15 Amazing Documentaries from Last Year Worth Their Monumental Subjects
Magnificent Women Directed Films You Can Stream Now
Image Credit: National Geographic Documentary Films
Years ago, audiences feasted on a constant flow of high-quality investigative documentaries in faraway cable land.
HBO once dominated the small screen with superior, award-winning films, including Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls (1997) and the gripping exposé Leaving Neverland (2019),
The former juggernaut previously set the tone for historical events, athletes, and entertainers receiving the Hollywood treatment.
Netflix, however, bastardized this prestigious sub-genre with the proliferation of its low-budget knock-offs.
The global streamer exploited the demand for true-crime podcasts with corner-cutting projects that are as razor-thin as the people and events they copy.
Their formula of salacious stories + morally bankrupt topics + contrived drama = high viewership numbers does little to enrich the subjects they cover or the viewers who tune in.
While the breakout hit Tiger King (2020) set Twitter abuzz, two years later, Carol Baskin and Joe Exotic are distant memories.
Thankfully, the pendulum swung back to the glory days, and docs returned to their vanguard storytelling form.
In 2022, we witnessed the re-emergence of well-intentioned filmmakers exploring worthy subjects in introspective ways across multiple platforms, including Netflix.
Apple TV+ gifted us with Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues, and Sidney.
Prime Video made us fall back in love with Lucy and Desi two years after releasing the Oscar-nominated Time, one of the best documentaries of 2020.
Yes, these docs fill a void. Others, however, offer even deeper introspection and cover culturally relevant topics regarding the state of the world today.
Documentary fans delight! Here are eleven excellent docs worthy of their monumental subjects that you may have overlooked last year.
Image Credit: MTV Documentary Films
1. Ascension (Parmount+)
Director: Jessica Kingdon
This film is a penetrating inspection into pursuing the Chinese Dream in a tech-driven, labor-intensive vision of the country.
Kingdon’s surreal film observes an aspiring middle class that strives for wealth. Their relentless chase occurs within an unjust economic system that values profitable consumerism over workers’ rights.
It’s a perceptive unmasking of modern manufacturing that reveals the cost of exploiting devoted employees who sacrifice everything for a better future.
Ascension focuses on a fascinating modern-day China as it transitions from the world’s largest factory to the richest consumer base.
2. Master of Light (HBO)
Director: Rosa Ruth Boesten
This is the remarkable story of George Anthony Morton, who spent ten years in federal prison, where he learned how to paint. Upon his release, he was accepted into the prestigious Florence Academy of Art in New York, where he studied classical painting.
In Boesten’s layered, subtle film, Morton, a self-taught Rembrandt enthusiast, revisits old wounds, reconciles his multi-generational trauma, and confronts the lingering effects of mass incarceration.
He fights to avoid being consumed by a tsunami of despair while challenging the status quo regarding who and what we value in contemporary art.
Master of Light is a stirring story about the power of redemption and a solid rebuttal to whitewashing within the renowned art world.
3. In Her Hands (Netflix)
Directors: Tamana Ayazi, Marcel Mettelsiefen
Zarifa Ghafari, Afghanistan’s youngest female mayor, relentlessly works to advance women’s rights. We follow her in the months leading up to the Taliban takeover in 2021 as she outmaneuvers constant danger, uncertainty, and upheaval.
Ayazi and Mettelsiefen spotlight the graphic horrors women face in this conflict-stricken country. Ghafari perseveres, even with a target on her back and her world under attack. (Trigger warning: extreme violence)
It’s a female-directed film about a young female mayor in a war zone Muslim country who doesn’t view women as equals. This overlooked gem is a radical act of resistance that demands our attention and respect.
In Her Hands is an emotional roller coaster ride and a testament to how one woman’s resolve gives hope to young people across the globe.
4. Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (Netflix)
Directors: Emily Kunstler, Sarah Kunstler
Jeffrey Robinson, ACLU deputy legal director, narrates the rise of racism in the U.S. Through personal anecdotes, slide shows, archival film, and interviews, he details every major event from slavery to the present.
In the Kunstler sisters' powerful film, Robinson walks us through an academic historical timeline of systemic discrimination.
