30. “Pina” (2011)
“Dance, dance, otherwise, we are lost.” So goes a quote from internationally revered German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, who has devoted her life and career to nothing less than the progression and evolution of modern dance as we know and define it. Bausch is a rebel, an innovator, and an outsider who remained in a class of her own up until her death in 2009. In this way, Bausch is the perfect subject for a Wim Wenders film. Wenders has displayed his affinity for misfits and eccentric groundbreakers in classics like “Alice in the Cities,” “Paris, TX,” and “Wings of Desire,” which would make him a kind of kindred spirit with the late dance legend. Except that “Pina,” an exceedingly lovely 3D dance documentary, isn’t a Wim Wenders film. Rather, it is “a film for Pina Bausch by Wim Wenders”: a gorgeously immersive ode to the power and poetry of bodies in motion. Bausch’s work was famously hard to categorize, as she was prone to blurring the lines between dance, theater, and conceptual art. In “Pina,” bodies are contorted into wild new shapes, a German café is turned upside down, and in the transcendent final piece, “Vollmond” (which translates to “full moon”), Bausch literally floods the stage (Bausch’s rendition of “The Rite of Spring” is certainly something to see). “Pina” is so much more than a collection of Bausch’s greatest accomplishments: it’s a tribute, an unconventional love letter, and a rapturous full-body immersion, crafted from one trailblazing artist to another (with a big shout out to Wenders’ poetic 2014 doc portrait “The Salt Of The Earth”). – NL
29. “At Berkeley” (2013)
Frederick Wiseman is one of the true masters of the form, and has remained hugely prolific into his 80s. With with four-hour epic “At Berkeley,” he’s made a late masterpiece, probably his best film in a few decades. Wiseman turns his all-encompassing, ever-observing lens to UC Berkeley, arguably the last great public university, and one that finds itself increasingly under threat from funding drops. The normally neutral Wiseman quietly makes this into one of his more dialectic works (while maintaining a certain objectivity at the same time), mounting an irrefutable argument for the benefits of higher education not just for the students, but for society as a whole. There’s a lot more on the film’s mind than just that—a four-hour runtime doesn’t just come from nowhere—with philosophy, student politics, literature, race and science all touched on in places, but it’s the emphasis on community that makes “At Berkeley” feel like a film not just about a university, but about society in general. Wiseman’s mosaic-like structuring has rarely been put to better use, and the result is one of the most rousing and curiously moving films—fiction or non-fiction—of the decade. – Oliver Lyttelton
28. “Virunga” (2014)
A scathing indictment of political and corporate venality; a powerful eco-portrait of an endangered habitat and the last mountain gorillas in the world that it shelters; a deep-dive examination of the social legacy of some of the most devastating (and underreported) conflicts of our time. “Virunga,” named for the national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which it takes place, is all of these, and yet despite the massive sprawl of its heartbreaking, blood-boiling story, it’s never anything less than human, focussing on the unheralded outright heroism of the few park rangers left who are all that stand between this species and probable extinction. While it’s difficult for us to imagine the kind of dedication that has led 140 park rangers to lay down their lives to protect these one hundred and forty remaining creatures, by showing the incredible familial bonds that the gorillas form amongst themselves and with their caretakers, director Orlando von Einseidel finds a way to communicate the stakes that are involved here and the value of their sacrifice. “Virunga” is as close to essential viewing as documentaries get for anyone who lives on this planet and gives even the slightest damn about their fellow man or their fellow animals.
