This Week In Documentary
Theatrical & Streaming Releases - New & Recommended - December 13-19, 2024
As we continue through the middle of December, more awards and end-of-year lists have arrived. If you haven’t seen it, check out my spotlight on the best documentaries of 2024. The top 10 are behind a wall for paid subscribers only, but I’ll let free subscribers have a peek by the holidays. That’s when I’ll also add those 24 titles and more ranked afterward to the new Nonfics Letterboxd account.
This week will see more documentaries being recognized, whether it’s more guilds announcing their nominees, more critics sharing their favorites, or the Academy revealing its shortlist for the feature and shorts categories (it’s possible a doc or two could be in the shortlists for the international and animated categories, too). Look for those in the next newsletter — or earlier on our socials as they happen.
Without further ado, here are this week’s highlights, listings, and coming attractions, including our Pick of the Week. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive more in-depth highlights and reviews in the future.
Nonfics Pick Of The Week: Hearts And Minds (2024)
As mentioned last May, Hearts and Minds turned 50 this year, making the film a perfect choice for the Cinema Eye Honors’ 2025 Legacy Award, announced on December 10. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Peter Davis’s 1974 classic offers a critical look at the Vietnam War, featuring interviews with military leaders, veterans, and activists. I plan to write about its significance and legacy next month around the time of the Cinema Eye Honors ceremony (held on January 9), so for now I’ll quote CEH Founding Director AJ Schnack on the choice of the film:
“Peter Davis's film debunked the lies surrounding the then-still ongoing Vietnam War. Hearts and Minds stands as one of the greatest films about war in the history of film and reminds us that attacks on unarmed civilians are neither new nor acceptable.”
Hearts and Minds is currently streaming on Max and The Criterion Channel.
Other Documentary Highlights
Awards & Honorees
In addition to naming its latest Legacy Award recipient, the Cinema Eye Honors also recently narrowed down its nominees for the Nonfiction Short Film category: A Move (streaming via New York Times Op-Docs); Contractions (New York Times Op-Docs); A Swim Lesson (online via PBS and POV); Incident (The New Yorker); Makayla’s Voice (Netflix); and I Am Ready, Warden (Paramount+). Also, you can now vote for this year’s Audience Choice Prize, consisting of 10 previously announced features, on the CEH website here.
Guild announcements last week included the American Cinema Editors’ nominees for the 75th Annual ACE Eddie Awards. Their picks for Best Edited Documentary Feature are Beatles ‘64 (Disney+), Jim Henson Idea Man (Disney+), Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Max), Will & Harper (Netflix), and fittingly, Her Name Was Moviola. For Best Edited Documentary Series, they nominated episodes of Chimp Crazy (Max), The Jinx - Part Two (Max), and Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (Max), and both parts of Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces (Apple TV+). Episodes of three documentary titles were recognized in the Best Edited Non-Scripted Series: Conan O’Brian Must Go (Max); Couples Therapy (Paramount+ with Showtime); and Welcome to Wrexham (Hulu).
The Producers Guild of America named some of its nominees for the 37th PGA Awards, specifically the contenders for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures. The six films are Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (Netflix), Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Max), We Will Dance Again (Paramount+), Porcelain War, Mediha, and Gaucho Gaucho.
Nominees for the 2024 EDA Awards, presented by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ), include these contenders for their Best Documentary honor: Dahomey (MUBI); Daughters (Netflix); Will & Harper (Netflix); The Last of the Sea Women (Apple TV+), Sugarcane (Hulu and Disney+); and Black Box Diaries. Dahomey was also recognized as one of the nominees for the EDA Award for Best International Film.
While the Critics Choice Association held its Critics Choice Documentary Awards last month, one nonfiction film slipped into the organization’s flagship show, the Critics Choice Awards. Netflix’s Will & Harper, which tied at the CCDAs for Best Documentary, has received a nomination for Best Song for the original tune “Harper and Will Go West,” performed by Kristen Wiig.
Blink (2024)
I highlighted Blink, a documentary about a family full of kids with a rare eye disease, in a previous newsletter, so here’s part of what I wrote then:
“Blink is sure to make you aware of how much we take our vision and the visuals around us for granted. There is also a relatable parenting component to the story, regardless of your level of wealth and social class. Still, I wasn’t moved as much as I’d anticipated because I quickly disliked the family and their financial freedom to take on their situation with a film premise. I also didn’t always see the relevance of every moment to that premise. Its points are ultimately resonant, but I don’t think the journey to get there is always on track or that interesting.”
