together, they discuss how the twin stains of racism and white supremacy permeate American society in ways that continue to fester today. They explain how the concept of deeming people as greater or lesser by the color of their skin was born out of slavery. The aim was to simultaneously remove enslaved people’s distinguishing characteristics to make them seem like one undifferentiated mass and drive a wedge between them and white “indentured servants” to prevent the groups from joining forces against their common enemy, the wealthy landowner. Continue Reading →
Songbirds
Similar2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), 2046 (2004), Blade Runner (1982), Brazil (1985), Desert Hearts (1985), Die Hard (1988), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016), Mars Attacks! (1996), Metropolis (1927), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Random Harvest (1942), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Strange Days (1995), The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Twelve Monkeys (1995),
Watch afterAquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Napoleon (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), Thanksgiving (2023), The Marvels (2023), The Nun II (2023), Wonka (2023),
StudioLionsgate,
Despite a challenging premise and an overlong runtime, the Hunger Games prequel makes the most of the hand it’s been dealt.
The character of Coriolanus Snow is an odd choice for a Hunger Games hero. In the original books and films, as played by screen giant Donald Sutherland, Snow was a cold-hearted, cruel dictator clearly meant to echo real world fascist leaders. Here, in the prequel story The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (say that five times fast), Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) is just a sensitive, emotional teen dreamboat whose main goal is to provide for his family in the wake of the violent revolution that tore apart Panem, the country formerly known as the United States of America.
It’s difficult to understand why author Suzanne Collins, who wrote the novel Songbirds is based on, made the decision to try to humanize a violent authoritarian when a core theme of the original Hunger Games books and movies was lashing back at systemic oppression. Nonetheless, director Francis Lawrence (Catching Fire, I Am Legend) and his enthusiastic cast of talented performers make the best of the rather thematically confused story arc they’ve been given, turning in one of the most exciting, emotionally arresting entries in the franchise. Continue Reading →
Silver Dollar Road
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Black Widow (2021), Evil Dead Rise (2023), Inception (2010), Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Parasite (2019), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Batman (2022),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Based on Lizzie Presser’s 2019 ProPublica/New Yorker article, Raoul Peck’s Silver Dollar Road starts by barreling headfirst. Its first 15 minutes are a crash course of talking heads, introducing family members with broad, expository precision. The film shows them but doesn’t fully introduce them. Rather, it relies on graphics to fashion a sense of context. What the subjects say to the camera may provide an identity for the story at hand, but Peck’s approach renders such words largely textual. The narrative may be propulsive. The film, however, tends to feel stagnant. Continue Reading →
Retratos Fantasmas
Watch afterBlue Beetle (2023),
Filmmakers and general film enthusiasts worldwide share a deep distress over the slow erosion of theatrical projection and film preservation. Most recently, Martin Scorsese spoke extensively about the state of cinema in a high-profile interview, sparking a round of online arguments. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of the Film Heritage Foundation has been working to preserve much of India’s old film reels, previously left rotting away in government closets for decades. Restored film prints of previously thought to be lost or incomplete films like Mohammed Reza Aslani’s Chess Game of the Wind and Abel Gance’s La Roue (which plays this year at NYFF) have proven that, with dedicated effort, people can salvage film history. Continue Reading →
Case History of a Sales Meeting
No 21st-century filmmaker has a more accurate and forceful finger on the pulse of global political thought trends than Radu Jude. His movies brim with a completely black-pilled attitude towards his own country’s political and social state amid the populace and an affinity for using social media obsession as a cipher in his cinema. In his latest, he comes out firing in an ironic and didactic rampage unseen since Jean-Luc Godard’s La chinoise (1967). Both film and digital collide in the characteristically wry and unambiguously titled Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World. Continue Reading →
The Exorcist: Believer
SimilarCarrie (1976), Constantine (2005), Die Hard (1988), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), I Stand Alone (1998), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Silent Hill (2006), The Devil's Rejects (2005), The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), The Shining (1980),
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Evil Dead Rise (2023), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), Saw X (2023), The Equalizer 3 (2023), The Nun II (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
If you like loud noise jump scares, you’re going to love The Exorcist: Believer. Continue Reading →
Welcome to Wrexham
NetworkFX,
Studio3 Arts Entertainment, FX Productions,
Welcome to Wrexham Season 2 opens with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney telling the audience, directly to camera, that they’ve spoken to the King of England. It’s a good gag, with both demonstrating their talents for comedic timing. It is also the kind of thing that makes avowed anti-Royalists and fans of Season 1—of which this critic is both—a bit nervous. Continue Reading →
The Inventor
SimilarBen-Hur (1959), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Metropolis (1927), Princess Mononoke (1997), Schindler's List (1993), Titanic (1997), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005),
Watch afterDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022),
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
The Inventor is an odd little film. It is a mess throughout, and there are many instances where I got the sense that writer/co-director Jim Capbianco did not know what kind of story he was trying to tell or who his audience was. And yet it possesses an undeniable charm, one that sticks with you. Continue Reading →
Copa 71
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022),
Barbie (2023) Parasite (2019), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
Our first dispatch from the festival highlights an important milestone in women's sports history, and two tales of queer resilience.
