Top 30 Documentary Hits of 2018

Each day a different year in review topic. Here's Glenn Dunks...

Documentaries had one of their biggest years on record in 2018. In fact, the upper realms of non-fiction at the North American box office started to look like what the foreign-language charts once looked like. There was at least one major cross-over smash, several very impressive eight-figure grossers, a selection of not insignificant titles that did over one-million, and a long list of niche titles that did business anywhere from respectable to disappointing depending on expectations and release size. The year even started strong for docs with 2017 hits Bombshell the Hedy Lamarr Story and Faces/Places continuing to earn tidy sums buoyed by word of mouth and an Oscar nomination respectively.

My column Doc Corner will continue in 2019 so here’s hoping the new year offers just as bountiful a crop. It's been good to see documentaries reaching the mainstream, zeitgeist conversation.

TOP 30 DOCUMENTARIES FOR 2018
Domestic Box Office Grosses Only - Figures as of February 17th, 2019. 🔺 = the film is still in theaters

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Doc Corner From the Short List - 'Won't You Be My Neighbor'

By Glenn Dunks

Now that the 15-wide documentary short list has been announced, we're going to be looking at some of the titles we've missed throughout the year (primarily due to access issues - this particular column is written from Australia) in the lead up to our top ten documentary list and more Oscar talk in the new year. Up first, the crowned champion of 2018's doc class: Won't You Be My Neighbor?.

Morgan Neville’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor? has proven to be one of the hardest films I’ve had to write about all year. It’s not a film that throws up thorny issues that demand one’s full attention or a documentary that challenges the mind. Instead, it’s the documentary that America has embraced to the tune of some $23-million box office and the title of the 12th most successful documentary ever made (!) It’s a film that people have taken to their heart and yet I sat here with my Word documentary open on a blank page for far too long...

What about this movie failed to inspire me in any way good or bad? Is Neville’s film my own personal answer to the long-quipped mystery of “can you ever just be whelmed?” (yes, but it turns out not just in Europe).

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All the Oscar Shortlists

BREAKING: We don't like this new system of announcing ALL the finalist lists (in the categories that get finalist lists, that is) on the same day as it doesn't give you time to individually think about each list and write multiple thorough articles. So we'll have to investigate more deeply over the next few days. But for those who are okay with just the quick take list format you can see the lists and a few gut reactions right after the jump. Every Oscar chart will be updated tomorrow to reflect the past week of awards season madness and these lists.

But without further ado, the finalist lists before the nominations are announced on January 22nd... 

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Doc Corner: The Thrilling 'United Skates'

By Glenn Dunks

Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown’s utterly divine United Skates begins with a tangle of bodies that zig, zag and spin across a roller rink floor in choreographed fashion. Close-ups of sweat-damp skin and excited faces. Neon signs, fluorescent clothes and a thumping beat. In just these brief opening moments before the title crashes on screen, I was hypnotised by the way the camera was capturing these people and embedding itself on the floor, swooping and swinging with as much vigour as the people its watching. The way it captures their passion, their movement and, without even saying a word, their unbridled joy and the memories of days gone by.

It’s my favourite opening of the year; nothing has quite approached the very simple act of hooking me so immediately and in such a way that I bolted upright, eager to see where I was going to be taken. Luckily, United Skates isn’t just about the roller skates and the booty shorts and the basslines. It’s about so much more, smartly using a nostalgic touchstone of African American culture as a means to dissect contemporary issues around race.

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Doc Corner: The Thrilling Failure of 'Shirkers'

By Glenn Dunks

Apologies once again for the recent absense, but working 12-to-15-hour days in an office somewhat curb one's ability to sit down and write reviews. However, we're returning to regularly scheduled programming with one of the best documentaries of the year.

Documentaries about moviemaking aren’t uncommon. We see several released each year, usually offering creative insight and historical context to works of art both great and terrible – and in the case of those like American Movie even surpassing the reputation of the movie they’re about. Documentaries about failed movies are less common, although no less fascinating and often allow their subject to attain something of a mythical status. The latest addition to this sub-genre of non-fiction is Sandi Tan’s Shirkers, a thrillingly assembled combination of cinematic mystery, sombre tribute, and aching paean to lost potential.

“Shirkers” is not only the name of the documentary, but also the name of the film that Tan made in 1992 with her friends Jasmine Ng, Sophia Siddique and the mysterious older man named George Cardona. The original Shirkers was to be the first Singaporean film directed by a woman and was a radical change from the sort of film that the island nation was typically known for like 1972’s They Call Her Cleopatra Wong.

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