Robert Richardson: The White Devil is a feature documentary about cinema, passion and the courage to follow an impossible dream.
Featuring Robert Richardson, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Kate Hudson and many of Hollywood’s most celebrated filmmakers and actors.
Directed by Jana Hojdová
Produced by Matěj Chlupáček, Jana Hojdová, Nela Schlaichertová, Maja Hamplová & Francesca Kolowrat for CameRRaman
Supported by the PPF Foundation and NeoSynCon
Robert Richardson: The White Devil is a feature documentary about cinema, passion and the courage to follow an impossible dream.
Featuring Robert Richardson, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Kate Hudson and many of Hollywood’s most celebrated filmmakers and actors.
Directed by Jana Hojdová
Produced by Matěj Chlupáček, Jana Hojdová, Nela Schlaichertová, Maja Hamplová & Francesca Kolowrat for CameRRaman
Supported by the PPF Foundation and NeoSynCon
Thank you all for your patience this week, as I’ve been working on some side hustles to keep this newsletter going with limited paid subscribers and, for the moment, very rarely any sponsored posts or email blasts. Also, the keyboard and trackpad on my computer stopped working, so I had to spend time trying to have it repaired, and then eventually just had to buy a new one! The good thing is that I enjoyed all of this week’s highlights (save for one that I haven’t yet seen but am looking forward to watching when I can). Considering there’s not a lot of new documentaries arriving in the next seven days, and even the first of the new month isn’t bringing too many nonfiction films to our favorite streamer, being able to stay positive makes me happy.
Below are this week’s documentary highlights, followed by daily listings for all known releases and broadcasts, along with a brief look at what’s coming soon for doc fans (including the latest from Jehane Noujaim, Vikram Gandhi, and Ross McElwee). Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive more in-depth highlights and reviews in the future, plus full access to special posts like our best-of lists, and to give me more time to watch more (if not everything) available. If you have a doc needing coverage or a mention, you can now reach us at nonficseditor (at) gmail.
I have no interest in nor understanding of tennis (despite taking lessons as a little kid and playing it in P.E. in middle school), so most documentaries about the sport and its players don’t appeal to me. They need a great story where the tennis clips are merely obligatory set dressing, like this year’s Billie Jean King biography, Give Me the Ball!, or they need exceptional cinematic form, a la John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection. This film is among the former, and it stands out because it’s about a friendship turned rivalry turned friendship again, where the relationship between its two subjects constitutes a sum greater than its individual biographical parts.
Directed by sports doc regular Rebecca Gitlitz (she has contributed to both 30 for 30 and Untold, among other works), Chris & Martina: The Final Set follows the contrasting lives of tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, both of whom rose in the ranks of women’s tennis players as teenagers in the early 1970s. They were part of the new generation that made women’s tennis more popular than ever, and the media spun easy narratives from their backgrounds, appearance, and matchups. Evert was the pretty blonde American from the Sunshine State, while Navratilova was the bisexual defector from the Communist Bloc. Hollywood couldn’t write them better.
But they were initially friendly and even won doubles events together. Where their story gets more interesting, without help from the media (though perhaps influenced by and feeding into it), is when they fell out, and things got ugly between them. There has already been a documentary released about their rivalry, though: the 2010 30 for 30 film Unmatched. What Chris & Martina: The Final Set adds to their paired-up story is the cancer diagnoses they’ve received since, and the support they’ve given each other throughout their treatment. It’s bittersweet how they jokingly view their similar circumstances as another part of their rivalry.
It’s also beautiful to see them going through it together, and the documentary gives them some joint interviews in addition to their individual setups to emphasize the evolution of their relationship. For me, they could be tennis players, or they could be icons from any other sport, or music, science, politics, whatever. While there is some time given to their dissimilar respective styles and talents, with footage of their matches where they faced each other for major titles, you don’t have to understand tennis scoring to appreciate these sequences or the film as a whole. Both women are still surviving, but otherwise, their story here feels more Beaches than Challengers.
Chris & Martina: The Final Set premieres and begins streaming exclusively on Netflix on Friday, June 26, 2026.
This long-unavailable film about the long-unknown punk band Death had some of the biggest buzz of 2013 (it received a mention in our best music docs list that year), and it deserved much of it. Here’s what I wrote about A Band Called Death at the time:
“Compared to the very similar Searching for Sugar Man, it feels a lot more heartfelt and genuine. It did take a really long time for it to pull me in, though, as it’s almost like two different films in one. The first part is a story about the band of three brothers in Detroit in the ‘70s, and the second part is about the recent rediscovery and re-issue of their music while also focusing on an original member’s three sons carrying on the tradition with their own punk band. It’s the young guys who really ultimately made the movie worthwhile for me, especially their telling of their reactions to finding out about their awesome family secret.”
A Band Called Death begins streaming exclusively on The Criterion Channel on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
If you ever had cable in New York City, you’re familiar with Robin Byrd. If you don’t know about her, now’s your chance to become acquainted. Either way, Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story is worth watching, not just for a historical story involving sex-positivity, body positivity, LGBTQ+ representation, the fight against censorship and obscenity laws, and a pioneering and entrepreneurial woman, but also to really get close and personal with the former TV host today.
Much of the documentary follows Byrd’s current life, divided between Manhattan and Fire Island, as she looks back on her career in adult film and broadcasting, and considers preserving and archiving her huge library of tapes from The Robin Byrd Show. She’s one of the most enjoyable and lovable documentary participants of the year, and her husband is pretty adorable, too.
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story premieres on HBO and begins streaming exclusively on HBO Max on Tuesday, June 30.
While this documentary is, unlike A Band Called Death, already easily accessible online, its addition to the Criterion Channel’s library next month gives us an excuse to share it for the first time in ages. Here’s what I wrote about Evolution of a Criminal, a first-person film made by a reformed bank robber, back in 2015:
“I fell in love with this at the New Orleans Film Festival…and the fondness is surprising and partly unexplainable for me because it commits so many crimes of documentary (the laws broken are those in my head, of course). Director Darius Clark Monroe is a talking head in his own film, he employs fairly unnecessary reenactments, and about two-thirds through, he reveals that, in a big way, the doc is actually about the making of the doc. Added up, all these elements become one of the freshest takes on the personal doc genre.”
Evolution of a Criminal begins streaming on The Criterion Channel on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
It took me a long time to embrace Jackass. I never watched the TV show, and I only gave one of the movies a shot during its theatrical release because I was working at a movie theater and was curious. I think it was the second one. The franchise can be classified as nonfiction, grouped with documentaries similarly to how Allen Funt’s theatrical features were in the 1970s. While I wasn’t granted access to the latest installment, Jackass: Best and Last, I’m highlighting it because I think they’re worth recognizing in general, and also, I hear this one is more documentary-like than the others. It’s partly a nostalgic clip show, with less new material than usual, but as I shared in a breakdown for Rotten Tomatoes, it’s been garnering the Jackass series some of its best reviews ever. I’m down to cringe my way through it when I can.
Jackass: Best and Last will be released in theaters on Friday, June 26, 2026, via Paramount Pictures.
Earlier this month, we lost another substantial member of the documentary filmmaking community. Nick Doob, who died on June 12, 2026, was best known for his association with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. His directorial collaborations with the couple include the concert film Down from the Mountain (currently unavailable), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (available on Broadway HD), and the under-appreciated but very funny Al Franken: God Spoke (also currently unavailable), which I named the best political documentary of the 2000s.
Before joining them at the helm, he shot many of their earlier films, including Town Bloody Hall (The Criterion Channel), The War Room (The Criterion Channel and HBO Max), Only the Strong Survive (PVOD), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (YouTube TV), and Monterey Pop (The Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Tubi, TCM, and Shout! TV). He also shot some of Janis (PVOD), the Oscar-winning feature From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (Prime Video, Kanopy, OVID, Tubi, and FlixHouse), and the Oscar-winning shorts Smile Pinki (currently unavailable) and The Only Girl in the Orchestra (Netflix), and was DP for A Perfect Candidate (OVID and Kanopy) and Norman Mailer’s Maidstone (The Criterion Channel).
Doob often worked with Rory Kennedy, shooting her films The Fence (HBO Max) and Epidemic Africa (currently unavailable) and co-directing A Boy’s Life (also currently unavailable). His more recent directorial collaborations included two HBO documentaries with Shari Cookson: the 2014 feature Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert and the 2025 short Country Doctor, both of which are now streaming on HBO Max. I really wish that more of these titles could be easily viewed.