Ahh, the Toronto International Film Festival -- while we've got boots on the ground up in the chilly climes of Canada, those of us who can't swing the travel expenses are here, tackling the lesser-known releases that don't get the attention they deserve among the splashy awards campaigns and A-list stars. (Of course, there being an active strike makes that far easier, with these smaller works in even greater need of appraisal.)
Opening the Docs program at TIFF for opening night was Copa 71, an intriguing if straight-across-the-pitch documentary about the first Women's World Cup -- but not the official one endorsed by FIFA in 1991, as professional women's footballers are shocked to learn in the opening minutes. The real one, it turns out, was in 1971, organized in Mexico City at their enormous Azteca Stadium. More than 100,000 attendees filled the stands, as teams from France, Mexico, the Netherlands, and more competed for the first-ever women's football tournament -- one of the biggest crowds such a tourney has ever seen. And it's been lost to history, until now. Continue Reading →
SORCERERS: Une conversation entre William Friedkin et Nicolas Winding Refn
Upon his recent passing, we remember the feisty & controversial director & his wildly diverse filmography.
The funny thing about William Friedkin is that if you ask six people what their favorite Friedkin film is, you’ll get six different answers. One (me) will invariably say The Exorcist. Another will say The French Connection and gladly get into fisticuffs over how its iconic car chase beats Bullitt's. A third will say it’s To Live and Die in L.A. (which has its own iconic car chase), and someone else will say Jade, but they’re just messing with you.
Point being, Friedkin stubbornly refused to be pigeonholed into either a specific theme or style. Though he dipped into the well of cop thrillers more than once, the gritty sleaze of Cruising doesn’t resemble the slick MTV stylishness of To Live and Die in L.A., which in turn doesn’t resemble the campy nonsense of Jade. Whether directing his own screenplays or the work of others, Friedkin never seemed to have any real rhyme or reason in what he chose as a project, seemingly going with whatever mood just happened to strike him at a given time. Continue Reading →
An Appreciation by Ben Wheatley
We celebrate the British filmmaker taking his biggest swipe yet at the mainstream this month with Meg 2: The Trench by declaring him our Filmmaker of the Month.
