Year in Review: 50 Biggest Documentary Hits

Our year in review party begins. A different list each day. Here's Glenn Dunks...

The documentary box office of 2018 was always going to be hard to beat - impossible, even. Last year we had five documentaries reach totals greater than $10mil. This year, unfortunately, we had none, although one of those five, Peter Jackson's colorized war doc They Shall Not Grow Old made the bulk of its money in the new year so there's that, as did Oscar winner Free Solo.

 Nevertheless, the realm of non-fiction more or less thrived in cinemas across America. Where indie flicks with big names faultered, sputtered and got chewed up by the markets divergance towards streaming, documentaries continued to post solid numbers for their boutique distributors. The clear winner for 2019 was Apollo 11, which capitalized on the 50th anniversary of man's first walk on the moon as well as being marketed as an event movie in IMAX. It missed an Oscar nomination, but as last year's snubs for Won't You Be My Neighbour and Three Identical Strangers suggest, box office doesn't always make that a done deal.

Still, we are here to talk box office so let's look at the list. 

TOP 50 GROSSING DOCUMENTARIES FOR 2019
Domestic Box Office Totals Only - Figures as of March 12th, 2020
RANK | TITLE | (DISTRIBUTOR, RELEASE DATE) | DOMESTIC GROSS

01 Apollo 11 (Neon, March 1st) $9.0  [REVIEW] 

02 Penguins (Disney, April 17th) $7.6...

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LAST CALL - Do you want a copy of "The Art of Missing Link"?

by Nathaniel R

When Missing Link suffered an ignoble fate at the box office this past spring we worried a bit about its Oscar chances. Not too much mind you, since it's still a welcome visual respite from the all sequels / all CGI world of the major studios. So naturally we've been delighted to share our interview with the director and to see the movie blossom again during precursor season with nominations and citations left and right as it aims for a Best Animated Feature nomination (as well it should).

To celebrate, A CONTEST! Laika has gifted us with some copies of "The Art of Missing Link" and we're passing them out to those lucky souls among you who win. To enter email us with the following...

1. SUBJECT LINE: "Missing Link" 
2. BODY: Your own very short "Dear Sir" letter telling us anything you want to about why you love Laika or Missing Link or coffee table books or anything really.  
3. FROM: Don't forget to include your name and mailing address so we can send you the book if you win! 

Enter by tomorrow morning - actually do it now. Winners will be announced very soon.

50th Anniversary: "Anne of the Thousand Days"

Anne of a Thousand Days (1969) was released 50 years ago today.

by Cláudio Alves

Even before her famous death, Anne Boleyn had become a legend. I don't say this to aggrandize the historical figure, but to explain that the second wife of Henry VIII had transformed into something not quite human. Legends aren't people so much as abstractions of them, told and retold, morphed by cultural shifts and the interest of those who tell them. 

With the birth of cinema, Anne Boleyn would come to be one of the stalwarts of the historical drama on the big screen. Unfortunately, the cycles of empty mythologizing wouldn't end with the advent of new technology. As a character, Anne Boleyn is more often than not a symbol. She's a monstrous harpy or she's a martyred victim, she's a seductress who brought disgrace upon herself or she's an icon who died at the hands of a perfidious tyrant. Even on the rare instance when she gets to be protagonist, rather than a supporting player in another's tale, she's not allowed to be a person with a full characterization. For what it's worth, 1969's Anne of the Thousand Days, at least, tries to do right by Anne Boleyn.

I'm unsure if this is the filmmaker's doing or the singular feat of Geneviève Bujold...

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Soundtracking: The 2019 Oscar Original Song Bake-Off

by Chris Feil

One of the biggest headlines among the Monday release of Oscar's shortlists among nine categories was a popstar omission from the season's splashiest musical. Yes, it turns out Taylor Swift will have to wait to lift up to Oscar's Heaviside Layer as "Beautiful Ghosts" (the original track she cowrote with Andrew Lloyd Webber from Cats) was left off the list of songs that will advance towards hopeful nominations. But perhaps "Ghosts" is a strong reminder that these days doesn't clear the runway for popstars or new songs for preexisting musicals as easily as we might expect.

But among the lineup of hopefuls are films huge and small, expected names and a few genuine surprises - and it may be a more competitive field than originally expected. Let's run down the fifteen songs that did make the lineup and their chances at a nomination...

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Renee Zellweger Will Be A Worthy Oscar Winner

by Murtada Elfadl

When a performance becomes an undeniable front runner for awards, sometimes the chatter becomes all about that and we lose a sense of why it became a juggernaut in the first place. January promises to be full of trips to podiums at awards shows for Renee Zellweger as Judy. However before we start analyzing the speeches, let’s take a look back at the the performance itself. A merging of three aspects, Zellweger’s performance is deserving of accolades...

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