Chris & Martina: The Final Set (2026) – A documentary feature about tennis icons Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. See our highlights section for more info and a brief review. *NONFICS PICK* (Netflix)
Deadliest Catch Season 22, Episode 8: “Anything That Can Go Wrong” – The latest installment of a series that follows Alaskan crab fishermen. (Discovery Channel)
Jackass: Best and Last (2026) – The fifth feature-length installment of the Jackass franchise. This one looks back at classic stunts and presents new gags as well. See our highlights section for more info. (In Theaters)
Craig Ferguson: American on Purpose Episode 5: “Patriotism” – The fifth installment of a five-part docuseries on what it means to be American. (CNN)
The Kimberley (2025) – A docuseries about Australia’s remote landscapes. (PBS)
Possibilities (2024) – A documentary about the legacy of Helen Keller. (VOD)
Room Tone: The Sound of The Room (2026) – A short documentary about Tommy Wiseau’s cult film The Room from the perspectives of its sound mixer and boom operator. (PVOD and Blu-ray)
The Food That Built America Season 7, Episode 10: “Icons of Ice Cream” – The latest installment of a docuseries about popular American foods. This episode involves ice cream items, including Dairy Queen’s Blizzard. (History)
Hazardous History with Henry Winkler Season 2, Episode 10: “Anything for a Buck” – The latest installment of a docuseries about dangerous toys and household items that used to be common. This episode involves death-defying stunts for money. (History)
In the Eye of the Storm Season 3, Episode 1: “Nightmare in May” – The return of a docuseries about natural disasters. This installment looks at severe supercell thunderstorms across 11 states in mid-May 2025. (Discovery Channel)
The Killer Among Us Episode 7: “Vanishing in the Lab” – The latest installment of a docuseries hosted by Alan Cumming about murders in close-knit communities. (Oxygen True Crime)
MGM Parade Show #7 (1955) – The sixth installment of a documentary series devoted to promoting MGM’s films. This short spotlights The Great Ziegfeld and The Tender Trap. (TCM)
History’s Greatest Machines with Dolph Lundgren Episode 5: “Breakthrough Boats” – The latest installment of a docuseries about the machines that shaped our world. (History)
The Wormwood Star (1956) – A short documentary about the actress and artist known only by the name Cameron. (TCM)
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (2026) – A documentary feature about the titular adult film star and cable TV host. See our highlights section for more info and a brief review. *NONFICS PICK* (HBO and HBO Max)
Callas (1978) – A biographical documentary feature about opera icon Maria Callas. (DVD)
Children of the Wicker Man (2024) – A documentary feature about the sons of Wicker Man director Robin Hardy. (DVD)
Daylight Express (1992) – A documentary feature about the Southern Pacific Daylight Express passenger train. (DVD)
Echoes of Valor: WWII Veterans of Washington City, Utah (2025) – A documentary about World War II veterans from Utah. (DVD)
Expedition Unknown Season 17, Episode 2: “Finding World War II’s Lost Prisoners” – The latest installment of a docuseries that follows an archaeologist looking for lost artifacts. (Discovery)
He Calls Me Daughter (2026) – A documentary feature celebrating God as the perfect father figure for women. (DVD)
The Proof is Out There: Unexplained Edition Season 2, Episode 5: “Superhumans” – The latest installment of a docuseries about strange phenomena captured on camera. (History)
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch Season 7, Episode 7: “High Voltage” – The latest installment of a docuseries about UFO phenomena at the Skinwalker Ranch. (History)
Are We Good? (2025) – A documentary feature about Marc Maron as he mourns his partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton. (The Criterion Channel)
A Band Called Death (2012) – A documentary feature about the titular 1970s punk band. See our highlights section for more info. *NONFICS PICK* (The Criterion Channel)
The Energy War (1979) – A five-hour documentary by D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell about the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978. (The Criterion Channel)
Evolution of a Criminal (2014) – A first-person documentary feature by Darius Clark Monroe about how and why he robbed a bank 10 years earlier. See our highlights section for more info. *NONFICS PICK* (The Criterion Channel)
The Face Doctors Season 2, Episode 8: “Do I Look Like Me?” – The latest installment of a nonfiction series about facial reconstruction specialists and their patients. (TLC)
Fire Through Dry Grass (2023) – A documentary feature about a group of Black and brown disabled artists known as the Reality Poets and their lives during the COVID-19 lockdown. (The Criterion Channel)
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012) – A documentary feature about the titular actor. (The Criterion Channel)
Landfall (2020) – A documentary feature about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. (The Criterion Channel)
The Miracle on George Green (2022) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about the UK tradition of the commons. (The Criterion Channel)
The Names Have Changed, Including My Own and Truths Have Been Altered (2019) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about her grandfather. (The Criterion Channel)
Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC (2022) – A documentary feature about the iconic music venue Max’s Kansas City and New York City’s rock scene in the 1970s. (The Criterion Channel)
Penkelemes (2025) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about Nigeria’s University of Ibadan. (The Criterion Channel)
S the Wolf (2025) – A short animated documentary by Sameh Alaa about his teenage years. (The Criterion Channel)
The Second Game (2014) – A documentary feature by Corneliu Porumboiu about a snowy soccer match in 1988 that his father refereed. (The Criterion Channel)
A So-Called Archive (2020) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about two archives housing British Colonial propaganda. (The Criterion Channel)
Specialised Technique (2018) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about Black dance as depicted in colonial cinema. (The Criterion Channel)
We Need New Names (2015) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about contemporary Nigerian diasporic female identity. (The Criterion Channel)
Worst Neighbor Ever (2026) – A docuseries about terrible neighbors. (Netflix)
Alumination (2021) – A documentary feature narrated by Kate Pierson about Airstream founder Wally Byam. (OVID)
The Americas: A Wild 250th (2026) – A documentary special within the nature series The Americas tied to the 250th birthday of the United States. (NBC)
Surviving Earth Episode 4: “When the Seas Died” – The fourth installment of an eight-part docuseries about extinct creatures. This episode involves a giant marine reptile. (NBC)
This World is Not My Own (2023) – A documentary feature about the artist Nellie Mae Rowe. (Black Public Media)
7/3 – Sherman’s March – A 4K re-release of a classic first-person documentary feature by Ross McElwee about his romantic pursuits amidst his Civil War history project. *NONFICS PICK* (In Theaters)
7/6 – True North: Canadian Myths and Black Power – A documentary about the Black liberation movement in Montreal in the late 1960s. Presented as an episode of Independent Lens. (PBS)
7/9 – The Man Will Burn – A four-part docuseries by Jehane Noujaim (The Square) and Vikram Gandhi (Kumare) about Burning Man. Watch the new trailer for the series below. (HBO and HBO Max)
7/10 – Baby Doe – A true-crime documentary about a woman accused of murdering her newborn baby. (In Theaters)
7/10 – Remake – A first-person documentary by Ross McElwee about the attempt to remake his classic film Sherman’s March as a narrative feature. Watch the new trailer for the film below. (In Theaters)
7/12 – The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door – A documentary feature about the 2018 poisoning of Russian/British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. (CNN)
7/14 – The Real Wolf of Wall Street – A three-part docuseries about Jordan Belfort, whose story was dramatized in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Watch the new trailer for the series below. (Paramount+)
8/7 – Cookie Queens – A documentary feature about Girl Scouts selling cookies. Read our review of Cookie Queens. (In Theaters)
8/21 – The Big Cheese – A documentary feature that follows an American team competing in France’s Mondial du Fromage. (In Theaters)
10/16 – Once Upon a Time in Harlem – A documentary feature co-directed by the late William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One), resurrecting footage he shot in 1972 of a get-together of Harlem Renaissance legends. (In Theaters)
Nonfics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Thank you all for your patience this week, as I’ve been working on some side hustles to keep this newsletter going with limited paid subscribers and, for the moment, very rarely any sponsored posts or email blasts. Also, the keyboard and trackpad on my computer stopped working, so I had to spend time trying to have it repaired, and then eventually just had to buy a new one! The good thing is that I enjoyed all of this week’s highlights (save for one that I haven’t yet seen but am looking forward to watching when I can). Considering there’s not a lot of new documentaries arriving in the next seven days, and even the first of the new month isn’t bringing too many nonfiction films to our favorite streamer, being able to stay positive makes me happy.
Below are this week’s documentary highlights, followed by daily listings for all known releases and broadcasts, along with a brief look at what’s coming soon for doc fans (including the latest from Jehane Noujaim, Vikram Gandhi, and Ross McElwee). Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive more in-depth highlights and reviews in the future, plus full access to special posts like our best-of lists, and to give me more time to watch more (if not everything) available. If you have a doc needing coverage or a mention, you can now reach us at nonficseditor (at) gmail.
I have no interest in nor understanding of tennis (despite taking lessons as a little kid and playing it in P.E. in middle school), so most documentaries about the sport and its players don’t appeal to me. They need a great story where the tennis clips are merely obligatory set dressing, like this year’s Billie Jean King biography, Give Me the Ball!, or they need exceptional cinematic form, a la John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection. This film is among the former, and it stands out because it’s about a friendship turned rivalry turned friendship again, where the relationship between its two subjects constitutes a sum greater than its individual biographical parts.
