Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids is a 2004 Indian-American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. The widely acclaimed film, written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005.
Susanne Bier is a Danish filmmaker. She is best known for her feature films Brothers (2004), After the Wedding (2006), In a Better World (2010), and Bird Box (2018), and the TV miniseries The Night Manager (2016) on AMC, The Undoing (2020) on HBO, and The First Lady (2022) on Showtime. Bier is the first female director to win a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a European Film Award, collectively.
American Dream is a 1990 British-American cinéma vérité documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple and co-directed by Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, and Lawrence Silk.
The Woman Chaser is a 1999 film directed by Robinson Devor and starring Patrick Warburton, Ron Morgan, Emily Newman, Paul Malevich, and Marilyn Rising. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford.
Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Petit's 2002 book, To Reach the Clouds, released in paperback with the title Man on Wire. The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest of Petit, whose performance lasted for almost an hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments and present-day interviews with the participants, including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside man.
Berkeley in the Sixties is a 1990 documentary film by Mark Kitchell.
Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).
The 2003 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16 to January 26, 2003. American Splendor, a biopic of comic-book author Harvey Pekar, won the grand-jury prize. Steve Zahn and Maggie Gyllenhaal presented the awards in a ceremony televised live on the Sundance Channel.
The Sessions is a 2012 American drama film written and directed by Ben Lewin. It is based on the 1990 article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate" by Mark O'Brien, a poet paralyzed from the neck down due to polio, who hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. John Hawkes and Helen Hunt star as O'Brien and sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene, respectively.
A Place at the Table is a 2012 film produced by Lori Silverbush and Kristi Jacobson, with appearances by Jeff Bridges, Raj Patel, and chef Tom Colicchio. The film, concerning hunger in the United States, was released theatrically in the United States on March 1, 2013.
Jen Chaiken is an American indie film producer. Chaiken won an Emmy award for Best Documentary for the film My Flesh and Blood.
Icarus is a 2017 American documentary film by Bryan Fogel. It chronicles Fogel's exploration of the option of doping to win an amateur cycling race and happening upon a major international doping scandal when he asks for the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017, and was awarded the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award. Netflix acquired the distribution rights and released Icarus globally on August 4, 2017. At the 90th Academy Awards, the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? is a 2018 American documentary film about the life and guiding philosophy of Fred Rogers, the host and creator of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, directed by Morgan Neville. The trailer for the film debuted on what would have been Rogers' 90th birthday, March 20, 2018.
Feels Good Man is a 2020 American documentary film about the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Marking the directorial debut of Arthur Jones, the film stars artist Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe. The film follows Furie as he struggles to reclaim control of Pepe from members of the alt-right who have co-opted the image for their own purposes. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker. It was also nominated in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance.
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is a 2020 American documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht. Barack and Michelle Obama served as executive producers under their Higher Ground Productions banner.
The Earth Is Blue as an Orange is a 2020 documentary film, directed and written by Iryna Tsilyk, who won the Directing Award in the "World Cinema Documentary” category for the film at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
The Mole Agent is a 2020 internationally co-produced documentary film directed by Maite Alberdi. It was screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. At the 93rd Academy Awards, It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and was selected as the Chilean entry for Best International Feature Film, making the shortlist of fifteen films.
Acasă, My Home is a 2020 German/Romanian/Finnish documentary film directed by Radu Ciorniciuc. The film is about nine children and their parents who lived in harmony with nature in the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta for 20 years until they are chased out and forced to adapt to life in the big city. It was filmed in the course of 4 years, with production starting in 2016. As the movie progresses, it follows the evolution of the family’s life throughout the years of living in the capital. “The 11 family members lived in isolation from society: without documents, without education or access to health care. Now, all nine children in the Enache family have documents, go to school, are seen regularly by doctors, and adults have stable jobs.”
In the Same Breath is a 2021 documentary film directed and produced by Nanfu Wang. It follows how the Chinese and American governments reacted to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