He highlights concealed portions of our collective history to link how deep-rooted institutional constraints prevent most people of color from realizing the American Dream.
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America is an invaluable lesson and a convincing argument for reconciling our tragic past and achieving real progress.
Image Credit: Netflix
5. Descendant (Netflix)
Director: Margaret Brown
A landmark discovery unveils the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to arrive in the U.S. after slavery ended. Descendants of the vessel’s 110 enslaved African captives still live in Africatown, a small town near Mobile, Alabama.
Former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama partnered with Amir Questlove Thompson to produce Descendent under their Higher Ground banner.
This influential journey begs the question, “what does post-slavery justice look like?” And, apart from reparations, what will make the survivors whole? The answer eludes the residents just as it does the rest of society.
African American history is American history in this incredible Sundance award-winning film.
Descendant validates that everyone’s story matters and reinforces how long-forgotten relics possess the power to heal and change.
6. Fire of Love (Disney+)
Director: Sara Dosa
Katia and Maurice Krafft, married French volcanologists, perish in the catastrophic 1991 Mt. Unzen eruption that left 43 people dead. This touching film captures these daring scientists' lives, careers, and love through breathtaking archival footage.
Dosa’s National Geographic nature documentary features some of the most stunning imagery you’ll see on screen all year.
The Krafft’s fiery passion leads to a celebrated legacy of adoration and awe set against a backdrop of the world’s most violent volcanoes. It’s a humanistic story about kindred spirits who dedicated their lives to unlocking earth’s biggest mysteries.
Fire of Love is a loving tribute to how the sacrifices of a few brave souls can help save millions of lives.
7. Aftershock (Hulu)
Directors: Tonya Lewis Lee, Paula Eiselt
Shamony Gibson and Amber Rose Isaac die because of childbirth complications. Their partners and families sound a rallying cry around the U.S. maternity mortality epidemic that affects Black women at a disproportionate rate.
“Black women were three to four times more likely than white women to die from a pregnancy-related cause, while American Indian and Alaska Native women were 2.5 times more likely to suffer a pregnancy-related death.” — American Medical Association
Unfortunately, hundreds of women die annually from childbirth complications, and most of those deaths are preventable. Lee and Eiselt prove that when the medical system fails one mother, it fails them all.
Aftershock is a gripping account of the agony Black expecting mothers endure in an inequitable healthcare system that doesn’t recognize their humanity.
8. The Janes (HBO Max)
Directors: Emma Pildes, Tia Lessin
In the pre-Roe v. Wade era of the sixties and early seventies, a group of Chicago-based female activists known as The Janes build an underground network to provide safe, low-cost abortions to women with unwanted pregnancies.
It’s a timely, relevant film about an unassuming clandestine group of women who saw themselves as truth-seekers of justice. Their purpose: protecting women’s reproductive rights—the same fight we face today.
Pildes and Lessin’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-nominated film offers a visceral and alarming preview of our current post-Roe v. Wade future.
The Janes is an extraordinary tale about ordinary women who performed heroic acts of courage in the face of unimaginable odds.
9. Being Bebe (Peacock)
Director: Emily Branham
This insightful portrait charts the rise of Cameroon-American drag performer BeBe Zahara Benet, a television performer and musician who won the first season of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
It’s a candid glimpse into the monumental struggles and valiant victories of the LGBTQ+ community here and abroad.
Branham delivers a searing examination of the dichotomy between how Benet sees themself and how the world values them. They also shed light on the life-threatening dangers queer people face in countries with restrictive homophobic laws.
Being Bebe is a life-affirming story about self-worth through a global queer lens without objectifying or exploiting its primary subject.
Image Credit: Super LTD
10. Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Hulu)
Director: Bianca Stigter
In 1938, David Kurtz captured a little over three minutes of rare footage while visiting Nasielsk, Poland. Three months later, Nazi forces invaded, eventually executing all but one hundred of the town’s Jewish residents.
Glenn Kurtz found his grandfather’s short film in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, in 2009. He donated the recording to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which restored and digitized it.
Academy award nominee Helena Bonham Carter narrates, and Oscar winner Steve McQueen produces Stigter’s chilling, somber Holocaust film.