Directed by sports doc regular Rebecca Gitlitz (she has contributed to both 30 for 30 and Untold, among other works), Chris & Martina: The Final Set follows the contrasting lives of tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, both of whom rose in the ranks of women’s tennis players as teenagers in the early 1970s. They were part of the new generation that made women’s tennis more popular than ever, and the media spun easy narratives from their backgrounds, appearance, and matchups. Evert was the pretty blonde American from the Sunshine State, while Navratilova was the bisexual defector from the Communist Bloc. Hollywood couldn’t write them better.
But they were initially friendly and even won doubles events together. Where their story gets more interesting, without help from the media (though perhaps influenced by and feeding into it), is when they fell out, and things got ugly between them. There has already been a documentary released about their rivalry, though: the 2010 30 for 30 film Unmatched. What Chris & Martina: The Final Set adds to their paired-up story is the cancer diagnoses they’ve received since, and the support they’ve given each other throughout their treatment. It’s bittersweet how they jokingly view their similar circumstances as another part of their rivalry.
It’s also beautiful to see them going through it together, and the documentary gives them some joint interviews in addition to their individual setups to emphasize the evolution of their relationship. For me, they could be tennis players, or they could be icons from any other sport, or music, science, politics, whatever. While there is some time given to their dissimilar respective styles and talents, with footage of their matches where they faced each other for major titles, you don’t have to understand tennis scoring to appreciate these sequences or the film as a whole. Both women are still surviving, but otherwise, their story here feels more Beaches than Challengers.
Chris & Martina: The Final Set premieres and begins streaming exclusively on Netflix on Friday, June 26, 2026.
This long-unavailable film about the long-unknown punk band Death had some of the biggest buzz of 2013 (it received a mention in our best music docs list that year), and it deserved much of it. Here’s what I wrote about A Band Called Death at the time:
“Compared to the very similar Searching for Sugar Man, it feels a lot more heartfelt and genuine. It did take a really long time for it to pull me in, though, as it’s almost like two different films in one. The first part is a story about the band of three brothers in Detroit in the ‘70s, and the second part is about the recent rediscovery and re-issue of their music while also focusing on an original member’s three sons carrying on the tradition with their own punk band. It’s the young guys who really ultimately made the movie worthwhile for me, especially their telling of their reactions to finding out about their awesome family secret.”
A Band Called Death begins streaming exclusively on The Criterion Channel on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
If you ever had cable in New York City, you’re familiar with Robin Byrd. If you don’t know about her, now’s your chance to become acquainted. Either way, Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story is worth watching, not just for a historical story involving sex-positivity, body positivity, LGBTQ+ representation, the fight against censorship and obscenity laws, and a pioneering and entrepreneurial woman, but also to really get close and personal with the former TV host today.
Much of the documentary follows Byrd’s current life, divided between Manhattan and Fire Island, as she looks back on her career in adult film and broadcasting, and considers preserving and archiving her huge library of tapes from The Robin Byrd Show. She’s one of the most enjoyable and lovable documentary participants of the year, and her husband is pretty adorable, too.
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story premieres on HBO and begins streaming exclusively on HBO Max on Tuesday, June 30.
While this documentary is, unlike A Band Called Death, already easily accessible online, its addition to the Criterion Channel’s library next month gives us an excuse to share it for the first time in ages. Here’s what I wrote about Evolution of a Criminal, a first-person film made by a reformed bank robber, back in 2015:
“I fell in love with this at the New Orleans Film Festival…and the fondness is surprising and partly unexplainable for me because it commits so many crimes of documentary (the laws broken are those in my head, of course). Director Darius Clark Monroe is a talking head in his own film, he employs fairly unnecessary reenactments, and about two-thirds through, he reveals that, in a big way, the doc is actually about the making of the doc. Added up, all these elements become one of the freshest takes on the personal doc genre.”
Evolution of a Criminal begins streaming on The Criterion Channel on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
It took me a long time to embrace Jackass. I never watched the TV show, and I only gave one of the movies a shot during its theatrical release because I was working at a movie theater and was curious. I think it was the second one. The franchise can be classified as nonfiction, grouped with documentaries similarly to how Allen Funt’s theatrical features were in the 1970s. While I wasn’t granted access to the latest installment, Jackass: Best and Last, I’m highlighting it because I think they’re worth recognizing in general, and also, I hear this one is more documentary-like than the others. It’s partly a nostalgic clip show, with less new material than usual, but as I shared in a breakdown for Rotten Tomatoes, it’s been garnering the Jackass series some of its best reviews ever. I’m down to cringe my way through it when I can.
Jackass: Best and Last will be released in theaters on Friday, June 26, 2026, via Paramount Pictures.
Earlier this month, we lost another substantial member of the documentary filmmaking community. Nick Doob, who died on June 12, 2026, was best known for his association with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. His directorial collaborations with the couple include the concert film Down from the Mountain (currently unavailable), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (available on Broadway HD), and the under-appreciated but very funny Al Franken: God Spoke (also currently unavailable), which I named the best political documentary of the 2000s.
Before joining them at the helm, he shot many of their earlier films, including Town Bloody Hall (The Criterion Channel), The War Room (The Criterion Channel and HBO Max), Only the Strong Survive (PVOD), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (YouTube TV), and Monterey Pop (The Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Tubi, TCM, and Shout! TV). He also shot some of Janis (PVOD), the Oscar-winning feature From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (Prime Video, Kanopy, OVID, Tubi, and FlixHouse), and the Oscar-winning shorts Smile Pinki (currently unavailable) and The Only Girl in the Orchestra (Netflix), and was DP for A Perfect Candidate (OVID and Kanopy) and Norman Mailer’s Maidstone (The Criterion Channel).
Doob often worked with Rory Kennedy, shooting her films The Fence (HBO Max) and Epidemic Africa (currently unavailable) and co-directing A Boy’s Life (also currently unavailable). His more recent directorial collaborations included two HBO documentaries with Shari Cookson: the 2014 feature Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert and the 2025 short Country Doctor, both of which are now streaming on HBO Max. I really wish that more of these titles could be easily viewed.
