Documentary Movies 2018 List

With Heather Lenz

The incredible life journey of the top selling female artist in the world, Yayoi Kusama. Kusama overcame impossible odds to bring her radical artistic vision to the world; now, her installation Infinity Mirrored Rooms sells out globally and she prolifically generates new work every day.

With Amy Scott

Hal is a feature length documentary film celebrating the life and work of director Hal Ashby, set against a backdrop of a rapidly changing America, and an even more dramatic shift in filmmaking. While Ashby was once the toast of “New Hollywood” his rise and fall became an archetypal story of art versus industry.

With James D. Stern

Starting six months before the 2016 presidential election, director Jim Stern put his life on hold and — driven to understand what seemed incomprehensible at the time — traveled through red states to interview and spend time with Donald Trump supporters from different backgrounds. It was a search for insights and answers, for anything that could explain the billionaire’s surging appeal and why these voters remained untroubled by so many troubling things the candidate had said and done. This journey became his Heart of Darkness into the American body politic at a profoundly critical point in our history. And the film he returned with, American Chaos, sheds unique light on difficult issues roiling the nation — chronicling a cultural divide, still dangerously misunderstood, that continues to tear at the fabric of our democracy.

Follows Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s January 2015 attempt to scale the historic 3,000 foot climb in Yosemite National Park.

With Cristina Costantini • Darren Foster

Science Fair follows nine high school students from around the globe as they navigate rivalries, setbacks and, of course, hormones, on their journey to compete at The International Science and Engineering Fair. As 1,700 of the smartest, quirkiest teens from 78 different countries face off, only one will be named Best in Fair.

With Cristina Costantini • Darren Foster

Science Fair follows nine high school students from around the globe as they navigate rivalries, setbacks and, of course, hormones, on their journey to compete at The International Science and Engineering Fair. As 1,700 of the smartest, quirkiest teens from 78 different countries face off, only one will be named Best in Fair.

With Rashida Jones • Alan Hicks

An intimate look into the life of icon Quincy Jones. The film seamlessly threads personal vérité moments with private archival footage to reveal a legendary life like no other. A unique force in music and popular culture for 70 years, Jones has transcended racial and cultural boundaries; his story is inextricably woven into the fabric of America. Beyond his own acclaim as a trumpeter, producer, conductor, composer and arranger, Jones’s inimitable gift to discover the biggest talents of the past half of the century is unprecedented. He has mentored and cultivated the careers of young talents, from Lesley Gore and Michael Jackson to Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith.

With Michael Moore • Carl Deal • Tia Lessin • Basel Hamdan • Meghan O’Hara

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 is a look at the times in which we live. It will explore the two most important questions of the Trump Era: How the f**k did we get here, and how the f**k do we get out? It's the film to see before it's too late.

With Lisa D’Apolito

A documentary about comic icon and Saturday Night Live original Gilda Radner.

With Kevin Kerslake • Joel Marcus

Joan Jett is so much more than “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll.” It’s true, she became mega-famous from the number-one hit, and that fame intensified with the music video’s endless play on MTV. But that staple of popularity can’t properly define a musician. Jett put her hard work in long before the fame, ripping it up onstage as the backbone of the hard-rock legends The Runaways, influencing many musicians—both her cohort of punk rockers and generations of younger bands—with her no-bullshit style. Bad Reputation gives you a wild ride as Jett and her close friends tell you how it really was in the burgeoning ’70s punk scene, and their interviews are laced with amazing archival footage.

With Yony Leyser

Started in the 1980s as a fabricated movement intended to punk the punk scene, Queercore quickly became a real-life cultural community of LGBTQ music and movie-making revolutionaries. From the start of the pseudo-movement to the widespread rise of pop artists who used queer identity to push back against gay assimilation and homophobic punk culture.

With Jimmy Chin • Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Documents free solo climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: scaling the face of the world’s most famous rock — the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park — without a rope.

With Jamielyn Lippman

The true life story of Erik Audé an American actor who after 9-11 at 21 years old was sent to death row in the most dangerous prison in Pakistan for a crime he didn’t commit. Proven innocent he was forced with the choice of pride vs. freedom.

With Rory Kennedy

Celebrates NASA's many accomplishments in space and catapults viewers forward to where its headed in the future.