A broken family, a family remembered and a family’s generation-spanning struggles are at the heart of this month’s picks.
Category: Documentary Films and Programs
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2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival Preview
A range of films, many of them animated, some hilarious, some serious, bubble up at this year’s festival in New York, where kids can vote for awards.
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‘As We Speak’: Rap Music on Trial’ Review: Weaponizing Lyrics in Court
Lyrics that contain references to violence have been used as legal evidence, a practice this documentary by J.M. Harper condemns as unfair and prejudicial.
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‘Dahomey’ Wins Top Prize at Berlin International Film Festival
The documentary, directed by Mati Diop, was awarded the Golden Bear.
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Rob Reiner on ‘the Greatest Single Performance’ in U.S. Cinema
The filmmaker says it’s one of Marlon Brando’s: “To this day I don’t know that there’s as good a performance as that.”
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At the Berlin Film Festival, Reconsidering the Power of Doubt
At a festival that is having an identity crisis, some of the best movies suggest that lacking certainty isn’t always a bad thing.
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Documentaries That Examine Russia’s War in Ukraine
After the death of Russian dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, these four movies examine the war in unexpected ways.
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‘Veselka’ Review: Serving Up Support for Ukraine
Subtitled “The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World,” this documentary offers a warm tribute to an East Village landmark.
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‘Kiss the Future’ Review: Seeing U2 in Post-Siege Sarajevo
Nenad Cicin-Sain’s smoothly calibrated documentary is part timeline of the concert’s development and part testament to the city’s defiance during the Bosnian War.
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‘They Shot the Piano Player’ Review: Taking on a Bossa Nova Mystery
The pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior, on tour in Argentina during the right-wing dictatorship of the 1970s, vanished. This animated feature picks up the trail.
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‘Becoming King’ Review: An Actor Marches On
This documentary about Ava DuVernay’s 2014 Martin Luther King drama “Selma” plays more like a David Oyelowo tribute than a proper look at the difficulties of making the film.
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‘Lumumba: Death of a Prophet’: Revisiting a Mythic Figure
The 1990 documentary about Patrice Lumumba by Raoul Peck (“I Am Not Your Negro”), showing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, looks and feels newly minted.