Chris & Martina: The Final Set (2026) – A documentary feature about tennis icons Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. See our highlights section for more info and a brief review. *NONFICS PICK* (Netflix)
Deadliest Catch Season 22, Episode 8: “Anything That Can Go Wrong” – The latest installment of a series that follows Alaskan crab fishermen. (Discovery Channel)
Jackass: Best and Last (2026) – The fifth feature-length installment of the Jackass franchise. This one looks back at classic stunts and presents new gags as well. See our highlights section for more info. (In Theaters)
Craig Ferguson: American on Purpose Episode 5: “Patriotism” – The fifth installment of a five-part docuseries on what it means to be American. (CNN)
The Kimberley (2025) – A docuseries about Australia’s remote landscapes. (PBS)
Possibilities (2024) – A documentary about the legacy of Helen Keller. (VOD)
Room Tone: The Sound of The Room (2026) – A short documentary about Tommy Wiseau’s cult film The Room from the perspectives of its sound mixer and boom operator. (PVOD and Blu-ray)
The Food That Built America Season 7, Episode 10: “Icons of Ice Cream” – The latest installment of a docuseries about popular American foods. This episode involves ice cream items, including Dairy Queen’s Blizzard. (History)
Hazardous History with Henry Winkler Season 2, Episode 10: “Anything for a Buck” – The latest installment of a docuseries about dangerous toys and household items that used to be common. This episode involves death-defying stunts for money. (History)
In the Eye of the Storm Season 3, Episode 1: “Nightmare in May” – The return of a docuseries about natural disasters. This installment looks at severe supercell thunderstorms across 11 states in mid-May 2025. (Discovery Channel)
The Killer Among Us Episode 7: “Vanishing in the Lab” – The latest installment of a docuseries hosted by Alan Cumming about murders in close-knit communities. (Oxygen True Crime)
MGM Parade Show #7 (1955) – The sixth installment of a documentary series devoted to promoting MGM’s films. This short spotlights The Great Ziegfeld and The Tender Trap. (TCM)
History’s Greatest Machines with Dolph Lundgren Episode 5: “Breakthrough Boats” – The latest installment of a docuseries about the machines that shaped our world. (History)
The Wormwood Star (1956) – A short documentary about the actress and artist known only by the name Cameron. (TCM)
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (2026) – A documentary feature about the titular adult film star and cable TV host. See our highlights section for more info and a brief review. *NONFICS PICK* (HBO and HBO Max)
Callas (1978) – A biographical documentary feature about opera icon Maria Callas. (DVD)
Children of the Wicker Man (2024) – A documentary feature about the sons of Wicker Man director Robin Hardy. (DVD)
Daylight Express (1992) – A documentary feature about the Southern Pacific Daylight Express passenger train. (DVD)
Echoes of Valor: WWII Veterans of Washington City, Utah (2025) – A documentary about World War II veterans from Utah. (DVD)
Expedition Unknown Season 17, Episode 2: “Finding World War II’s Lost Prisoners” – The latest installment of a docuseries that follows an archaeologist looking for lost artifacts. (Discovery)
He Calls Me Daughter (2026) – A documentary feature celebrating God as the perfect father figure for women. (DVD)
The Proof is Out There: Unexplained Edition Season 2, Episode 5: “Superhumans” – The latest installment of a docuseries about strange phenomena captured on camera. (History)
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch Season 7, Episode 7: “High Voltage” – The latest installment of a docuseries about UFO phenomena at the Skinwalker Ranch. (History)
Are We Good? (2025) – A documentary feature about Marc Maron as he mourns his partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton. (The Criterion Channel)
A Band Called Death (2012) – A documentary feature about the titular 1970s punk band. See our highlights section for more info. *NONFICS PICK* (The Criterion Channel)
The Energy War (1979) – A five-hour documentary by D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell about the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978. (The Criterion Channel)
Evolution of a Criminal (2014) – A first-person documentary feature by Darius Clark Monroe about how and why he robbed a bank 10 years earlier. See our highlights section for more info. *NONFICS PICK* (The Criterion Channel)
The Face Doctors Season 2, Episode 8: “Do I Look Like Me?” – The latest installment of a nonfiction series about facial reconstruction specialists and their patients. (TLC)
Fire Through Dry Grass (2023) – A documentary feature about a group of Black and brown disabled artists known as the Reality Poets and their lives during the COVID-19 lockdown. (The Criterion Channel)
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012) – A documentary feature about the titular actor. (The Criterion Channel)
Landfall (2020) – A documentary feature about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. (The Criterion Channel)
The Miracle on George Green (2022) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about the UK tradition of the commons. (The Criterion Channel)
The Names Have Changed, Including My Own and Truths Have Been Altered (2019) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about her grandfather. (The Criterion Channel)
Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC (2022) – A documentary feature about the iconic music venue Max’s Kansas City and New York City’s rock scene in the 1970s. (The Criterion Channel)
Penkelemes (2025) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about Nigeria’s University of Ibadan. (The Criterion Channel)
S the Wolf (2025) – A short animated documentary by Sameh Alaa about his teenage years. (The Criterion Channel)
The Second Game (2014) – A documentary feature by Corneliu Porumboiu about a snowy soccer match in 1988 that his father refereed. (The Criterion Channel)
A So-Called Archive (2020) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about two archives housing British Colonial propaganda. (The Criterion Channel)
Specialised Technique (2018) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about Black dance as depicted in colonial cinema. (The Criterion Channel)
We Need New Names (2015) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about contemporary Nigerian diasporic female identity. (The Criterion Channel)
Worst Neighbor Ever (2026) – A docuseries about terrible neighbors. (Netflix)
Alumination (2021) – A documentary feature narrated by Kate Pierson about Airstream founder Wally Byam. (OVID)
The Americas: A Wild 250th (2026) – A documentary special within the nature series The Americas tied to the 250th birthday of the United States. (NBC)
Surviving Earth Episode 4: “When the Seas Died” – The fourth installment of an eight-part docuseries about extinct creatures. This episode involves a giant marine reptile. (NBC)
This World is Not My Own (2023) – A documentary feature about the artist Nellie Mae Rowe. (Black Public Media)
7/3 – Sherman’s March – A 4K re-release of a classic first-person documentary feature by Ross McElwee about his romantic pursuits amidst his Civil War history project. *NONFICS PICK* (In Theaters)
7/6 – True North: Canadian Myths and Black Power – A documentary about the Black liberation movement in Montreal in the late 1960s. Presented as an episode of Independent Lens. (PBS)
7/9 – The Man Will Burn – A four-part docuseries by Jehane Noujaim (The Square) and Vikram Gandhi (Kumare) about Burning Man. Watch the new trailer for the series below. (HBO and HBO Max)
7/10 – Baby Doe – A true-crime documentary about a woman accused of murdering her newborn baby. (In Theaters)
7/10 – Remake – A first-person documentary by Ross McElwee about the attempt to remake his classic film Sherman’s March as a narrative feature. Watch the new trailer for the film below. (In Theaters)
7/12 – The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door – A documentary feature about the 2018 poisoning of Russian/British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. (CNN)
7/14 – The Real Wolf of Wall Street – A three-part docuseries about Jordan Belfort, whose story was dramatized in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Watch the new trailer for the series below. (Paramount+)
8/7 – Cookie Queens – A documentary feature about Girl Scouts selling cookies. Read our review of Cookie Queens. (In Theaters)
8/21 – The Big Cheese – A documentary feature that follows an American team competing in France’s Mondial du Fromage. (In Theaters)
10/16 – Once Upon a Time in Harlem – A documentary feature co-directed by the late William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One), resurrecting footage he shot in 1972 of a get-together of Harlem Renaissance legends. (In Theaters)
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Thank you all for your patience this week, as I’ve been working on some side hustles to keep this newsletter going with limited paid subscribers and, for the moment, very rarely any sponsored posts or email blasts. Also, the keyboard and trackpad on my computer stopped working, so I had to spend time trying to have it repaired, and then eventually just had to buy a new one! The good thing is that I enjoyed all of this week’s highlights (save for one that I haven’t yet seen but am looking forward to watching when I can). Considering there’s not a lot of new documentaries arriving in the next seven days, and even the first of the new month isn’t bringing too many nonfiction films to our favorite streamer, being able to stay positive makes me happy.
Below are this week’s documentary highlights, followed by daily listings for all known releases and broadcasts, along with a brief look at what’s coming soon for doc fans (including the latest from Jehane Noujaim, Vikram Gandhi, and Ross McElwee). Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive more in-depth highlights and reviews in the future, plus full access to special posts like our best-of lists, and to give me more time to watch more (if not everything) available. If you have a doc needing coverage or a mention, you can now reach us at nonficseditor (at) gmail.
I have no interest in nor understanding of tennis (despite taking lessons as a little kid and playing it in P.E. in middle school), so most documentaries about the sport and its players don’t appeal to me. They need a great story where the tennis clips are merely obligatory set dressing, like this year’s Billie Jean King biography, Give Me the Ball!, or they need exceptional cinematic form, a la John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection. This film is among the former, and it stands out because it’s about a friendship turned rivalry turned friendship again, where the relationship between its two subjects constitutes a sum greater than its individual biographical parts.
Directed by sports doc regular Rebecca Gitlitz (she has contributed to both 30 for 30 and Untold, among other works), Chris & Martina: The Final Set follows the contrasting lives of tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, both of whom rose in the ranks of women’s tennis players as teenagers in the early 1970s. They were part of the new generation that made women’s tennis more popular than ever, and the media spun easy narratives from their backgrounds, appearance, and matchups. Evert was the pretty blonde American from the Sunshine State, while Navratilova was the bisexual defector from the Communist Bloc. Hollywood couldn’t write them better.
But they were initially friendly and even won doubles events together. Where their story gets more interesting, without help from the media (though perhaps influenced by and feeding into it), is when they fell out, and things got ugly between them. There has already been a documentary released about their rivalry, though: the 2010 30 for 30 film Unmatched. What Chris & Martina: The Final Set adds to their paired-up story is the cancer diagnoses they’ve received since, and the support they’ve given each other throughout their treatment. It’s bittersweet how they jokingly view their similar circumstances as another part of their rivalry.
It’s also beautiful to see them going through it together, and the documentary gives them some joint interviews in addition to their individual setups to emphasize the evolution of their relationship. For me, they could be tennis players, or they could be icons from any other sport, or music, science, politics, whatever. While there is some time given to their dissimilar respective styles and talents, with footage of their matches where they faced each other for major titles, you don’t have to understand tennis scoring to appreciate these sequences or the film as a whole. Both women are still surviving, but otherwise, their story here feels more Beaches than Challengers.
Chris & Martina: The Final Set premieres and begins streaming exclusively on Netflix on Friday, June 26, 2026.
This long-unavailable film about the long-unknown punk band Death had some of the biggest buzz of 2013 (it received a mention in our best music docs list that year), and it deserved much of it. Here’s what I wrote about A Band Called Death at the time:
“Compared to the very similar Searching for Sugar Man, it feels a lot more heartfelt and genuine. It did take a really long time for it to pull me in, though, as it’s almost like two different films in one. The first part is a story about the band of three brothers in Detroit in the ‘70s, and the second part is about the recent rediscovery and re-issue of their music while also focusing on an original member’s three sons carrying on the tradition with their own punk band. It’s the young guys who really ultimately made the movie worthwhile for me, especially their telling of their reactions to finding out about their awesome family secret.”