Blink airs on National Geographic on Monday, December 16, and begins streaming on Hulu and Disney+ on Tuesday, December 17.
Chasing Chasing Amy (2023)
I admit this one took me by surprise. Colleagues tried to get me to watch Chasing Chasing Amy after its Tribeca Film Festival premiere, and a first-person feature debut from a director examining their fandom for a problematic Kevin Smith movie never appealed to me. I even skipped the documentary’s theatrical release. Now that I’ve watched it, I’d make it my Pick of the Week if not for the need to put Hearts and Minds up there. Chasing Chasing Amy is a sweet, smart, and substantial work combining filmmaker Sav Rodgers’s subjective approach and a broader discourse to understand the good and bad of the legacy of Smith’s rom-com Chasing Amy.
That indie sensation of the late ‘90s was as pioneering yet wrongheaded as anything from the decade, particularly regarding LGBTQ+ stories and identities. But it helped Rodgers get through his adolescence and even saved his life. The fact that so many other queer people either criticized the movie at the time or came to hate its cis-white-male perspective on the community made Rodgers want to tell his story, defend Chasing Amy, and ultimately land on a more complex appreciation. He has help from a handful of talking heads, including critics and other filmmakers such as Andrew Ahn and Kevin Wilmott. Also, Kevin Smith himself, Chasing Chasing Amy star/muse Joey Lauren Adams, and fellow inspiration Guinevere Turner.
Adams provides the greatest interview, which gets into a love/hate relationship with the movie that is powerfully personal to her experience and has nothing to do with its LGBTQ+ legacy. She even loops in the issue of Harvey Weinstein’s name being on the movie and what was unknowingly going on with him at the time of its making. Turner is also a fantastic part of the documentary. So is Rodgers’s wife. There’s much more to Chasing Chasing Amy than expected, and it’s incredible how well it all fits together for a look at how many different sides there are to the voice of a movie and how many sides there are to how a movie is viewed. It might just be the best piece of film criticism of the year.
Chasing Chasing Amy will be released on VOD on Tuesday, December 17.
Dahomey (2024)
Included on my list of the best documentaries of 2024, Mati Dio’s Dahomey is one of the most creative documentaries of the year. I’ve also already highlighted it before, so here’s what I said then:
“The film covers the return of 26 items to what was once the Kingdom of Dahomey, now Benin, that had been stolen by the colonizing French and held in a Paris museum for over a century. In addition to showing the transport of these artworks and other treasures to a new museum in Benin for their proper exhibition, Dahomey features a haunting voiceover assigned to the sculptures, adding a touch of dramatic fiction. Most interesting is the coverage of students debating what it now means to have these returned artifacts and what these works mean as pieces of and from their history, culture, and current geopolitical discourse.”
Dahomey begins streaming on MUBI on Friday, December 13.
Elton John: Never Too Late (2024)
There are many ways to make a biographical documentary about a living person. Even if they are alive, I prefer one consistent narrative, but the most common idea is to intercut the chronicle of past events with a newly shot present-day profile. Earlier this year, Morgan Neville released Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces where the past and present were isolated into separate installments. I don’t think it worked because they weren’t equally as interesting.
However, I don’t always like the blending approach either, and that is the case for R.J. Cutler and David Furnish’s Elton John: Never Too Late. Every time the film pauses the biographical narrative for the new material, the pacing is slowed down. It’s my understanding that Cutler wanted to just do another archival documentary with a recently discovered Rolling Stone interview with Elton John being the throughline. Furnish, who happens to be the subject’s husband, wanted to also film John as he prepared for his final tour and farewell concert.
There might have been a more focused film in there with just the stories of John’s two significant Dodgers Stadium shows being the back and forth. Or a film about John’s initial coming out coupled with his current family life. Or simply a profile leading up to his last show and retirement. I think as it is, the filmmakers didn’t want to cut certain events or scenes to tighten up what it’s about. If you’re a huge Elton John fan, this film will be worth watching, but anyone else is going to find it too basic and — especially when it briefly brings unnecessary animation into the mix — too much.
Elton John: Never Too Late begins streaming on Disney+ on Friday, December 13.
Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (2023)
This film was the first Pick of the Week for the newsletter version of Nonfics, published at the start of this year. Now, it’s one of the last highlights of the year because its subject just passed away. The poet and activist Nikki Giovanni died on December 9 of complications from lung cancer, and we recommend watching Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project as a way of remembering her life and work — and/or as an introduction to her. Here’s what I wrote in January for its release:
“Whether you’re familiar with Nikki Giovanni or not, this documentary will warm your soul. On the one hand, it’s the typical biographical profile following its subject in their elder years with spatterings of backstory as they narrate their life. There’s the usual archival interview material to see what the person was like in conversation decades ago — the centerpiece for this one is a 1971 discussion between Giovanni and James Baldwin on Soul! — and historical clips for context.
