One of the biggest cinematic trends of 2023 has been the way veteran filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan and many more delivered some of the most creative and commercially successful work of their careers. There was just something in the air this year as one major artist after another made big, unifying moves.
The same was true in the world of non-fiction film. Half of the films on this list were made by filmmakers who were already responsible for some of the best documentaries of the era: reliable old hands like Frederick Wiseman, Errol Morris, Matthew Heineman, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss… and Martin Scorsese. Perhaps there is a greater sense of urgency as the planet lurches from crisis to crisis. Our best film artists don’t have time to do anything too frivolous.
Some venerable documentary filmmakers narrowly missed out on this list Hoop dreams Director Steve James, whose film A compassionate spy (streaming on Hulu, about the long aftermath of the Manhattan Project) would make a good companion piece to Nolan’s work Oppenheimer and Morris’ The pigeon tunnel. See also: Wham! (Streaming on Netflix), the excellent documentary about 80s pop heroes George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley from Chris Smith, the great director behind it American film, FireAnd Tiger King.
As in most years, many of the best documentaries in 2023 revolved around visual artists and musicians. But even in the films that don’t specifically talk about art, they’re still about how people try to order and understand their world – and themselves.
10. The pigeon tunnel
Where to see: Apple TV Plus
The writer David Cornwell, known to the public by his pseudonym John le Carré, died in 2020. But in the last years of his life he agreed to an extensive interview with Errol Morris, the renowned documentary filmmaker known for his ability to retain His subjects talked until they revealed hidden truths. Since Cornwell worked for the British secret services MI5 and MI6 and wrote best-selling spy novels, Morris had a lot to do. But The pigeon tunnel
9th American Symphony
Where to see: Netflix
Director Matthew Heineman is known for powerful political documentaries such as Cartel country And Decliningbut he switches easily into a more sentimental mode with American Symphony, a touching, inspiring film about a year in the life of musician Jon Batiste. Heineman and his crew were there as Batiste experienced both the career high of winning a handful of Grammys (including Album of the Year) and the personal low of watching his wife Author and journalist Suleika Jaouad, enduring leukemia. This is a story about creative people who transform the whole stuff of life – their past, their joys, their heartbreaks – into art that breathes and bleeds.
8. Personality Crisis: Just one night
Where to see: Paramount Plus with Showtime
Flower Moon Killer Understandably, the film caught the attention of many Martin Scorsese fans this year, but for those craving the “New York Stories” side of the director: Personality crisis should meet this need. The film was co-directed and edited with David Tedeschi – Scorsese’s creative partner on most of his recent documentaries David Johansen Cabaret performance as an anchor for a relaxed, discursive look at the wild adventures of the legendary New York Dolls frontman. In interviews, on stage and in archival footage, Johansen describes in witty, colorful and sometimes surprisingly emotional terms how the flowering of underground art in the 1960s led to proto-punk in the 70s and modern queer culture.
7. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
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Photo: Ants Tammik/Alexandra Film
Where to see: Currently in select cinemas
Deep in a wintry Estonian forest, a group of women gather in and around a homemade sweat lodge, where they alternate long sessions in oppressive steam with vigorous exercise in the frosty outdoors, all completely naked. Director Anna Hints focuses the camera on these ladies as they bathe and scrub in the glittering, misty sunlight and as they talk about growing older, dealing with changing family dynamics, and navigating a culture that often reduces them to just their bodies . Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is a beautiful, delicate exercise in intimacy that involves approaching people who are so physically and emotionally naked that they are awake to every feeling. (YouTube won’t embed the trailer here because it’s age-restricted, but it’s there visible on site.)
6. Aurora’s Sunrise
Where to see: Free streaming via PBS.org until January 21, 2024
A remarkable new addition to the small subgenre of animated documentaries. Aurora’s sunrise
5. The disappearance of Shere Hite
Where to see: Currently in select cinemas
The title by Nicole Newnham The disappearance of Shere Hite has the ring of a true crime, but there is no dark secret here. The subject of the documentary, the late American sex researcher and best-selling author Shere Hite, simply disappeared from public view after moving to Germany in the 1990s. Still, the wealth of footage of Hite in this film—she shares her controversial insights about female and male sexuality on TV talk shows in the 1970s and 1980s—becomes increasingly poignant. Hite was a prominent public figure who forced people to rethink their preconceptions about sex. This stirring film shows how the outraged reaction to her books drove her – but not her ideas – into exile.
4. Judy Flower Forever
Where to see: Prime Video
When directors Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok began making this moving documentary about beloved young adult author Judy Blume, they probably had no idea about all the old stories about it outraged parents who ban Blume’s novels would become more relevant than ever in 2023. Judy flower forever is not an overtly political film; It’s more of a gentle, sweet biography of a reserved American hero. But watching may remind older people how encouraging it was for a child to read such books Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret And baconand feeling like an adult is finally telling the truth about growing up. As this film makes clear, this is an experience that no child should be deprived of.
3. The mission
Where to see: Hulu/NatGeo
A distinctive feature in the documentaries by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (who previously appeared on “ Boy state) is their empathy for decent people whose good intentions sometimes lead them to adopt questionable ideologies and make terrible mistakes. In The mission, McBaine and Moss tell the story of Christian missionary John Allen Chau, who became a cautionary tale (and the target of more than a few cruel internet memes) in 2018 after he was killed by the residents of a remote island. The film places Chau’s willingness to break international law in the context of missionaries throughout history, examining how religious fervor can be both personally satisfying and socially disastrous.
2. Near Vermeer
Where to see: AmazonVudu and other digital retailers
It might not sound like there’s much to this documentary, which, in 78 brisk minutes, documents the efforts to create the most comprehensive Vermeer exhibition to date at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. But director Suzanne Raes finds many intriguing wrinkles here as she watches the curators grapple with the challenges of loaning out artworks and as they confront the possibility that some paintings attributed to Vermeer might actually be by someone else . As the title suggests, long distances Near Vermeer consist of art experts who look at canvases, discuss techniques and ponder the concept of authorship. What begins as a kind of curatorial approach develops into a thoughtful meditation on what makes art art.
1. Gourmet menus: Les Troisgros
Where to see: Currently in select cinemas
93-year-old Frederick Wiseman delivers a late-career masterpiece with this four-hour film about a restaurant in France that ranks among the best in the world. Working in his usual, quietly observational style, Wiseman immerses the audience in long scenes with no contextual narration or on-screen titles. He asks us to watch patiently and carefully as a family of great chefs and their staff search for ingredients, discuss recipes, prepare items, arrange plates, and guide their guests through a unique dining experience. Viewers are left to draw their own conclusions about the meaning of it all, although a chef’s offhand comment about the constant refinement of the dishes offers one interpretation. Even an old master like Wiseman must continue to tinker and find meaning in the hundred tiny details that go into an act of creation.
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