A Band Called Death begins streaming exclusively on The Criterion Channel on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
If you ever had cable in New York City, you’re familiar with Robin Byrd. If you don’t know about her, now’s your chance to become acquainted. Either way, Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story is worth watching, not just for a historical story involving sex-positivity, body positivity, LGBTQ+ representation, the fight against censorship and obscenity laws, and a pioneering and entrepreneurial woman, but also to really get close and personal with the former TV host today.
Much of the documentary follows Byrd’s current life, divided between Manhattan and Fire Island, as she looks back on her career in adult film and broadcasting, and considers preserving and archiving her huge library of tapes from The Robin Byrd Show. She’s one of the most enjoyable and lovable documentary participants of the year, and her husband is pretty adorable, too.
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story premieres on HBO and begins streaming exclusively on HBO Max on Tuesday, June 30.
While this documentary is, unlike A Band Called Death, already easily accessible online, its addition to the Criterion Channel’s library next month gives us an excuse to share it for the first time in ages. Here’s what I wrote about Evolution of a Criminal, a first-person film made by a reformed bank robber, back in 2015:
“I fell in love with this at the New Orleans Film Festival…and the fondness is surprising and partly unexplainable for me because it commits so many crimes of documentary (the laws broken are those in my head, of course). Director Darius Clark Monroe is a talking head in his own film, he employs fairly unnecessary reenactments, and about two-thirds through, he reveals that, in a big way, the doc is actually about the making of the doc. Added up, all these elements become one of the freshest takes on the personal doc genre.”
Evolution of a Criminal begins streaming on The Criterion Channel on Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
It took me a long time to embrace Jackass. I never watched the TV show, and I only gave one of the movies a shot during its theatrical release because I was working at a movie theater and was curious. I think it was the second one. The franchise can be classified as nonfiction, grouped with documentaries similarly to how Allen Funt’s theatrical features were in the 1970s. While I wasn’t granted access to the latest installment, Jackass: Best and Last, I’m highlighting it because I think they’re worth recognizing in general, and also, I hear this one is more documentary-like than the others. It’s partly a nostalgic clip show, with less new material than usual, but as I shared in a breakdown for Rotten Tomatoes, it’s been garnering the Jackass series some of its best reviews ever. I’m down to cringe my way through it when I can.
Jackass: Best and Last will be released in theaters on Friday, June 26, 2026, via Paramount Pictures.
Earlier this month, we lost another substantial member of the documentary filmmaking community. Nick Doob, who died on June 12, 2026, was best known for his association with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. His directorial collaborations with the couple include the concert film Down from the Mountain (currently unavailable), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (available on Broadway HD), and the under-appreciated but very funny Al Franken: God Spoke (also currently unavailable), which I named the best political documentary of the 2000s.
Before joining them at the helm, he shot many of their earlier films, including Town Bloody Hall (The Criterion Channel), The War Room (The Criterion Channel and HBO Max), Only the Strong Survive (PVOD), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (YouTube TV), and Monterey Pop (The Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Tubi, TCM, and Shout! TV). He also shot some of Janis (PVOD), the Oscar-winning feature From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China (Prime Video, Kanopy, OVID, Tubi, and FlixHouse), and the Oscar-winning shorts Smile Pinki (currently unavailable) and The Only Girl in the Orchestra (Netflix), and was DP for A Perfect Candidate (OVID and Kanopy) and Norman Mailer’s Maidstone (The Criterion Channel).
Doob often worked with Rory Kennedy, shooting her films The Fence (HBO Max) and Epidemic Africa (currently unavailable) and co-directing A Boy’s Life (also currently unavailable). His more recent directorial collaborations included two HBO documentaries with Shari Cookson: the 2014 feature Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert and the 2025 short Country Doctor, both of which are now streaming on HBO Max. I really wish that more of these titles could be easily viewed.
Chris & Martina: The Final Set (2026) – A documentary feature about tennis icons Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. See our highlights section for more info and a brief review. *NONFICS PICK* (Netflix)
Deadliest Catch Season 22, Episode 8: “Anything That Can Go Wrong” – The latest installment of a series that follows Alaskan crab fishermen. (Discovery Channel)
Jackass: Best and Last (2026) – The fifth feature-length installment of the Jackass franchise. This one looks back at classic stunts and presents new gags as well. See our highlights section for more info. (In Theaters)
Craig Ferguson: American on Purpose Episode 5: “Patriotism” – The fifth installment of a five-part docuseries on what it means to be American. (CNN)
The Kimberley (2025) – A docuseries about Australia’s remote landscapes. (PBS)
Possibilities (2024) – A documentary about the legacy of Helen Keller. (VOD)
Room Tone: The Sound of The Room (2026) – A short documentary about Tommy Wiseau’s cult film The Room from the perspectives of its sound mixer and boom operator. (PVOD and Blu-ray)
The Food That Built America Season 7, Episode 10: “Icons of Ice Cream” – The latest installment of a docuseries about popular American foods. This episode involves ice cream items, including Dairy Queen’s Blizzard. (History)
Hazardous History with Henry Winkler Season 2, Episode 10: “Anything for a Buck” – The latest installment of a docuseries about dangerous toys and household items that used to be common. This episode involves death-defying stunts for money. (History)
In the Eye of the Storm Season 3, Episode 1: “Nightmare in May” – The return of a docuseries about natural disasters. This installment looks at severe supercell thunderstorms across 11 states in mid-May 2025. (Discovery Channel)
The Killer Among Us Episode 7: “Vanishing in the Lab” – The latest installment of a docuseries hosted by Alan Cumming about murders in close-knit communities. (Oxygen True Crime)
MGM Parade Show #7 (1955) – The sixth installment of a documentary series devoted to promoting MGM’s films. This short spotlights The Great Ziegfeld and The Tender Trap. (TCM)
History’s Greatest Machines with Dolph Lundgren Episode 5: “Breakthrough Boats” – The latest installment of a docuseries about the machines that shaped our world. (History)
The Wormwood Star (1956) – A short documentary about the actress and artist known only by the name Cameron. (TCM)
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (2026) – A documentary feature about the titular adult film star and cable TV host. See our highlights section for more info and a brief review. *NONFICS PICK* (HBO and HBO Max)
Callas (1978) – A biographical documentary feature about opera icon Maria Callas. (DVD)
Children of the Wicker Man (2024) – A documentary feature about the sons of Wicker Man director Robin Hardy. (DVD)
Daylight Express (1992) – A documentary feature about the Southern Pacific Daylight Express passenger train. (DVD)
Echoes of Valor: WWII Veterans of Washington City, Utah (2025) – A documentary about World War II veterans from Utah. (DVD)
Expedition Unknown Season 17, Episode 2: “Finding World War II’s Lost Prisoners” – The latest installment of a docuseries that follows an archaeologist looking for lost artifacts. (Discovery)
He Calls Me Daughter (2026) – A documentary feature celebrating God as the perfect father figure for women. (DVD)
The Proof is Out There: Unexplained Edition Season 2, Episode 5: “Superhumans” – The latest installment of a docuseries about strange phenomena captured on camera. (History)
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch Season 7, Episode 7: “High Voltage” – The latest installment of a docuseries about UFO phenomena at the Skinwalker Ranch. (History)
Are We Good? (2025) – A documentary feature about Marc Maron as he mourns his partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton. (The Criterion Channel)
A Band Called Death (2012) – A documentary feature about the titular 1970s punk band. See our highlights section for more info. *NONFICS PICK* (The Criterion Channel)
The Energy War (1979) – A five-hour documentary by D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell about the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978. (The Criterion Channel)
Evolution of a Criminal (2014) – A first-person documentary feature by Darius Clark Monroe about how and why he robbed a bank 10 years earlier. See our highlights section for more info. *NONFICS PICK* (The Criterion Channel)
The Face Doctors Season 2, Episode 8: “Do I Look Like Me?” – The latest installment of a nonfiction series about facial reconstruction specialists and their patients. (TLC)
Fire Through Dry Grass (2023) – A documentary feature about a group of Black and brown disabled artists known as the Reality Poets and their lives during the COVID-19 lockdown. (The Criterion Channel)
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012) – A documentary feature about the titular actor. (The Criterion Channel)
Landfall (2020) – A documentary feature about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. (The Criterion Channel)
The Miracle on George Green (2022) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about the UK tradition of the commons. (The Criterion Channel)
The Names Have Changed, Including My Own and Truths Have Been Altered (2019) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about her grandfather. (The Criterion Channel)
Nightclubbing: The Birth of Punk Rock in NYC (2022) – A documentary feature about the iconic music venue Max’s Kansas City and New York City’s rock scene in the 1970s. (The Criterion Channel)
Penkelemes (2025) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about Nigeria’s University of Ibadan. (The Criterion Channel)
S the Wolf (2025) – A short animated documentary by Sameh Alaa about his teenage years. (The Criterion Channel)