27. “13th” (2016)
Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker who remains unafraid to tackle the so-called “big issues,” whether it’s the legacy of civil rights (“Selma”) or the racial injustices perpetrated at the hands of police (“When They See Us”). Her detractors have occasionally submitted the criticism that DuVernay is more interested in ideology than story, and that, as a result, her characters often act as mouthpieces for her own political beliefs. This is a fairly reductive assertion, but those who stand by it will want to check out “13th,” which is as undaunted and incendiary a film as DuVernay has ever made. There are no histrionics or instances of performative proselytizing in “13th,” which should be required viewing for every citizen currently living in America. The title “13th” refers to the thirteenth amendment of the American constitution, which abolished slavery and indentured servitude, except as punishment for a particularly severe crime. Think about that for a second – except as punishment for a crime. What DuVernay seems to be arguing is that the legacy of slavery is alive and well in America, living through racist legislation, Jim Crow, and the mass incarceration of people of color in the criminal justice system. To even use the word “justice” in this context feels somewhat perverse – DuVernay is angry as hell in “13th,” and she’s arguing that we should be angry too. Although it’s filled with infographics and statistics, “13th” never feels like doing homework – this is virtuous, understandably outraged nonfiction storytelling executed at a very high level, offering proof (as if any was needed) that DuVernay is one of America’s most important cinematic voices. – NL
26. “Bisbee ’17” (2018)
Unearthing the buried past is never an easy thing to do, but “Bisbee ’17” took on the unbelievable task of having a small Arizona town reenact a horrifying incident that happened long ago. Many in Bisbee are split about the grievous decision the townsfolk’s ancestors made to deport hundreds of immigrants and miners outside of Bisbee’s city limits. But walking in the tattered shoes of those who did the deporting and those who were unjustly rounded up and sent away from their community makes everyone involved at least silently rectify with the skeletons in the town’s closet. Keegan DeWitt’s heart-racing score supplants the horror of what’s going on on screen. If the film feels eerily relevant and believable, that’s the point. In imagining a past event through modern lens, the documentary shows just how we might be a bit too close for comfort against wrongs we might’ve thought were righted. The past repeats itself, after all, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. – Cory Woodroof
25. “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story” (2019)
Martin Scorsese’s latest and most experimental offering in the world of documentary/musical filmmaking is “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story,” which is beautifully sui-generis in both form and content. Masterfully blending fact and fantasy, the film depicts Bob Dylan’s 1976 tour of the same name: the one where the man born Robert Zimmerman journeyed across America, playing small, intimate venues with the likes of Joan Baez, David Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson, and Jewish-Brooklynite-turned-troubadour-hero Ramblin’ Jack Elliott in what can only be describe as a kind of psychedelic, traveling burlesque, or perhaps a vintage medicine show. There’s plenty of anecdotal hangout gold in Scorsese’s movie – Joni Mitchell jamming with Gordon Lightfoot, Dylan visiting Jack Kerouac’s grave with Allen Ginsberg, a delightful Patti Smith cameo – even when the filmmaker seems to be mischievously shuffling the decks of what did or didn’t happen in that magical summer in 1976. There’s also, unsurprisingly, a few jaw-dropping performances, including spectacularly rousing renditions of Dylan’s classic protest anthem “Hurricane” and the immortal “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Like much of Scorsese’s recent work, including “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Silence,” “Rolling Thunder Revue” can be a messy and exhausting affair. And yet there is so much life here – so much terrific music, so much unfettered joy, so much invention and innovation and promise – that the film’s excesses become inextricable from its joys. – NL
24. “Heart of a Dog” (2015)
The life and death of Laurie Anderson’s beloved pet terrier Lolabelle serves as the bittersweet starting point for “Heart of a Dog,” an expansive and endlessly applicable meditation on all things temporal and eternal. Dedicated to the spirit of Anderson’s late husband Lou Reed, this mesmerizing picture crosses the boundaries of time and perception to follow its director’s cosmic musings and memories. At times, the film recalls the sociopolitical commentary of Anderson’s music, observing with palpable unease a nation’s creeping post-9/11 paranoia. Other times, the physical world and all its baggage feel a thousand miles away, most notably in an enthralling passage that chronicles Lolabelle’s journey into the next life. Beyond the transfixing beauty of its visual textures, the film’s various segments are unified by an ongoing fixation on the nature of narrative: the way we formulate and remember the stories of our lives; the way our journey through this world can be reduced to cold data in an NSA facility; and how, in the words of philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Through this deconstruction of storytelling, “Heart of a Dog” offers a profound acknowledgment of its own limitations, but it still feels like a work that unfolds entirely on its own terms. – DP
