Craig Mathieson’s short reviews of terrific documentaries, formerly available to stream on Stan and Netflix. Check each link to see where these fascinating factual features are now available to watch!
Amy (2015)
From the opening scene of teenage insouciance, Asif Kapadia’s grimly gripping archive-based documentary charts how a once-in-a-generation voice in London musician—Amy Winehouse—was betrayed by self-destructive passions and the music industry.
The Cleaners (2018)
Developing nations have long been used as a dumping ground for industrial waste, and as German co-directors Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block discover a similar policy applies online, with digital giants outsourcing their content regulation to staff in the Philippines. The result is workplace trauma and slippery standards of free expression.
David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)
Whether captured in his studio working on his modern art practice or serving as a genial memoirist recounting stories from his youth, this low-key documentary opens up the early life of a once in a lifetime filmmaker whose initial forays were into painting.
The Dawn Wall (2017)
Anyone with a fear of heights must avoid this fingers-gripping-the-ledge study of free climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, who in 2015 scaled both Yosemite’s terrifying El Capitan formation and their own considerable demons.
Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
Narrated by another Californian lost boy in Sean Penn, participant turned director Stacy Peralta recalls the cultural shift that created modern skateboarding in 1970s Los Angeles, when a bunch of misfits took advantage of swimming pools emptied by drought to create vertical wonder.
The Hunting Ground (2014)
The documentary has often served as a means of indictment, and the revelation of wrongdoing has rarely been as searing as in this overview of rape on America’s college campuses. Driven by a seething energy, the film reveals not only numerous sexual assaults, but institutions that too often offered nothing but a cover-up.
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
African-American novelist, essayist, and social critic James Baldwin was one of the most important voices of the 20th century, delivering withering assessments that have lost not a speck of relevance since his death in 1987. With Samuel L. Jackson voicing his words, Baldwin’s life becomes a telling canvas.
The Last Waltz (1978)
A goodbye that goes down as one of the great concert movies. The final gig in 1976 by rock group The Band, who had gotten their start backing Bob Dylan on his epochal early electric tours, brought out a raft of special guests and director Martin Scorsese. The end of the road ebullience hasn’t dimmed in the decades since.
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. (2018)
The title references the three identities of the British pop musician Mathangi Arulpragasam, none of which fit into music industry conventions. Directed by a friend and stocked with her own footage, this is a densely constructed portrait of a platinum-selling pop star who went from revolutionary struggle to MTV.
McQueen (2018)
Watch on StanThe late British fashion designer Alexander McQueen made clothes to “pull these terrors out of my soul and put them on the catwalk.” This incisive documentary is a fitting reflection of his iconoclastic work and the industry that elevated and eventually destroyed him. Tightly framed interviews and archival history are rigorously intertwined.
Mountain (2017)
“What is this strange force that draws us upwards,” asks narrator Willem Dafoe at the start of this evocative Australian documentary about our obsession with the world’s peaks. Director Jennifer Peedom supplies the answer with startling imagery, social commentary and impeccable sound design. It’s a symphony on screen.
Stories We Tell (2013)
In this inventive documentary the Canadian actor turned filmmaker Sarah Polley looks back to the tangled relationships of her parents and the circumstances that led to her birth. It’s an enthralling, layered examination of family, love and the inexplicable circumstances that loom over lives—with a fair measure of formal risk.
Super Size Me (2004)
Self-deprecating with a touch of subversion, American documentarian Morgan Spurlock hit on the personal experience stunt as narrative with his gambit of only eating McDonald’s junk food for a 30 day period. His deteriorating body reflects the psychology and influence of the corporate giant.