“The best thing about Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project is how it presents Giovanni’s poetry. Some of it is read on screen at events by Giovanni, but other select notable works are recited in voiceover by Taraji P. Henson (who is also an executive producer on the film) accompanied by montages of aptly poetic imagery. The documentary serves as an introduction to the woman and her work, or, for those already in the know, it’s a celebratory examination of those two things, as it is relevant to her and our perspectives today.”
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Story is streaming on Max.
Julia's Stepping Stones (2024)
Like Elton John: Never Too Late, here’s another documentary that isn’t likely to appeal outside a certain fanbase, Julia’s Stepping Stones should at least be of interest to anyone reading this newsletter. The half-hour-long short film is about one of the most revered documentarians of the last 60 years: Julia Reichert. She is also credited as a director of the film, alongside her husband and longtime collaborator Steven Bognar, with whom she won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar in 2020 for American Factory. Reichert died of cancer in 2022, so it’s an elegiac sort of autobiography, made with the awareness of her terminal condition. It’s sad but essential.
Julia’s Stepping Stones begins streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, December 18.
Piece By Piece (2024)
Another documentary I’ve highlighted in the past, here’s part of what I previously wrote about Morgan Neville’s Piece by Piece, a biographical film about Pharrell Williams animated in the style of Lego:
“As a documentary not just about his life and career but the ways he perceives the world and music — in colors and with joy — Piece by Piece is imaginative and entertaining. It’s neat to see famous music videos rendered in Lego bricks and minifigs. It’s mildly amusing to see Snoop Dogg turn into a Lego dog just because it can be done. Like much of the pop music Williams produces (including the title track that’s been in my head ever since I watched the film), this documentary is commercial fluff, but damn is it delightful in its simple, upbeat, and ephemeral satisfaction.”
Piece by Piece arrives on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, December 17.
Separated (2024)
From my previously published review of Separated, a documentary that probably should have been viewed by many people two months ago, though it likely wouldn’t have had any impact:
“A new documentary from Errol Morris is always worthy of being showcased, even if Separated is not among his very best. The film does a great job of communicating the terrible decision of the Trump Administration to allow immigrant children to be taken from their parents when these families cross the border illegally. It’s kind of overstated, in fact, with some points made more than once. Separated could probably have been a short or medium-length documentary if it were tighter and removed an unnecessary dramatized illustration of the process spread throughout the film.”
Separated will be available to rent or own on VOD on Tuesday, December 17.
Documentary Release Calendar 12/13/24 - 12/19/24
Friday, December 13, 2024
Cavalcade of San Francisco (1940) - A short documentary installment of James A. FitzPatrick’s TravelTalks travelogue franchise that explores San Francisco. (TCM)
Dahomey (2024) - A feature documentary by Mati Diop about the return of plundered artworks from the Kingdom of Dahomey. Read our review of Dahomey. (MUBI)
Elton John: Never Too Late (2024) - A feature documentary directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish about the titular music icon and his final concert. Read our review of Elton John: Never Too Late in the highlights above. (Disney+)
Indigo (2023) - A documentary in which three actresses reenact the sexual assault experiences of women during the Salvadoran civil war. (Ovid)
Inside the Enchanted Forests Episodes 3 & 4: “Waterworlds” & “Mountains” - The latest two episodes of a new nature docuseries about the inhabitants of Earth’s forests. These installments look at amphibious and high-altitude ecosystems, respectively. (National Geographic)
Resynator (2024) - A documentary by Alison Tavel about her inventor father, whom she never met, and his synth prototype. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival. (Digital/VOD)
Theatre of Thought (2022) - A documentary by Werner Herzog about the human brain. (In Theaters)
Unveiled: Joyce Tenneson and the Heroine's Journey (2023) - A medium-length documentary about the titular photographer. (PBS Passport and PBS on YouTube)
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #6 (1932) - A short documentary hosted by Robert L. Ripley presenting shocking phenomena including a wooden flower garden and merry-go-round lunch counter. (TCM)
