There is nothing quite like a good documentary, one with the power to both entertain and enlighten. The best stay with you for years, as potent as any fiction feature film, shaping—in a very direct way—how we perceive the world around us. There have already been a number of excellent releases this year; here we pick what we think are the best documentaries of 2023. On the list: work that offers an up-close look at the ongoing war in Ukraine (20 Days in Mariupol) and a more nuanced view of the orphanages in that country (A House Made of Splinters); examines a long-term relationship between an editor and a writer (Turn Every Page); and celebrates an artist’s lifelong investigation (Anselm). Many of these films had festival debuts or small-scale releases, but thanks to the ever-expanding streaming ecosystem, they should, eventually, be widely available.
20 Days in Mariupol
This jittery, tense documentary of the siege of the city of Mariupol by advancing Russian forces in February and March of 2022 plunges you into the shock and horror of the early days of the Ukrainian war. As directed by Mstyslav Chernov, a Ukrainian video journalist with the AP who was one of a small group of international press who remained in the city to document the Russian attack, 20 Days in Mariupol makes you feel the cold of an urban battlefield in winter, the shock of sudden air strikes (including the notorious targeting of a maternity ward), and the determination of Chernov and his colleagues to find a way to document it all. Their efforts to find a precious satellite connection—often right out in the open, in harm’s way—and get the news out to the rest of the world is a depiction of modern heroism.—Taylor Antrim
Premieres on PBS’s Frontline on November 21, 2023
Anselm
Flag this one as a very likely contender for the best-of lists. The film doesn’t come out until later this year, but I’m eagerly awaiting it. There are many creators whose work we casually deem world building, but the German artist Anselm Kiefer undoubtedly deserves the descriptor. Through Wim Wenders’s immersive examination of the artist’s world, particularly the 40-acre site in the South of France where he stages some of his most monumental work, we’re given a panoramic view of Kiefer’s career, including the canvases of devastation and the so-called headless-women ball dresses, much of it emerging from his desire to reckon with the dark past of his country.—Chloe Schama
In select theaters December 8
Carpet Cowboys
Executive produced by documentarian John Wilson, Carpet Cowboys weaves among a cast of idiosyncratic personalities in Dalton, Georgia, the so-called carpet capital of the world, where 80% of American-made carpets and 40% of the world’s carpets are produced. The debut feature from Emily MacKenzie and Noah Collier finds its protagonist in Roderick James, a Scotland-born rug designer and self-styled modern cowboy, raconteur, and jack of all trades who ends up peddling his unique brand of Americana in, of all places, the Philippines. What begins as an offbeat look at a changing industry unfurls into a poignant story about the allure and elusiveness of the American dream and the perennial adaptability and exportability of American identity.—Lisa Wong Macabasco
In select theaters; check back for streaming options.
The Deepest Breath
As a documentary subject, free diving has the death-defying lunacy of big-wave surfing and the cosmopolitan appeal of Formula 1. And in the Italian free-diving champion Alessia Zecchini, The Deepest Breath has a vibrant heroine who is beautiful and tragically monomaniacal. This gripping movie tells her story and follows her blossoming love affair with the Irish safety diver Stephen Keenan, who runs a free-dive training facility in Dahab, Egypt, where Zecchini goes to train. Their affair gives poignant momentum to The Deepest Breath, which is fascinated with athletic obsession. Tragedy, when it comes, is all but inevitable.—TA
Watch on Netflix.
Donyale Luna: Supermodel
Donyale Luna was the first Black model to appear on the cover of Vogue—any Vogue—when she posed for the March 1966 issue of British Vogue. In the 1960s and 1970s she was undoubtedly an It girl, appearing in everything that was culturally impactful at the time: She was at Andy Warhol’s Factory and appeared in a number of his movies; she was in London for the youthquake, showcasing Mary Quant’s minidresses with her legs for days; she made cameos in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, William Klein’s Qui Êtes-Vou Polly Magoo, and even Fellini’s Satyricon. And yet for all her accomplishments, she remains largely unknown by most of the population. This documentary aims to change that. With participation from her friends and family members and drawing from Luna’s own diaries, HBO’s Donyale Luna: Supermodel tells the story of how Peggy Ann Freeman, born in Detroit in 1945, became Donyale Luna, one of fashion’s brightest stars.—Laia Garcia Furtado
Watch on Max.
A House Made of Splinters
Directed by the Danish filmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont, A House Made of Splinters confines itself almost entirely within the walls of a Ukrainian orphanage and follows the fate of three children housed there whose parents cannot care for them due to alcoholism, addiction, war—a blend of traumas that these kids hold in their expressive faces. The orphanage, which is staffed by remarkably caring social workers, acts as a kind of temporary waypoint, and a question hangs over each child: Will their parents return to collect them, or will they be funneled deeper into the country’s frayed social safety net? There are scenes of joy and play—and utter desperation as well—and the ending is as shattering as any I’ve seen in recent memory. —TA
Watch on PBS.
Kim’s Video
You don’t have to be one of the legion of cinephile fans who worshiped at the temple of New York’s Kim’s Video, which closed in 2008 after two decades in the video-rental business, to appreciate David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s film (though it doesn’t hurt). This zany romp, which debuted at Sundance this year, takes what could have ended up being a mere footnote in NYC film history as its starting point for a truly wild ride from St. Mark’s to Sicily, hot on the trail of what became of the prodigious archive of films once owned by the enigmatic Yongman Kim. It’s best to know less before you watch—just buckle up for 88 minutes of rollicking fun that’s also an endearing homage to the madcap spirit of the original shop.—LWM
Check back for viewing options.
Turn Every Page
The relationship between writer and editor—alchemical, fraught, frequently codependent—is the fascinating subject of this warm-hearted documentary by Lizzie Gottlieb, the daughter of the late, legendary editor Robert Gottlieb. He is one half of the odd couple in the film; the other is none other than Robert A. Caro, the towering biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson. Caro’s concluding chronicle of Johnson’s life is one of the most long-awaited books of our time, and Gottlieb’s job as his editor was both to tease it out of him and zealously give him the space and time to work at his own pace. Their pencils-out battles over line edits are the stuff of publishing legend. Gottlieb’s death at 92 in June of this year lends Turn Every Page an elegiac cast.—TA
Watch on Amazon.
Q
Cinematographer Jude Chehab’s feature debut, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, is a riveting exploration of the viselike grip the shadowy matriarchal religious order Qubaysiat had on three generations of Lebanese women: Chehab’s mother, her grandmother, and the filmmaker herself. Gorgeously shot and stunningly unflinching in posing difficult questions to those closest to Chehab, it’s a haunting look at, in her words, “how love is used and abused, even with the best of intentions in mind, by those in power.”—LWM
In select theaters; check back for streaming options.