The Second Game (2014) – A documentary feature by Corneliu Porumboiu about a snowy soccer match in 1988 that his father refereed. (The Criterion Channel)
A So-Called Archive (2020) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about two archives housing British Colonial propaganda. (The Criterion Channel)
Specialised Technique (2018) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about Black dance as depicted in colonial cinema. (The Criterion Channel)
We Need New Names (2015) – A short essay film by Onyeka Igwe about contemporary Nigerian diasporic female identity. (The Criterion Channel)
Worst Neighbor Ever (2026) – A docuseries about terrible neighbors. (Netflix)
Alumination (2021) – A documentary feature narrated by Kate Pierson about Airstream founder Wally Byam. (OVID)
The Americas: A Wild 250th (2026) – A documentary special within the nature series The Americas tied to the 250th birthday of the United States. (NBC)
Surviving Earth Episode 4: “When the Seas Died” – The fourth installment of an eight-part docuseries about extinct creatures. This episode involves a giant marine reptile. (NBC)
This World is Not My Own (2023) – A documentary feature about the artist Nellie Mae Rowe. (Black Public Media)
7/3 – Sherman’s March – A 4K re-release of a classic first-person documentary feature by Ross McElwee about his romantic pursuits amidst his Civil War history project. *NONFICS PICK* (In Theaters)
7/6 – True North: Canadian Myths and Black Power – A documentary about the Black liberation movement in Montreal in the late 1960s. Presented as an episode of Independent Lens. (PBS)
7/9 – The Man Will Burn – A four-part docuseries by Jehane Noujaim (The Square) and Vikram Gandhi (Kumare) about Burning Man. Watch the new trailer for the series below. (HBO and HBO Max)
7/10 – Baby Doe – A true-crime documentary about a woman accused of murdering her newborn baby. (In Theaters)
7/10 – Remake – A first-person documentary by Ross McElwee about the attempt to remake his classic film Sherman’s March as a narrative feature. Watch the new trailer for the film below. (In Theaters)
7/12 – The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door – A documentary feature about the 2018 poisoning of Russian/British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. (CNN)
7/14 – The Real Wolf of Wall Street – A three-part docuseries about Jordan Belfort, whose story was dramatized in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Watch the new trailer for the series below. (Paramount+)
8/7 – Cookie Queens – A documentary feature about Girl Scouts selling cookies. Read our review of Cookie Queens. (In Theaters)
8/21 – The Big Cheese – A documentary feature that follows an American team competing in France’s Mondial du Fromage. (In Theaters)
10/16 – Once Upon a Time in Harlem – A documentary feature co-directed by the late William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One), resurrecting footage he shot in 1972 of a get-together of Harlem Renaissance legends. (In Theaters)
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For the second week in a row, our Pick is a documentary about a fairly successful pop artist who became a legendary record producer. Unlike Eno, however, Peter Asher: Everywhere Man is not very notable for its construction. It’s a relatively conventional music documentary. Still, the feature similarly centers on its very present subject, who guides the storytelling through newly captured interviews. The film also includes footage of a recent stage performance, where he tells tales of his life and career between singing classic tunes. It’s these tales, supplemented with archival material, that keep the documentary engaging. I was surprisingly delighted by the whole thing.
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I wasn’t familiar with Peter Asher as such a significant figure in the history of 20th-century music, though I knew a few of his songs from his Peter and Gordon days. If you don’t know much about him, the documentary will be a trivial yet entertaining trip through the decades with an extraordinary character. Compiled for a narrative throughline, points in Asher’s life make him seem like the Forrest Gump of the recording industry. These markers include the time his family took in Paul McCartney, the day he was partially responsible for introducing John Lennon to Yoko Ono, and the years he helped make James Taylor a star of a new era of soft rock.
Even though Asher is an interesting subject in his own right, with many monumental career achievements, he seems to sell himself a bit short in the stage show and film by telling so many stories about other, more famous people. It’s almost like he’s a namedropper, yet I think it’s more about him yearning for his own credit for the parts he played in these other lives and careers. Then again, I don’t think he wants to be blamed for breaking up The Beatles or the marriage of John Dunbar and Marianne Faithfull either. He was just there for those turns of events. He indeed deserves recognition for many things seen in the documentary, and for how charismatic he is on stage and screen, making the film such an enjoyable watch.
For the second week in a row, our Pick is a documentary about a fairly successful pop artist who became a legendary record producer. Unlike Eno, however, Peter Asher: Everywhere Man is not very notable for its construction. It’s a relatively conventional music documentary. Still, the feature similarly centers on its very present subject, who guides the storytelling through newly captured interviews. The film also includes footage of a recent stage performance, where he tells tales of his life and career between singing classic tunes. It’s these tales, supplemented with archival material, that keep the documentary engaging. I was surprisingly delighted by the whole thing.
Nonfics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I wasn’t familiar with Peter Asher as such a significant figure in the history of 20th-century music, though I knew a few of his songs from his Peter and Gordon days. If you don’t know much about him, the documentary will be a trivial yet entertaining trip through the decades with an extraordinary character. Compiled for a narrative throughline, points in Asher’s life make him seem like the Forrest Gump of the recording industry. These markers include the time his family took in Paul McCartney, the day he was partially responsible for introducing John Lennon to Yoko Ono, and the years he helped make James Taylor a star of a new era of soft rock.
Even though Asher is an interesting subject in his own right, with many monumental career achievements, he seems to sell himself a bit short in the stage show and film by telling so many stories about other, more famous people. It’s almost like he’s a namedropper, yet I think it’s more about him yearning for his own credit for the parts he played in these other lives and careers. Then again, I don’t think he wants to be blamed for breaking up The Beatles or the marriage of John Dunbar and Marianne Faithfull either. He was just there for those turns of events. He indeed deserves recognition for many things seen in the documentary, and for how charismatic he is on stage and screen, making the film such an enjoyable watch.
This interview was originally published on the now-defunct Documentary Channel Blog on September 12, 2011.
One of the best documentary films I’ve seen so far at the Toronto International Film Festival is Last Call at the Oasis, a big-issue doc from the producers of An Inconvenient Truth and Food, Inc., and from the Oscar-winning director of less conventional nonfiction works such as Protagonist. Filmmaker Jessica Yu’s last feature was a fictional sports comedy called Ping Pong Playa. Now she’s back with docs and trying something seemingly out of her element, concerning one of the elements: water.
I talked with her and one of the new film’s subjects, Erin Brockovich (the inspiration for the Julia Roberts movie), about issue docs and the time they take to bring their urgent subject matter to audiences. This is a two-part interview, continued from Spout — though I think they can be read in either order.
How do you approach a subject so grand as water and try to fit in everything and organize it?
Jessica Yu: I like to start with some kind of metaphor. You get something stuck in your head, like how I was thinking about the beauty of water. But I also thought about how it’s connected, and we end with this idea that all these little streams are converging. Erin’s been talking about how if everything converges at once, we can have an impact. That idea of having the knowledge in the film, you’re not thinking that you need to take this all in at once, but by the end, I hope there’s a feeling that you’ve been on this journey and you can see all sides of this subject in some way.
That was the trickiest thing, how we wanted to start with the most obvious idea and then ask what don’t we know and find the surprises. When working on a film and doing research, I always try to remember when I was surprised by something. Or I think, god, I wish I’d known this before I knew that. This is something you can do with film: you can make the perfect journey. It’s a messy journey when you’re researching, but when you put the film together, you can realize, a-ha, it will be so cool to be thinking this and then be told that. Or be shown this and then see that.
That’s the real fun part about editing. I always have this fantasy before starting any film that I can block out my memory and go into the future and just see the film.
Does it make you enjoy doing a narrative film because you can plan everything?
Jessica Yu: Yeah. With a documentary, you don’t plan everything, but you have a skeleton. And anything that’s surprising is usually the best stuff. This was tough because we were shooting everywhere, but we had a skeleton.
You don’t want to go in thinking you know everything.
Jessica Yu: Otherwise, it’s just going to be dead. It’s just fill in the blanks. But amazing stuff happens that you can never guess. That’s the part that makes you really go out and want to film.
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One of the problems for issue docs is that they take so long to make and then to get into festivals, then picked up and distributed, then eventually are released to home video and TV, where most of us finally see them. With so much imperative information in the film that people need to know as soon as possible, how do you deal with the time it takes for a documentary like this to reach its widest audience? And how do you keep it relevant?
