Missing Documentaries

Last night's victorious return to both movie-watching and documentary-watching has given me the itch for more. It probably comes in conjunction with what feels like the first real day off I can remember in years. That sounds pathetically dramatic, but in many ways feels true.

I was under the impression that not many good documentaries are being made in recent years. At least not like the year that Spellbound, Winged Migration, and Bowling for Columbine were all running for the same Oscar, or the next year with the Fog of War and Capturing the Friedmans. Those were good years. Of course, they were also the years I was a college student and had nothing better to do than study Methods of Fingerpainting 101 and track down all the latest documentaries, decent or not. (I even wrote a little manisfesto for the school paper before graduating, trying to explain my fascination.)

But today's documentary itch made me stumble onto Paste Magazine's always enjoyable list of the day blog to find, first, this list of the 20 best documentaries of 2010. Your response is probably the same as mine: You mean, there were enough documentaries made in 2010 to pick 20 and call them the best? Apparently. I've only seen one of them, and many of the remaining 19 look pretty great, including one to add the list of art-world docs, Art of the Steal, which apparently took place in my back yard.

But that led to this list, a better place to start for someone a bit more casually interested in exploring some decent documentaries. The 25 best documentaries of the past decade. I've seen 17 of the 25, and haven't heard of 2. While some of my favorites are missing (Stevie being the most obvious), you can't go wrong with the majority of these. And if you still need help, I'll narrow it down to seven for you:

23. Gleaners and I
16. God Grew Tired of Us
11. Born into Brothels
8. Spellbound
6. King of Kong
4. Fog of War
1. Man on Wire

Let me know what you watch. And remember that documentaries are always better when discussed.