Posterized: Best Documentary Winners of the Past 30 Years
Friday, October 24, 2014 at 7:12PM 
THE TIME OF HARVEY MILK (1984), a true classic. Have you seen it?
If there's anything that makes me feel unsophisticated when it comes to the cinema it's my general relationship to documentaries. Like your average movie consumer (non cinephile division) I only see them if the subject matter interests me. If there were a narrative equation wouldn't that be "i'll only see this or that genre"? And ewww, that's not the way to be. Variety is always best when consuming art. Man cannot live by multi-quandrant blockbusters OR art films alone.
Over the years as The Film Experience has expanded we've given more space to documentaries largely because Glenn & Amir are obsessed with them. So for today's Posterized, a special edition surveying the last 30 years of the Best Documentary Feature category. I went back that far because The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) is basically one of my favorite things that I've ever seen in my life and I wanted to know if YOU have seen it. I enjoyed Milk (2008) a lot when it came out but it was very deja vu since so much of it was in this great film.
Anyway, I'm taking an informal survey to gauge your interest in this type of movie (and it's adjacent Oscar category) in the comments so do tell. How many of these Oscar winners have you seen? There's actually 31 of them in the past 30 years since there was one tie. I have only seen 10 which I am embarrassed to admit as an Oscar pundit but there it is. I am not a total completist each year. Most of these films are available on DVD still though sadly not many are streaming.
1985 Broken Rainbow (Floria & Mudd)
1986 [TIE] •Artie Shaw: Time is All You've Got (Berman)
Down and Out in America (Grant)
1987• The Ten-Year Lunch (Slesin)
1988* Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (Ophüls)
1989 Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (Epstein & Couturié) - RECENTLY DISCUSSED HERE
1990 American Dream (Kopple & Cohn)
1991• In the Shadow of the Stars (Light & Saraf)
1992 The Panama Deception (Trent & Kasper)
1993 I Am a Promise (Raymond & Raymond)
1994• Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (Mock)
1995* Anne Frank Remembered (Blair)
1996 When We Were Kings
1997* The Long Way Home
1998* The Last Days
1999 One Day in September (Cohn & Macdonald)
2000* Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of Kindertransport (Harris & Oppenheimer)
2001 Murder on a Sunday Morning (de Lestrade & Poncet)
2002 Bowling for Columbine (Moore)
2003 The Fog of War (Morris & Williams)
2004 Born Into Brothels (Kauffman & Briski)
2005 March of the Penguins (Jacquet & Darondeau)
2006 An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim)
2007 Taxi to the Dark Side (Gibney & Orner)
2008 Man on Wire (Chinn & Marsh) Netflix Instant Watch
2009 The Cove (Psihoyos & Stevens)
2010 Inside Job (Ferguson & Marrs)
2011 Undefeated (Martin, Lindsay, Middlemas) Netflix Instant Watch
2012• Searching for Sugar Man (Bendjelloul & Chinn)
2013• 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, Friesen & Rogers) Netflix Instant Watch
* I asterisked the films about World War II so you could see why Oscar got that reputation (which isn't true but seems true) that they'll go for anything WW II or Holocaust related.
• I dotted the docs about The Arts because it's another semi-common thread.
What can we glean from all of this? Perhaps those of you with a better grasp on the art of documentaries can tell us but it does appear that the shifts in the rules, branch, and committee voting over the years have helped with the variety. As with Foreign Film this particular branch/committee was often under attack for ignoring breakout hits or critically lauded standouts in given years. It is hard to look at this list now (especially if you include the nominees) and notice that instant and enduring classics like Grizzly Man, Hoop Dreams, and Paris is Burning are all missing, you know?
Reader Comments (24)
Shamefully, only 9.
15
I saw Harvey Milk at a special screening with Mr. Epstein in attendance. At the end I shook hands with him. I felt incredibly honored.
I've seen 16. My interest in this particular category has grown over the years and now I try to watch all five nominees. I guess it has to do with the variety of subjects and the quality of most them. I mean, I couldn't care less about American football, but by the end of Undefeteable I was sobbing like a baby.
After Hoop Dreams and the ensuing controversy (and embarrassing much needed changes to how docs are chosen), I have paid more attention, mostly due to the immense improvement in the category. I've seen 13. Almost all of them from the latter part of the draw (Milk is the exception.). I hope best song gets a similar make over after last year's mess.
I've only seen three, and am feeling way more self-conscious about that than a normal person would.
I've seen 14 of these and, embarrassingly, none from before 1999.
Though I've seen Life and Times of Harvey Milk - which I liked, but didn't love.