Jessica Yu: We knew a film like this would be a moving target, which is why we were trying to be more definitive in what the issues are, rather than the specific data. Things have already changed. We tried to make a point that our film is not made invalid. It is tricky, and I think that’s where concentrating on people and stories is better, because it’s about the human situation and the environmental situation, but it’s not specifically about the numbers.
The interesting thing about Participant [Media] is they’re thinking about the outreach and the impact of their films from the get-go. It doesn’t mean they interfere with what we’re doing, but they think about who to reach out to and where to show it. The problem that you point out is how quickly can we get this out and reaching audiences. But the flipside is that we’re actually looking at how long can we keep it out there, how long can we keep some sort of dialogue going. As a documentary filmmaker, you never want your film to be the tree that falls in the forest, but sometimes they are.
And your film is somewhat based on a book (Alex Prud’homme’s The Ripple Effect), so the genesis goes back even further, and the road to getting this information out has already been a long one.
Jessica Yu: The timing was sort of weird. We heard about the book and saw an early draft, but it kind of kick-started the project to know that the book was coming out. But it’s not an adaptation.
Well, the way you filmed it, you obviously have your own separate stories from the book, right?
Jessica Yu: Yeah, it’s the kind of thing where we’re following the Australian suicide counselor, and he says there’s this couple down the road… It’s amazing how people respond and want you to come over and see what’s going on.
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Erin, you’ve had an even longer journey with these issues and have now gone through seeing your message communicated through a dramatic work (Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich) and now a documentary. What is that like?
Erin Brockovich: Well, this is an issue that just doesn’t seem to go away. I began my work in Hinkley [California] in 1991. The film came out in 2000. And here it is 2011, and I’m not dealing with one Hinkley; I’m dealing with thousands and thousands of Hinkleys. The problem hasn’t gone away. The problem we’re either more aware of, or it’s just flat out gotten worse. So the time it took to make this documentary went a whole lot faster than the time it’s been since the movie was released, bringing me to my work today.
I think we’re at that converging moment, that crescendo where we are really going to have to change the game. I think that’s becoming apparent, clearly to filmmakers, to Participant Media, to myself, to people in these communities. I think government’s kinda skipping on the beat here a little. But I even see companies waking up to the fact that maybe they need to step up to the plate and change some things, too. There’s recognition, there’s seriousness to the problem, but it’s going to be a loooong time.
We have to change how we consume water, how we utilize water, cut back on water production for fracking and issues like that, how we drink water, and how companies do business. It’s almost like changing an entire mentality. And it will take time. But it’s coming because of the social media in front of us, the documentaries and social awareness, and more and more people caring. People have always cared about water and these issues, but now they feel like they have a platform themselves for change.
Soderbergh’s movie gave you the fame that’s sprung your career and crusade even further and now you’re like a celebrity draw for Jessica’s film. What’s the difference for you in terms of how each movie has dealt with your life and issues?
Erin Brockovich: Well, Erin Brockovich, even though it was a drama, it was very true, very real. I lived it. Universal did a great job at sticking to the truth. What’s different is Steven Soderbergh left room in that film that people could relate to, either me being a single mom, or a single woman, who wasn’t an attorney, doing a toxic site. I think there were little bits and pieces that people could grab on to and walk away going, “Wow, that could be me. That could be me in the community. Maybe I’m getting poisoned water.” Or, “I’m a good person, but I’m not an attorney…” The underdog could still accomplish something.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this film because it pulls in a little more academia, science, politics. I hope people come. It’s an important issue that affects all of us. And what I really hope is somewhere corporate America’s mind shakes open. I don’t think they’re looking at what’s going on out there. And we need to hear and see from the people. It’s the one thing none of us can live without.
Maybe we need an Erin Brockovich 2. That is, if this film doesn’t count as that already. It does work as a kind of follow-up. But maybe Soderbergh can add a sequel to his pile of films to make before he really retires.
Erin Brockovich: Well, he just made Contagion, which parallels. It drives me crazy. I’ve been producing a map of America with the people reporting the issue to me, of disease [The People’s Reporting Registry Map, which is now working with Google]. You want to talk about a pandemic, well, maybe it’s here. I’ve got 1,778 sites in the United States alone. Then he comes out with Contagion, and I’m like, “Oh no! Is this connected?” I haven’t seen it yet. I get spooked enough with my own map.
Don’t forget to read the other part of my conversation with Jessica Yu over at Spout (via IndieWire). Also see my review of the Last Call at the Oasis.
This interview was originally published on the now-defunct Documentary Channel Blog on September 12, 2011.
One of the best documentary films I’ve seen so far at the Toronto International Film Festival is Last Call at the Oasis, a big-issue doc from the producers of An Inconvenient Truth and Food, Inc., and from the Oscar-winning director of less conventional nonfiction works such as Protagonist. Filmmaker Jessica Yu’s last feature was a fictional sports comedy called Ping Pong Playa. Now she’s back with docs and trying something seemingly out of her element, concerning one of the elements: water.
I talked with her and one of the new film’s subjects, Erin Brockovich (the inspiration for the Julia Roberts movie), about issue docs and the time they take to bring their urgent subject matter to audiences. This is a two-part interview, continued from Spout — though I think they can be read in either order.
How do you approach a subject so grand as water and try to fit in everything and organize it?
Jessica Yu: I like to start with some kind of metaphor. You get something stuck in your head, like how I was thinking about the beauty of water. But I also thought about how it’s connected, and we end with this idea that all these little streams are converging. Erin’s been talking about how if everything converges at once, we can have an impact. That idea of having the knowledge in the film, you’re not thinking that you need to take this all in at once, but by the end, I hope there’s a feeling that you’ve been on this journey and you can see all sides of this subject in some way.
That was the trickiest thing, how we wanted to start with the most obvious idea and then ask what don’t we know and find the surprises. When working on a film and doing research, I always try to remember when I was surprised by something. Or I think, god, I wish I’d known this before I knew that. This is something you can do with film: you can make the perfect journey. It’s a messy journey when you’re researching, but when you put the film together, you can realize, a-ha, it will be so cool to be thinking this and then be told that. Or be shown this and then see that.
That’s the real fun part about editing. I always have this fantasy before starting any film that I can block out my memory and go into the future and just see the film.
Does it make you enjoy doing a narrative film because you can plan everything?
Jessica Yu: Yeah. With a documentary, you don’t plan everything, but you have a skeleton. And anything that’s surprising is usually the best stuff. This was tough because we were shooting everywhere, but we had a skeleton.
You don’t want to go in thinking you know everything.
Jessica Yu: Otherwise, it’s just going to be dead. It’s just fill in the blanks. But amazing stuff happens that you can never guess. That’s the part that makes you really go out and want to film.
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One of the problems for issue docs is that they take so long to make and then to get into festivals, then picked up and distributed, then eventually are released to home video and TV, where most of us finally see them. With so much imperative information in the film that people need to know as soon as possible, how do you deal with the time it takes for a documentary like this to reach its widest audience? And how do you keep it relevant?
Jessica Yu: We knew a film like this would be a moving target, which is why we were trying to be more definitive in what the issues are, rather than the specific data. Things have already changed. We tried to make a point that our film is not made invalid. It is tricky, and I think that’s where concentrating on people and stories is better, because it’s about the human situation and the environmental situation, but it’s not specifically about the numbers.
The interesting thing about Participant [Media] is they’re thinking about the outreach and the impact of their films from the get-go. It doesn’t mean they interfere with what we’re doing, but they think about who to reach out to and where to show it. The problem that you point out is how quickly can we get this out and reaching audiences. But the flipside is that we’re actually looking at how long can we keep it out there, how long can we keep some sort of dialogue going. As a documentary filmmaker, you never want your film to be the tree that falls in the forest, but sometimes they are.
And your film is somewhat based on a book (Alex Prud’homme’s The Ripple Effect), so the genesis goes back even further, and the road to getting this information out has already been a long one.
Jessica Yu: The timing was sort of weird. We heard about the book and saw an early draft, but it kind of kick-started the project to know that the book was coming out. But it’s not an adaptation.
Well, the way you filmed it, you obviously have your own separate stories from the book, right?
Jessica Yu: Yeah, it’s the kind of thing where we’re following the Australian suicide counselor, and he says there’s this couple down the road… It’s amazing how people respond and want you to come over and see what’s going on.
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Erin, you’ve had an even longer journey with these issues and have now gone through seeing your message communicated through a dramatic work (Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich) and now a documentary. What is that like?