Inside the Enchanted Forests Episodes 3 & 4: “Waterworlds” & “Mountains” - The latest two episodes of this new nature docuseries about the inhabitants of Earth’s forests. (Hulu and Disney+)
Sunday, December 15, 2024
Judy Garland Sings “Silent Night” (1937) - A short film starring Judy Garland as she sings the titular Christmas carol. (TCM)
A Plan to Kill Episode 8: “Buried Evidence” - The latest episode of this true-crime docuseries about meticulously planned out murders concerns the disappearance of a mother in Ohio. (Oxygen)
We Do It Because- (1942) - A short documentary about the origins of common customs, including shaking hands and kissing. (TCM)
Monday, December 16, 2024
Blink (2024) - A documentary from the makers of Navalny about a family traveling around the world so their children can accumulate visual memories before going blind. Read our review of Blink. (National Geographic)
MGM Parade Show #22 (1955) - This installment of the Hollywood-focused docuseries showcases the MGM films Maytime and Forever Darling. (TCM)
Wilding (2023) - A documentary about a healed landscape. (DVD and Blu-ray)
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Aaron Rodgers: Enigma (2024) - A docuseries about the titular Jets quarterback. (Netflix)
Blink (2024) - A documentary from the makers of Navalny about a family traveling around the world so their children can accumulate visual memories before going blind. Read our review of Blink. (Hulu and Disney+)
Chasing Chasing Amy (2024) - A feature documentary about the legacy and impact of Kevin Smith’s film Chasing Amy. Read our review of Chasing Chasing Amy in the highlights above. (VOD)
Eden. (2024) - A documentary about a family-run winery and its struggles with succession. (DVD and Blu-ray)
Hard Knocks: In Season With the AFC North Episode 3 - The latest installment of the Hard Knocks franchise follows the titular NFL division, including the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers. (HBO/Max)
Life Below Zero Season 22, Episode 11: “It’s Never Easy” - The latest episode of this docuseries following secluded life in Alaska. (National Geographic)
Mannheim Steamroller: Christmas Live (1997) - A medium-length concert film starring the titular music group. (Prime Video)
Modernism, Inc.: The Eliot Noyes Design Story (2023) - A feature documentary on the titular mid-century designer and architect. (Ovid)
Piece by Piece (2024) - A feature documentary about Pharrell Williams — made with Lego bricks. Read our review of Piece by Piece. (DVD and Blu-ray)
Raphael: A Portrait (2024) - A documentary about the titular Renaissance portrait. (DVD)
Separated (2024) - A feature documentary by Errol Morris (The Fog of War) about U.S. immigration policies that break up families. Read our review of Separated. (VOD)
So This Is Christmas (2023) - A feature documentary about a town in Ireland with an unfortunate relationship with Christmas. (DVD and Blu-ray)
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey (1984) - A feature documentary by George Stevens Jr. about the life and work of his father, the famous Hollywood director. (TCM)
Julia's Stepping Stones (2024) - A short documentary about the late Oscar-winning documentarian Julia Reichert. Read our highlight of Julia’s Stepping Stones above. (Netflix)
The Secret Lives of Animals Season 1 - A nature docuseries that looks at little-known behaviors of wild animals. (Apple TV+)
The Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot (2024) - A true-crime docuseries about one mother’s notorious 1991 hit on a rival cheerleader now told from the daughter’s perspective. (Investigation Discovery)
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Lost Treasures of the Bible Season 1, Episode 2: “Nineveh - City of Sin” - The first episode of this Biblical history docuseries looks at recent discoveries about Nineveh. (National Geographic)
Mysterious Islands Season 1, Episode 9: “Spy Island” - The latest episode of this docuseries about strange islands. (National Geographic)
Sneak Peak At What’s Coming Soon
12/27 - 2073 - A dystopian hybrid nonfiction film by Asif Kapadia (Senna) set in the titular year. (In Theaters)
1/3 - Lady Like - A feature documentary following drag queen Lady Camden as she competes on RuPaul’s Drag Race. (VOD)
1/10 - Every Little Thing - A feature documentary about a woman who cares for injured hummingbirds. Watch the film’s new trailer below. (In Theaters)
1/24 - Eno - A feature documentary directed by Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) about the music artist Brian Eno. Presented in a 24-hour live stream with multiple unique versions of the film edited with AI. (via Hustwit’s substack, Oh You Pretty Things)
1/24 - Eternal You - A feature documentary about AI avatars of lost loved ones created for those grieving their deaths. Read our review of Eternal You. (Digital/VOD)
2/7 - Becoming Led Zeppelin - A feature documentary following the origins of the titular rock band. (IMAX Theaters)