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In an age of fake news there is an appetite for films that get to the truth. We are in a golden age of documentaries, watching more last year than ever before — and streaming services are pouring money into the form. Sheffield Documentary Festival, which opens on June 23, started in 1994 with 42 films. Now it has 135. So where should you start?

We've asked the biggest experts in the field to compile a list of the 50 best (and they weren't allowed to vote for their own work). On the panel are: film-makers Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats), Norma Percy (Trump Takes on the World), Asif Kapadia (Amy), Pratibha Parmar (My Name Is Andrea ), Paul Duane (Welcome to the Dark Ages), and Jeanie Finlay (Seahorse); Raul Niño Zambrano, head of programmes, Sheffield DocFest; Suzy Klein, BBC head of arts; Kate Townsend, vice president of documentary, Netflix; Andrew Male, critic.

How many have you seen and did they get it right? Have your say in the comments below.

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50. Tiger King (2020)

Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin
Netflix
The fantastical world of Joe Exotic is synonymous with the first lockdown — as the world closed in, this was pure escapism. It tells the story of a private, big cat zoo owner jailed for hiring a hitman to kill his animal-rights-activist rival, and branches off in ever stranger directions. It's very much a portrait of Trump's America and what people do when they have nothing to lose. Surreal brushes with friends, business partners, another zoo owner's "harem" of girlfriends and visitors paying for pictures with drugged animals create an epic yarn that's bizarre, compelling, funny, creepy and ultimately very sad.

49. The Earth Is as Blue as an Orange (2020)

Iryna Tsilyk
iPlayer
To cope with their home in Donbas, Ukraine, being attacked by Russians, Anna Trofymchuk and her four daughters decide to make a film about their home life. "I watched this at a film festival staged in a field last summer and afterwards I felt like I'd been punched in the heart — the film has never been more essential viewing," Jeanie Finlay says.

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48. Weiner (2016)

Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg
YouTube/Curzon
Former Congressman and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner gave Josh Kreigman and Elyse Steinberg a rare treat — a comeback story of a plucky politico clawing back his career after a sexting scandal becomes an astonishing car crash as he only goes and does it again while the crew are following him. "It's a brash, jaw-dropping, schadenfreude-seeped unfolding downfall of a politician," Kate Townsend says.

47. Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

Malik Bendjelloul
Amazon
The Detroit-based troubadour Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was presumed dead until, one day in the mid-1990s, two South Africans found him alive, gutting houses, and told him: "Where we're from you've sold more records than Elvis." Malik Bendjelloul's documentary is a heartwarming tale of how one man was a superstar without even knowing it. It is a brilliant tale of a pre-internet age when a singer could have an album as big as Abbey Road or Bridge Over Troubled Water and not even know it.

46. Nostalgia for the Light (2010)

Patricio Guzmán
Amazon
An eerie astronomy adventure that links the stars to Patricio Guzmán's native Chile and the nation's suffering during the Pinochet regime. It is a sweeping essay with breathtaking photography, from the hand of one of Pinochet's victims to a blue sky over orange rock. "I love the unexpected connections he makes in his work and its visceral quality," Kate Townsend says. "This is a great starting point for those who don't know his work."

45. Fourteen Days in May (1987)

Paul Hamann
iPlayer
Paul Hamann's film covering the final fortnight of a young black man on death row is intimate and tender. Edward Earl Johnson is clearly innocent, and we see the grim bureaucracy of industrialised legal death. "I was in my teens when I saw this and Clive Stafford Smith, the UK lawyer who fights for death row inmates in the US, became a hero to me," Asif Kapadia says.

44. The Power of Nightmares (2004)

Adam Curtis
iPlayer
Adam Curtis narrates his sprawling thesis in sardonic BBC tones over archive footage and telling interviews to argue the War on Terror had been exaggerated and distorted because "fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power". He finds parallels between neoconservative ideas and radical Islamism and sees them leaning on each other for survival as they send their young to die. Haunting, powerful and breathtakingly ambitious.

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43. I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

Raoul Peck
Amazon/BFI Player
A short history of racism and civil rights in the US is told through the eyes, and more importantly, the words of James Baldwin, the African-American writer (read by Samuel L Jackson). It is a meticulous study of the 1960s civil rights movement and the continuing struggles of African-Americans.

42. Ways of Seeing (1972)

John Berger
YouTube
BBC2's idiosyncratic documentary has inspired writers, artists, academics and even models through Berger's lacerating assault on the commodification of creativity. Combining enthralling monologues to camera with camera tricks and subversive comparisons, it carried radical ideas about art into the mainstream. "Berger challenges us to be part of the equation, whether we're looking at art or watching TV — our prejudices, tastes and ideas are all part of the equation," Suzy Klein says.

