Doc Corner: The 25 Best Documentaries of 2021 (and where to see them)

By Glenn Dunks

Dear readers, I watch a lot of movies. Then again, what else was I supposed to do throughout yet another pandemic year with city-wide lockdowns and curfews? Which is why it was no real struggle at all to think of enough titles to make this list of the 25 best documentaries of 2021. Nor why I do not consider it the least bit excessive. Movies are great, so let's celebrate them! Each of the films listed are deserving of your eyes, although often for very different reasons—I hope my pseudo-weekly reviews and below captions help explain why.

It was a strong year for films about artists and art more broadly. Nearly half the films on the list below are related to film, music, painting, dance and/or the people to make them. Queer themed docs were also prevalent. The longest film here is 194 minutes. The shortest is 61. There is almost a 50/50 between male and female directors across 25 films that travel the globe from sex doll factories in China to political campaigns in Zimbabwe, a jail cell in Guantanamo Bay and the streets of Harlem...

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Doc Corner: 'Wojnarowicz: F*** You F*ggot F**ker'

by Glenn Dunks

I briefly mentioned Chris McKim’s artist bio-doc Wojnarowicz: F*** You F*ggot F**ker (their grammar, not mine) earlier this year as one of the best unreleased documentaries that I saw in 2020. Voila, here we are, and this incredibly vibrant film is now out in the world. Big, boldly stylized and defiantly queer; it’s a documentary about an artist that, for once, feels truly in sync with its subject’s style. “I’m not gay as in ‘I love you’, I’m queer as in fuck off!” If it was one of last year’s best unreleased films, so now it is one of this year’s best films. I love it.

And perhaps part of what makes McKim’s film so interesting from the very start is that David Wojnarowicz is not an artist whose work and life has been excessively covered in film. (Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as brilliant as they were, could probably stand to sit the next few years out if you know what I mean)

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