Stigter and Glenn Kurtz pose a critical question. A picture offers us a visual glimpse into a frozen moment, but what meaning or knowledge can we glean without the proper context?
This priceless historical artifact shows us that history is often forgotten and memories fade, but film heightens our vital need to remember.
Three Minutes a Lengthening is a tribute to those lost and a commemoration to the survivors whose faces remain as the last traces of a town’s existence.
11. Riottsville, U.S.A. (Hulu)
Director: Sierra Pettengill
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, to deal with nationwide urban riots.
The committee concluded a separate and unequal society exists and proposed sweeping recommendations to close the disparity gap. Johnson ignored the primary proposals and instead followed through with only one minor suggestion—increasing police funding.
This crucial decision prompted the U.S. military to build Riotsvilles, fictional towns on two bases. They were simulated training grounds that replicated what white authorities deemed a “model police state.”
Pettengill’s poignant film chronicles the militarization of policing in America.
She connects the past to the present by showing how ingrained white fear translates to oppressive acts. Through shocking archival footage, audiences witness how the government planted the seeds of police brutality and excessive force decades ago.
Riottsville, USA, is an indictment of the government’s callous response to the historic rebellions of the sixties, revealing a devastating debt that society still struggles with today.
12. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Peacock)
Directors: Yoruba Richen, Johanna Hamilton
A nuanced exploration into Rosa Parks, the civil-rights icon instrumental in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, the most successful of its kind.
Richen and Hamilton base their illuminating film on Jeanne Theoharis’ bestselling biography of the same name. They expertly recount Parks’ lifelong commitment to activism, organizing, and revolutionary politics.
Parks was a radical front-line foot soldier who advanced civil rights and promoted Black liberation. Despite being overshadowed by her male counterparts, she played an instrumental role in seeking justice for the Scottsboro Nine, Recy Taylor, and Emmett Till.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks demystifies the myths surrounding Parks and corrects the narrative around Black women’s contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.
13. Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (HBO Max)
Director: Julia Marchesi
Acclaimed actors read from Douglass’ five infamous speeches, each representing a pivotal moment in American history and Douglass’ life.
David W. Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, inspired Marchesi’s enlightening film, bringing the words of this noteworthy anti-slavery activist to life on screen.
Audiences gain keen insight into what motivated Douglass. We’re privy to the bravado and eloquence of this gifted orator who leveraged the power of words in his fight for equality.
We learn that Douglass’ wisdom regarding racial justice is as relevant today as it was in the 19th century.
Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches honors the celebrated legacy of this great American hero by paying tribute to his awe-inspiring achievements.
14. Mr. Bachmann and His Class (Mubi)
Director: Maria Speth
In Stadtallendorf, a German city with a complicated view of inclusion, a sixth-grade schoolteacher offers love, guidance, and hope to his diverse immigrant pupils.
This intimate doc earns its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score with a three-hour and thirty-seven-minute runtime, chronicling an entire school year.
Speth highlights Bachman’s unconventional methods of nurturing his students. He encourages them to embrace their differences, recognizing them as superpowers, thus gifting them the ability to excel and save the world.
Mr. Bachman’s Class is a soul-stirring culture clash with an incisive glimpse into how we can transform our differences into our greatest strengths.
15. Sirens (VOD)
Director: Rita Baghdadi
Guitarists Lilas Mayassi and Shery Bechara, vocalist Maya Khairallah, bassist Alma Doumani, and drummer Tatyana Boughaba comprise Slave to Sirens, the Middle East’s first all-female thrash metal band in Beirut, Lebanon.
These badass musicians navigate friendship, identity, success, and love in their pursuit to record an album, sign with a label, and reach stardom.
Baghdadi’s electrifying documentary challenges Western audiences to rethink what it means to be a Muslim woman in the Middle East today.
She humanizes the rebellious group as they battle against restrictive traditional Muslim values. They transcend their traumatic circumstances to create genre-bending, innovative music even as a potential war lingers in the background.
Sirens is an enigmatic kaleidoscope of inclusivity, feminism, and resistance, and it’s a must-watch for music-loving cinephiles.
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