41. The Truffle Hunters (2020)

Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw
iPlayer
This seemingly unassuming film documents the slow, quiet life of a group of ageing Italian men and their faithful dogs who hunt the hills of Piedmont for the rare subterranean fungus much prized in fancy restaurants. Shot like a Vermeer interior, with an emphasis on silence and ritual, it's a visual and sensory joy, capturing a fading, threatened lifestyle and the ruthless monied truffle salesmen who seem happy to hasten its demise.

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40. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)

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Kazuo Hara
BFI Player
This influential film follows the damaged war veteran Kenzo Okuzaki investigating his comrade's death. He interviews old soldiers in a bid to prove the Japanese army resorted to cannibalism. Okuzaki extracts confessions through violence, but the gripping denouement almost justifies his brutality. "The protagonist becomes clearly unhinged during the filming process, but the guilt and anger driving him on is enough to make his quest relatable," Paul Duane says.

39. Leaving Neverland (2019)

Dan Reed
Netflix
Over four gruelling hours, two men share their graphic accounts of the sexual abuse they say was inflicted on them by Michael Jackson. One was a dance prodigy who was five years old when he met the singer and was abused by him two years later. The other was cast in Jackson's 1987 Pepsi commercial and was abused by the artist when he was ten. Dan Reed's documentary is filled with haunting details such as a bell system in Neverland that warned Jackson if anyone was approaching the bedroom. Questions do remain, but none more significant than the status of Jackson's legacy.

38. The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife (1991)

Nick Broomfield
All4
Broomfield tries to secure an interview with Eugene Terre'Blanche, the founder and leader of the far-right Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, in the final days of apartheid and effectively documents the collapse of his party in the face of widespread white indifference — to Terre'Blanche's cartoonish fury. "Nick Broomfield popularised the idea of the guy behind the camera being a character — an absurd agent provocateur," Jon Ronson says.

Angela Davis in Ava DuVernay's 13th

37. 13th (2016)

Ava DuVernay
Netflix
An electrifying race through the ways that the 13th Amendment, which declared slavery illegal except as a punishment for criminality, has been used as a loophole to control and suppress, using footage of everything from DW Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation to Ronald Reagan's declaration of the war on drugs. It's both an infuriating portrait and an inspiring call for change. "Left me enraged but also thankful that this precise and devastating evisceration of the mythology of black criminality exists," Pratibha Parmar says.

36. Dark Days (2000)

Marc Singer
Amazon
Shot in black-and-white, this moving documentary offers a startling insight into the experiences of the homeless community sleeping in underground train tunnels in New York. "It made me cry," Asif Kapadia says. "The film-maker was so invested in the characters and the subject. The story and the passion really moved me."

35. Writing with Fire (2021)

Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas
iPlayer
The Oscar-nominated story of Khabar Lahariya, India's only newspaper run by "untouchable" Dalit women, follows its chief reporter Meera Devi and her team of journalists as they battle power cuts, family pressure and the print-to-digital transformation while reporting rapes, unsafe living and working conditions and corruption. "It's an inspirational, hopeful film," Pratibha Parmar says. "These women reporters persist in uncovering injustices in one of the most misogynist states in India."

34. When We Were Kings (1996)

Leon Gast
Amazon, iPlayer
A euphorically thrilling documentary about the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" heavyweight championship boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. Asif Kapadia remembers seeing it on a huge screen at the Empire Leicester Square. "I loved Ali and I knew no drama, actor, screenplay could ever do justice to him," he says. "Without this film, there would be no Amy. There would be no Senna, no Diego Maradona."

33. Shoah (1985)

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Claude Lanzmann
BFI Player
Claude Lanzmann's nine-hour opus documents the Holocaust through first-person testimonies from survivors, witnesses and former Nazis. His questions are unrelenting but edited with poetry and set against tranquil shots of pastoral scenes where camps once stood. Perhaps most moving is the Czech Jewish man who worked the gas chamber doors, whose terrifying account ends with his attempt to join the victims — who push him back out and tell him to bear witness.

32. The Act of Killing (2012)

Joshua Oppenheimer
Amazon
This chilling documentary centres on an anti-communist cull of more than a million people in 1960s Indonesia. It gets the killers, who are now celebrated as heroes, to reconstruct their unpunished atrocities in what is a ground-breaking, jaw-dropping piece of cinema. Paul Duane says: "The ethics of this could be debated all day, but it is undeniably one of the most powerful documentaries of the century so far."