Every month, The Spool chooses to highlight a filmmaker whose works have made a distinct mark on the cinematic landscape. With his love of mixing horror, dark comedy, and crime Ben Wheatley has been flirting with but never breaking through to the mainstream. However, this month that may all change. With that in mind, we're excited to dive deep into his eclectic filmography.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →
The Deepest Breath
How long can you hold your breath? A minute? Maybe? Kids time these sorts of things when swimming, but it's not something most of us think about in our waking lives. But I know that when I swim and misjudge the time it takes to surface, panic sets in almost instinctively. The body wants to live. It takes a particular personality to ignore the body's demands in apparent life-or-death circumstances. Stephen Keenan and Alessia Zecchini are two such people. Zecchini's first words in The Deepest Breath, Laura McCann's documentary about Keenan and Zecchini's goal to become legendary deep sea free divers, are about how she's never associated diving with death. I'll grant a writer is more likely to associate everything with death. But I cannot understand plunging into the darkest depths of the earth while holding your breath for minutes at a time and passing out before you can return without thinking of your own demise. Some of us, I suppose, see a Way where the rest see a void. Continue Reading →
The YouTube Effect
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022),
Barbie (2023) Inception (2010), The Whale (2022),
Early in Alex Winter’s finely made and firmly inessential documentary The YouTube Effect, the edit takes the form of a firehose montage of the greatest hits of the nearly two decade old title video platform. The most striking edit places the viral phenomenon (and eventual NFT) Charlie Bit My Finger next to scattered footage of The Arab Spring, the global social media-mobilized revolution(s) from the 2010s. Despite a nearly boundless distance between these two subjects, The YouTube Effect pinballs back and forth between these two arenas of cultural influence, blurring the lines with a linearity that feels unsuited to a timeline in constant flux. Continue Reading →
Lakota Nation vs. United States
The difference between indigeneity and settler colonialism grows from a relationship with the land. The colonialist sees themselves as its manager, pledged to “improving” and extracting as many resources as possible from their private property to further their capital. As Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli poignantly articulate in their new documentary, Indigenous North Americans are of, from, and with the land. They are its caretakers and beneficiaries. Lakota Nation vs. The United States makes a passionate case that the US Government should return the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Lakota and their future generations. Continue Reading →
Tango en París: recuerdos de Astor Piazzolla
Alice Winocour’s Revoir Paris begins in a café. Mia (Virginie Efira), avoiding the rain, sits and drinks a glass of wine by herself, surrounded by other patrons. A birthday party for a middle-aged man, a few tourists, a couple having an argument, all of the classic situations are present. After spilling ink onto her hand, she heads to the bathroom, cleans up, grabs her belongings, and gets up to leave, when the two people in front of her are shot and killed. Continue Reading →
Stan Lee
Watch afterElemental (2023), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Flash (2023),
Thanks to decades of cameos in movies and promotional stunts intertwining him with the very word “Marvel,” audiences across the planet have a deep connection to comic book legend Stan Lee. Though he passed away in the final weeks of 2018, Lee’s legacy lives on. Marvel Studios even utilized existing audio of his voice in a special 2021 video. It helped them announce the return of its features to movie theaters. Artistic individuals like this tend to endure, no matter what happens to their physical bodies. Continue Reading →
Rather
Frank Marshall's documentary on the legendary newsman too often goes softer than the anchorman ever would.
This review is part of our coverage of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.
Since its inception, the Tribeca Film Festival has always served almost as much of a celebration of celebrity as it is a celebration of cinema. That is especially true in regards to the documentary programming, which has always favored films about the life and work of famous people. That’s especially the case when there’s a chance a high-profile red-carpet premiere might lure such names into showing up. For instance, among the titles in this year’s lineup is Rather, Frank Marshall’s look at the legendary and controversial newsman Dan Rather. Continue Reading →
1976
With a travel book in her hands and a cigarette in her fingers, Carmen (Aline Küppenheim) deliberates what shade of paint she’d like for her walls. She wants it like a sunset but not too pink. Maybe a bit blue. After all, it’s not like she goes outside too often. Even her commutes, now to her Las Cruces beach house, are isolated. It’s 1976 in Chile, three years into dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule. While paint drips onto Carmen’s heels, defectors and accused communists fall in the streets. But hey, she’s got a home to renovate. Continue Reading →
草間彌生~わたし大好き~
The man behind the podcast An Invitation discusses how his appreciation of the director fueled his intensive dive into her films.
Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation is a slow-burn horror about the dinner party from hell, one we should all be grateful not to attend, but podcaster Jim Penola thought otherwise. Instead, he invites listeners to sit down and stay awhile with An Invitation to the Invitation, a 15-part series that breaks down the 2015 film scene by scene. It’s full of thoughtful audio essays and radio-play style re-enactments set to an original score from his brother and composer John Penola.
Taking hundreds of hours to write and produce, it’s unlike almost any other film podcast streaming today, pushing the genre into refreshing new waters. The second season of An Invitation launched in December 2022 and explores Kusama’s most recent work, 2018’s Destroyer. Continue Reading →