Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

While the international news media has mostly turned the page on the war in Syria, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Megan Mylan’s (“ Smile Pinki ”, “ Lost Boys of Sudan ”) new documentary “Simple as Water” shows how the shattering consequences of the war continue to reverberate through the lives of those who have been displaced, as well as those who have stayed behind. Presented in five unforgettab...

Ask Google what Storm Lake, Iowa is famous for and you’ll learn that it’s the fourth largest glacier lake in the state and is considered the region’s best for walleye fishing. But this seemingly ordinary town of 11,000 in northwest Iowa is also the home of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biweekly The Storm Lake Times , edited by the incomparable Art Cullen . In Jerry Risius and Beth Levison’s beguiling...

With two dozen feature documentaries to his credit, filmmaker Stanley Nelson has, over the course of an astonishing four-decade career, created an unparalleled chronicle of the Black experience in America. Whether documenting the early Civil Rights Movement in “ Freedom Riders ” and “ Freedom Summer ” or the fight for self-determination in “ The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution ,” Stanle...

Continuing our Series on Emmy-nominated films.  From “ Derrida ” to “ Outrage ” and culminating in the hugely impactful “ The Invisible War ” and “ The Hunting Ground ,”  Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick have proven themselves to be the dynamic duo of documentary. Shining a light on sexual abuse and the subsequent conspiracy of silence and coverups inside some of America’s most powerful institutions, Ki...

“The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Yes, nuns. A lot of nuns. A lot of LA nuns to be precise. Rebellious, brilliant, creative, socially committed, take-no-cr*p-from-anybody nuns. These are the Sisters who form the heart-and-soul of Pedro Kos’ joyful new documentary “ Rebel Hearts ,” a portrait of a trailblazing group of nuns in Los Angeles who took up the banner of the social and politi...

“Disco sucks!” Be honest. Did you ever utter that phrase in a weak moment brought on by hard rock/punk music-induced peer pressure? Legendary filmmaker Frank Marshall , who has produced some of Hollywood’s biggest films, makes his documentary directing debut with “ The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ,” a thoroughly satisfying corrective that finally gives just due to one of rock music’s...

Ken and Mike welcome Kirsten (KJ) Johnson, who recently won Best Director for her groundbreaking film, " Dick Johnson is Dead ." This film is like no other film you’ll find in your Netflix queue. KJ’s boundary-pushing documentary uses the art of cinema to keep the ravages of time and the onset of dementia from taking her beloved father Dick away from her. The solution? Keep killing her father over...

Continuing their series on Emmy-nominated films, Mike and Ken delve into their first historical documentary for Top Docs in this deep dive conversation with Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Marco Williams (Banished, Two Towns of Jasper ), one of the directors of the History Channel’s Emmy-nominated Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre . (Co-directed with Stanley Nelson ) Tulsa Burning traces the u...

Filmmaker Cullen Hoback ( Q: Into the Storm ) leads Mike and Ken on a fascinating — and frightening —  trip down the QAnon rabbit hole as he attempts to unmask the identity of the conspiracy movement’s mysterious and mischievous leader, Q.  Focusing on 8chan , the internet site that Q calls home, Cullen locks in on founder Fredrick Brennan and former partners turned archrivals, Jim and Ron Watkins...

In his chilling Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, Sundance award-winning filmmaker Jeff Orlowski ( Chasing Ice and Chasing Cora l) sounds the alarm about the insidious effects of social media and its potentially devastating consequences for society. Using a range of documentary and fiction techniques, Jeff argues that  tech’s attention extraction model is the “Frankenstein’s Monster” of our...

Mike and Ken talk to Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss about their Emmy Award-nominated Boys State .  They discuss Robert, Ben, Steven, and René, the four boys at the heart of the film, as they navigate their way, at a formative stage of life, through the Texas Boys State program.  It's a film that shows winning, losing, and the lessons learned during a weeklong immersion in the cutthroat world of Boy...