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BlogsTop Ten Sascha Ettinger Epstein 16 Apr 2012
Top ten observational documentaries
When an observational documentary is masterful, the world of the story and characters simply appears to unfold right before your eyes, drawing as little attention to the filmmaking process as possible. No narration, minimal voiceover, sometimes not even interviews - just scene after scene of raw footage strung together in which the characters and their often-turbulent lives drive the film.
Top Ten Eddie Cockrell 2 Apr 2012
More than a hobby: Ten feature filmmakers who have dabbled in the doco form
Speaking at The American Film Institute’s Silverdocs festival in 2006, Martin Scorsese described his symbiotic relationship with fiction and non-fiction filmmaking: “To record it is documentary, to interpret it is dramatic, fiction. And, for me, the emotional and psychological effect it has on an audience, I don’t see the difference, the line is blurred for me between the two. I’m constantly going between that impulse to record something, so that we can share with others, or to interpret it. And sometimes you do both.” Here, then, is a list of filmmakers who’ve blurred that line throughout their careers, documenting their real-life passions alongside their dramatic interpretations.
Top Ten Julia Scott-Stevenson 20 Mar 2012
Top ten innovative archival documentaries
Archival material at its basic level is often the tired mark of authority in documentaries; it shows a filmmaker has done research and provides a necessary back story perhaps, and then we wait to get back to the real material -- the now. This list highlights documentary films that have taken archival material and done something fresh with it - it's not just supporting a story, it is the story; or it's repurposed, remixed, reimagined and reinvigorated. This archival material doesn't necessarily have to be in audio-visual form - some of the most interesting films have tackled the challenge of incorporating other types of records.
Top Ten of 30 For 30
Bill Simmons could never be accused of lacking ambition. The former Page 2 writer, now Grantland head, turned ESPN's 30th anniversary into doco revolution when he devised a plan to produce 30 films on unique sporting stories that had occurred since the network's inception. One good, let alone great, documentary is a tremendous achievement so Simmons’ plan for such a high volume of quality content did seem overly ambitious at the time. But the result was as enlightening as it was thrilling, giving the form new life and helping kick off the new golden era of the sports documentary (and it's only getting better).
Top Ten Craig Mathieson 1 Feb 2012
Top 10 Sport Documentaries
Sports and those who play them confound our expectations: mastery is a matter of millimeters and moments, ego is a necessary but misunderstood trait, and the significance of achievement can stretch beyond the individual or team to encompass an entire country. In retrospect, the past two decades have been a golden age for sport documentaries – just look at 1994! – and this list of the 10 best is happily situated within those years, a time when some of the form’s finest directors examined how sporting endeavour can transcend, for better or worse, so many of life’s limitations.
Tim Irons' best documentaries of 2011
We asked our contributors and a handful of SBS colleagues to reflect upon their documentary diet over the past year. SBS Film staffer Tim Irons offers his list here.
Top Ten Craig Mathieson 29 Dec 2011
Craig Mathieson's best docs of 2011
We asked our contributors and a handful of SBS colleagues to reflect upon their documentary diet over the past year. Melbourne writer Craig Mathieson offers his ten best here.
Top Ten Ben Nguyen 28 Dec 2011
Ben Nguyen's top documentaries of 2011
We asked our contributors and a handful of SBS colleagues to reflect upon their documentary diet over the past year. SBS's senior programmer of documentary and factual content, Ben Nguyen, offers his ten best here.
Top Ten Julia Scott-Stevenson 27 Dec 2011
Julia Scott-Stevenson's top ten docs of 2011
This time last year I was wading through the endless top ten lists created by various documentary writers, envying their prolific viewing habits and inwardly shouting at them or congratulating them for their terrible/impeccable taste. Now, with over a year of doco blogging behind me, it’s time to stake my own claim to a best documentaries list. I think it was a great year for docos; I was surprised by form and moved by stories, each time learning a little more about the world outside - and sometimes inside - the edges of my own existence.
Top Ten Michelle Orange 23 Dec 2011
Michelle Orange's top ten documentaries of 2011
We asked our contributors and a handful of SBS colleagues to reflect upon their documentary diet over the past year. New York-based writer Michelle Orange offers her ten best here.
Top Ten Andy Martin 27 Nov 2011
Top ten surfing documentaries
Surfing documentaries rectify a tragic gap between demand and supply. Without their guaranteed fix of wall-to-wall turquoise tubes there would be a lot of mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know surfers out there. Let me rephrase that: there would be even more of them.
Top Ten Julia Scott-Stevenson 28 Oct 2011
Top Ten Docos with Drive
Whether you see them as visionaries or crackpots, the single-minded pursuit of a goal by focused individuals has to inspire admiration. These ten documentaries mix stories of causes or ideas with portraits of the individuals or groups of people behind them; people with the kind of commitment that can inspire or exhaust depending on one’s viewing mood.
Quite a few of the below films have Academy Award wins or nominations, showing our appetite for inspiring stories of human endeavour.
A couple of disclaimers: docos of this persuasion aren’t known for their self-examination or presentation of alternate viewpoints, but that’s generally not the point - the story and message are found in the subject’s commitment to a cause, not the pros and cons of said cause. Head to Google if you want more points of view on an issue. Secondly, there are very few women in the films on this list - not from a lack of driven women, but from their lower visibility over time. Hopefully there will be more gender balance in this theme in the future.
Top Ten Craig Mathieson 3 Oct 2011
Top 10 War Docos
Humanity’s instinct to wage war stretches back to the very dawn of history – it is both lodged deeply inside us and something that we struggle to comprehend. But as the documentary has taken shape, the willingness of filmmakers to examine war in all its diverse forms has gained ground. These 10 works – listed in alphabetical order – look at the cruelty and loss, and sometimes the bravery and necessity, of combat and conflict at a time when the camera and the weapon have become intertwined.
Top Ten Michelle Orange 2 Sep 2011
Top Nine New York Docos
The Naked City, a 1948 crime thriller set in New York, has a famous closing line: “There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them.” Shot on location, the film used a documentary style to try and capture the air, the energy, the aura that can’t be recreated on Hollywood sets. Since then, documentary filmmakers have been drawn to the city to tap those millions for storytelling gold; here, in no particular order, are nine that have stuck with me.
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