I've seen eleven, the vast majority from the last decade which is when I started following the Oscars. I find the type of documentaries the Academy goes for is either something topical or something uplifting, which is too bad because a lot of interesting docs (The Act of Killing anyone) fall by the wayside.
I've only seen five sorry to say but I'm not a big documentary watcher. That Artie Shaw one though makes my heart beat a little faster. Now if I can only find it.
With the changes in the category's voting, I imagine that popular documentaries will fair much better. If they can get nominated, they'll surely win over more obscure titles.
I've only seen 6, all from 2005 on. To be honest, I don't feel that bad about it. Some of those early ones seem so... standard. Maybe it's just the posters?
You do not have to consume everything because your passionate about something. I believe the only time human beings need to be open minded is with other human beings. Not so much their personal appreciation of entertainment or informative or provocative art.
My favorite documentaries are those widely available on television. Whether on cable or public broadcasting -- documentaries work best when you see them on the small screen. The only doc I have seen theatrically was Fahrenheit 911. And seeing that theatrically felt like an act of civil disobedience.
For Oscar winning docs. I saw 20 Feet From Stardom. And despite my interest in the subject matter the movie failed for me overall as entertainment and being a source of information. It was a very shallow doc.
I have seen Harvey Milk and 14 of the posterized documentaries. I have also seen quite a few that such as Grizzley Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and other popular titles not listed here. Between HBO, PBS, and catching a few each year in the theatre, I try to keep up with the most prominent releases. I really enjoy the format, and don't look upon it as being lower in quality to fictional films. All films are story telling regardless of the format, a compelling story such as Hoop Dreams or Man on a Wire make for great films, period.
I've seen 8. All from post 2000.
Great idea for a posterized article. Just looking at some of these images has me intrigued to try catching up on these titles. I love documentaries but I've also been shamefully lacking. I've only seen 10 and they are all great.
I've only seen 8, starting with Bowling from Columbine. There are a few listed here that I'd like to see at some point, but I'm not a doc completist by any means, and a lot of the really great, transcendent docs I *have* seen from the last 25 years didn't get within a country mile of a nomination, so I don't feel too bad about this one.
I agree with the aforementioned comment that this was a great posterized. It did bring back anger that 'Inside Job' won though.
Only 15, but cinephelia is a marathon, not a sprint! Or so I like to say to justify my blind spots.
I like this article, which shows how strongly they feel about Vietnam doco's, too. There's a reason I've been predicting LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM since I saw it in Sundance. http://scottfeinberg.com/eleven-vietnam-documentaries-to-garner-best-documentary-oscar-nominations
Apparently I see a lot more of the losing nominees than the winners, since I've only seen 6 of these. Harvey Milk is my favorite of the ones I've seen, with Inside Job second (though I may've voted for Exit Through the Gift Shop that year, myself).
26. And as noted in terms of the documentary Oscars, just as in Best Picture, the winner of Best Documentary, is not always "the best" - either at the time, or in retrospect - the choice being subject to multiple factors, including voting procedures, the concept of "best," and the evolving landscape of non-fiction filmmaking. Doc Oscar winners are not necessarily the best starting point for an investigation into what's notable in documentaries, though there are numerous good and even great ones there.
No worries. I've seen zero of these, as I personally don't have a compelling enough interest in documentary film. I'm sure I "should" check out some of these, but there are so many narrative films I still need to see, and always find I enjoy more anyways. True, I'm sure there's a lot that can be learned by watching educational documentaries, but there's often other ways to learn the same subject material - i.e. keeping up with news, blogs, magazines. Kudos to documentary fans, I'm just not really one of them. Not yet anyways. :)
T-Bone: Hoop Dreams has a narrative story that is terrific and the mother and her arc are wonderful. Start there and then do Milk, another fascinating story.
I've only seen 9 of those 30. Yikes. But I saw the honorable mentions that the Academy foolishly snubbed ("Paris Is Burning," "Hoop Dreams," & "Grizzly Man"). And let's throw some love to some other notable snubs, like "Crumb," "Roger & Me," and "Grey Gardens" (HELLO!!!!).
I am looking for "Artie Shaw: Time is All You've Got". Does anyone know when or where it might be available to view? I know it was caught up in litigation between Berman and Shaw's estate, but isn't that over by now?
I've only seen five. Docs really are not my thing. I recently saw Harvey Milk, and was very moved. I consider myself a movie buff, but sometimes I feel guilty. I only saw Star Wars just last year, and I've never seen Animal House.
I've only seen 7, but I've been seeing a lot more documentaries lately. I think I saw most of the nominated ones last year.
That said, I cannot abide docs that tie my stomach into knots. A lot of docs are built around rage, and that's hard for me to choose to see.