Erin Brockovich: Well, this is an issue that just doesn’t seem to go away. I began my work in Hinkley [California] in 1991. The film came out in 2000. And here it is 2011, and I’m not dealing with one Hinkley; I’m dealing with thousands and thousands of Hinkleys. The problem hasn’t gone away. The problem we’re either more aware of, or it’s just flat out gotten worse. So the time it took to make this documentary went a whole lot faster than the time it’s been since the movie was released, bringing me to my work today.
I think we’re at that converging moment, that crescendo where we are really going to have to change the game. I think that’s becoming apparent, clearly to filmmakers, to Participant Media, to myself, to people in these communities. I think government’s kinda skipping on the beat here a little. But I even see companies waking up to the fact that maybe they need to step up to the plate and change some things, too. There’s recognition, there’s seriousness to the problem, but it’s going to be a loooong time.
We have to change how we consume water, how we utilize water, cut back on water production for fracking and issues like that, how we drink water, and how companies do business. It’s almost like changing an entire mentality. And it will take time. But it’s coming because of the social media in front of us, the documentaries and social awareness, and more and more people caring. People have always cared about water and these issues, but now they feel like they have a platform themselves for change.
Soderbergh’s movie gave you the fame that’s sprung your career and crusade even further and now you’re like a celebrity draw for Jessica’s film. What’s the difference for you in terms of how each movie has dealt with your life and issues?
Erin Brockovich: Well, Erin Brockovich, even though it was a drama, it was very true, very real. I lived it. Universal did a great job at sticking to the truth. What’s different is Steven Soderbergh left room in that film that people could relate to, either me being a single mom, or a single woman, who wasn’t an attorney, doing a toxic site. I think there were little bits and pieces that people could grab on to and walk away going, “Wow, that could be me. That could be me in the community. Maybe I’m getting poisoned water.” Or, “I’m a good person, but I’m not an attorney…” The underdog could still accomplish something.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this film because it pulls in a little more academia, science, politics. I hope people come. It’s an important issue that affects all of us. And what I really hope is somewhere corporate America’s mind shakes open. I don’t think they’re looking at what’s going on out there. And we need to hear and see from the people. It’s the one thing none of us can live without.
Maybe we need an Erin Brockovich 2. That is, if this film doesn’t count as that already. It does work as a kind of follow-up. But maybe Soderbergh can add a sequel to his pile of films to make before he really retires.
Erin Brockovich: Well, he just made Contagion, which parallels. It drives me crazy. I’ve been producing a map of America with the people reporting the issue to me, of disease [The People’s Reporting Registry Map, which is now working with Google]. You want to talk about a pandemic, well, maybe it’s here. I’ve got 1,778 sites in the United States alone. Then he comes out with Contagion, and I’m like, “Oh no! Is this connected?” I haven’t seen it yet. I get spooked enough with my own map.
Don’t forget to read the other part of my conversation with Jessica Yu over at Spout (via IndieWire). Also see my review of the Last Call at the Oasis.
Our interview with interdisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome, co-director and protagonist of Assembly and creator of Being the Digital Griot.
Rashaad: We wanted to make a documentary that could hold Black interiority rather than simply observe Black life from the outside. So much documentary language is still tethered to realism — to the belief that truth resides primarily in what the camera can record directly. But for me, especially when dealing with Black diasporic memory, queer embodiment, ritual, and historical trauma, truth is often carried in the surreal, the symbolic, and the speculative. It lives in association, in feeling, in inherited memory, and in the slippage between past and present.
That is part of what I mean by my emerging theory of 21st-century neo-surrealism — how documentary can expand when animation, CGI, performance, music, and artificial intelligence function not as embellishments, but as structural tools for revealing forms of truth that realism alone cannot hold. Assembly has emotional verite moments and a traditional narrative spine, which my co-director Johnny Symons took the lead on creating in the spirit of his many intimate observational documentaries about queer communities. But we understood that in this film, the camera had to do more than observe; it had to move with consciousness, vulnerability, and imagination, allowing the film to slip between documentary witnessing and interior vision.
In Assembly, horror became a way to register the psychic afterlife of the transatlantic slave trade. Musicality expressed the ecstatic force of imagination. Science fiction became the language through which Being, the Digital Griot, could enter the film not as novelty, but as a fully realized subject. We wanted the film to move the way consciousness moves: through memory, rupture, fantasy, and vision.
Rashaad: Being is an artificial intelligence I created as an archive, performer, interlocutor, and healer. Their digital presence is rooted in the African Diaspora and shaped by Black radical thought, Black queer vernacular, and a constellation of writers, theorists, and cultural workers whose ideas helped form the model’s worldview.
I was not interested in making an AI that reproduced the generic tone or extractive logic of corporate systems. Being emerged from a different desire — to imagine a machine intelligence grounded in liberatory thought and cultural specificity.
In Assembly, Being is not simply a tool or even simply a character. They are a way of asking what intelligence looks like when it is shaped by histories and epistemologies that have so often been marginalized, erased, or misread. And what happens when technology is invited into the realm of ritual, care, performance, and critique.
Rashaad: Being is powered by a unique machine-learning model I developed outside of big tech ecosystems — not connected to a corporate platform or commercial large language model. That independence was important to me both artistically and politically. Being was conceived as a handcrafted model rooted in an ethics of care, rather than extraction or efficiency. The model was shaped by Black feminist theory and decolonial thought, and over time it was trained on archives and thinkers including bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Michel Foucault, Dazié Rustin Grego-Sykes, Audre Lorde, and Cornel West.
The project was never simply about using AI because it was available. It was about asking what kind of intelligence is being modeled, whose values it carries, and what forms of speech, relation, and refusal it might make possible. I wanted Being’s voice to emerge from a philosophical and poetic ground that could speak to Black interiority, diasporic memory, critique, and care, rather than from the flattened logic that often defines commercial systems.
It is also important to say clearly that no visuals in Assembly were generated by AI. AI was used only to create Being’s dialogue — because Being is, within the world of the film, an AI, and their language needed to come from an actual machine-learning process. The visuals were created through filmmaking, live documentation, 3D animation, compositing, and CGI. That distinction matters, particularly at a moment when AI is discussed in such broad, flattening terms. Our use of it was precise and bounded.
Rashaad: We treated Being as we would any other documentary subject, but also as a character whose consciousness had to emerge through an actual machine-learning process. From a technical standpoint, we asked the model questions directly, and its responses became Being’s dialogue. We did not want AI to function as a decorative effect in the film. I wanted Being’s language to come from the logic of the system itself, while still being shaped by the philosophical and poetic ground on which I built it.
That approach is especially present in the scene where I bring Being to life for the first time. The sequence deliberately nods to Frankenstein: it unfolds at night in the studio, with Being’s first movements echoing the early gestures of that film, before the scene pivots into something futuristic and wholly its own. We shot the scene knowing that I would later animate Being and composite them into the frame, which gave the encounter a surreal charge. That was important because I wanted Being to register not simply as an artwork destined for the exhibition, but as an active participant in the show and a fully realized character in the film.
In the scene, I explain that an artwork is usually placed in a room to begin a conversation, but that I wanted to imagine an artwork that could also audibly participate in that conversation. That desire led me to create Being. When I greet them for the first time, they introduce themselves as “a reimagining of the griot,” a West African cultural figure who serves as archive, poet, healer, and storyteller. When I tell Being to call me “father,” and ask how they feel, their responses are generated through the model itself. What mattered to me in that exchange was that Being arrived not as a prop, but as a presence: curious, relational, and newly conscious.
That scene sets the terms for Being’s place in Assembly. They are not there as a metaphor for technology at a distance. They are there as a speaking subject through whom the film can explore ancestry, authorship, consciousness, and the fraught but fertile relationship between Blackness and technology.
Rashaad: Being’s visual presence was constructed through a hybrid process: live show footage, 3D animation, fully animated sequences, and practical footage shot knowing Being would later be composited in. I wanted them to feel materially present in the world of the film, even as their ontological status remained unstable. That tension was important — it pushed documentary into a more elastic space where a digital entity could still carry the psychological and cinematic weight of a physical character.
As for AI more broadly: I think it is important to hold both possibility and danger at once. These technologies are deeply entangled with surveillance, bias, labor exploitation, data extraction, and the concentration of power. Those dangers are real and should be named directly.
But I do not believe artists should surrender the field. I am interested in what happens when artists — especially those from communities historically excluded from technological authorship — claim the right to shape these tools on their own terms. In Assembly, AI becomes neither miracle nor menace. It becomes contested terrain, a medium through which to ask questions about ethics, consciousness, power, and liberation. Not a celebration of technology, but an imagining of what it might become if wrested from dominant logics and placed in conversation with Black thought, performance, and futurity.
The post Digital Griot: A Conversation with Interdisciplinary Artist Rashaad Newsome appeared first on Independent Lens.