23. “The Keepers” (2017)
When Film Twitter worked itself into a storm/teacup lather over the classification of “Twin Peaks: The Return” as cinema, it was eerily reminiscent of a similar kerfuffle last year when “OJ: Made in America” was put into the Best Documentary film category at the Oscars (and subsequently, quite rightly, won). But while the is-it-TV-or-is-it-a-film obsessives got thus sidetracked, for the second year in a row the best documentary of the year was a piece of long-form storytelling: Ryan White (who also made the excellent “The Case Against 8“) took an unsolved cold case and made from it one of the most riveting, energizing, enraging and inspiring works of the year. That said, “The Keepers” doesn’t quite fit the TV/Movie debate because it’s also possibly one of the least bingeable shows ever made — on several occasions I had to turn it off and go for a walk mid-episode as the revelations became just too much to process. Starting out as the story of the murder of a young nun in the 1960s, it soon develops into a many-tentacled expose of systemic child sex abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore. Episodes 2 and 3 especially, wherein the abuse is bluntly catalogued by the survivors, most now in their 60s, are so red-mist maddening that they can be difficult to bear. But as much as its portrait of abject evil fills you with anger, and as much as it eschews simple cathartic resolution, “The Keepers” most lasting effect is the absolute mountainous respect, admiration and gratitude we feel toward the women involved — especially the two students of the murdered Sister Cathy who started this crusade, and the victims who finally come forward. In a year when the biggest tectonic shift in the entertainment industry and in popular culture in general, was the tsunami of #MeToo, “The Keepers” shows the absolutely breathtaking strides that can be made by ordinary women fighting for each other, talking to each other and simply believing each other’s stories. This is an incredible piece of work. — JK
22. “Finding Vivian Maier” (2013)
In 2007, co-director John Maloof, who grew up in the world of garage sales, auctions and dumpster diving, bought up a storage locker from a random stranger that contained 100,000 negatives, along with slides, undeveloped film and a smaller number of prints. By digging through the work and obsessively piecing together her life, Maloof would build a picture of Vivian Maier, a nanny who happened to be one of the greatest undiscovered photographers of the 20th Century. Her work has been rightly compared to greats like Robert Frank, Lisette Model, and Diane Arbus. “Finding Vivian Maier” is a perfect storm of subject and author “meeting” through happenstance: Maloof not only brings Maier’s work to international attention, but his compulsive personality is such that he tracks down seemingly everyone she knew to interview. And so, “Rashomon“-style, he uncovers a mysterious, intensely private person who was many different things to different people: a nurturing caretaker; an elusive, disinterested nanny; a voyeur; an undercover photographer who surreptitiously documented the world around her; an odd duck; a hoarder; a fabulist who perhaps struggled with a mental illness no one understood. Featuring an affecting score by composer J. Ralph (also the composer on “Man On Wire”), the doc (co-directed with Charlie Siskel) moves with relentless energy, and like a documentary “Gone Girl,” sheds its skin repeatedly to reveal new, unpredictable and often disturbing layers. It’s a transfixing, emotional portrait of a complex human being that goes beyond the already incredible discovery of an unsung artist. – RP
21. “Amy” (2015)
It feels like something of a reductive cliché to trot out this particular maxim when referring to an artist who lived fast and died young, but Amy Winehouse truly was too good for this world. She lived a turbulent, unpredictable life, and you can hear it all in her music, which is as blistering and soulful as any of her neo-soul contemporaries. “Amy” is the definitive cinematic text on Winehouse’s life: it’s the story of her upbringing, her family life, her meteoric ascent, her struggles with substance abuse and toxic relationships, and also the unforgettable music she left us with before her death in July of 2011. Anyone who has had struggles with drug dependency or dysfunctional relationships with their own family may find “Amy” a potentially triggering experience, but director Asif Kapadia nobly resists the urge to indulge in exploitative audience manipulation. The film is certainly not an easy watch, and many viewers may come away with a certain distaste for those who enabled or mistreated Winehouse, particularly troubled rocker Pete Doherty and also Winehouse’s father Mitch, who has disputed the film’s version of events and publically distanced himself from its release. Like fellow ill-fated rock n’ roll legends Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, Winehouse died far too young at the age of 27, leaving her many fans to wonder what kind of incredible work she would have continued to do had she been afforded the chance to live a full and healthy life. We’ll never get Amy Winehouse back, but for now, “Amy” is the best tribute to her memory that we could have asked for. – NL