31. Sherman's March (1986)

Ross McElwee
Mubi
This dizzying documentary about the Union general William Tecumseh Sherman's scorched-earth march through Confederate states during the American Civil War is "a forgotten masterpiece", Jon Ronson says. "Half the time, Ross McElwee is making visits to battlefields, forts and monuments, the other half he makes it about himself; he's picking up women or looking up old girlfriends." As McElwee puts it: "My real life [fell] into the crack between myself and my film."

30. The Blue Planet II (2017)

Various directors
iPlayer
David Attenborough's nature documentaries — from Life on Earth through to Planet Earth — have defined the genre. In Blue Planet II his love of the natural world acquired a campaigning edge. It almost broke the internet in China as 80 million people tried to stream it simultaneously and the episode on marine pollution led to the UK government banning various single-use plastic products. It's also a beautiful look at our world.

29. Collective (2019)

Alexander Nanau
Amazon
It starts with a terrible fire during a gig at a Bucharest nightclub — the Colectiv — that left 27 people dead and 180 injured, mostly seriously burnt. It was caught on camera. What follows is a gripping and bleak investigation into medical malpractice and healthcare fraud that goes to the top of government. People in power lie while those in hospitals suffer. On the film's release the parallels with Covid were stark. Perhaps most surprisingly, the journalists at the centre of the story work for a sports newspaper.

28. Savile (2016)

Louis Theroux
iPlayer
Louis Theroux has built a reputation for getting under the skin of his subjects, but he struggled to crack Jimmy Savile. In When Louis Met Jimmy, the journalist came close, asking him about paedophilia, but, as Theroux has since confessed, he found Savile odd rather than alarming. Sixteen years later, after Savile's sexual abuse had come to light after his death, Theroux spoke to people who had survived it in the illuminating Savile. Revealing, brave and insightful, the one-off special told of how Theroux had been used by the disc jockey.

27. F Is for Fake (1973)

Orson Welles
Apple TV
This mischievous film, made by Orson Welles, during his twilight years, is nominally about the prolific art forger Elmyr de Hory, who tricked the world into spending thousands on fake Picassos. Suzy Klein says: "It's a joyous film about our willingness to be hoodwinked by glamour and a profound meditation on what talent is and the making of identity, through truth and lies." Its spirit can be seen in recent scam-dram documentaries such as The Tinder Swindler.

26. Knuckle (2011)

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Ian Palmer
Netflix
Made over 12 years, this follows a bloody feud between two Irish families. It started with a 1992 brawl and ended in the death of one member of the travelling community and a manslaughter conviction for another. Their anger erupts into illegal but often refereed fights. It is shrewd, insightful and gritty with similarities to the landmark 2010 series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.

25. Four Hours at the Capitol (2021)

Jamie Roberts
Netflix
A terrifying account of the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021, told through the words of those who were at the heart of the action, including protesters, police and members of Congress. Going from the QAnon shaman Jake Angeli's bellow of "Justice is coming!" to shots of staff cowering under desks, this gives an insight into the insurrection from the front line. Norma Percy's Trump documentary was up against it at the Baftas. She says: "Once I saw this I knew we wouldn't win."

24. Titicut Follies (1967)

Fred Wiseman
Vimeo, archive.org
This harrowing tragicomedy about the savage treatment of prisoners at Massachusetts Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane was banned until 1991 and has been described as a documentary version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Images of force-feeding, bullying, strip-searching and staff indifference are shown alongside bizarre talent shows and the tender embalming of corpses. The film is "something to prepare yourself for," Paul Duane says. "It is one of the most powerful and upsetting films I've ever seen."

23. Bowling for Columbine (2002)

Michael Moore
Amazon
Michael Moore's searing investigation into American gun culture is as entertaining as it is tragic. He boldly combines stunts with damning interviews — such as taking a victim of the Columbine High School shooting who uses a wheelchair and has bullets lodged in his body to the headquarters of Kmart, which sold ammunition to the teenage killers, to "return their merchandise" He also talks to the president of the National Rifle Association at the time, the actor Charlton Heston.

22. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020)

Bill Ross IV/Turner Ross
Amazon
A film crew set up in a Las Vegas dive bar, the Roaring 20s, the night before it closed down to document the complicated lives and drunken epiphanies of its committed customers. Funny, emotional, tragic and lyrical, the Ross brothers' film might blur the lines of fiction and reality, but it achieves an emotional truth. "A whisky-sodden night out guided by the ever-charismatic, mischievous and mercurial Ross brothers," Jeanie Finlay says.

21. Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

David Gelb
Amazon
The 86-year-old chef Jiro Ono's ten-seater Tokyo sushi bar has three Michelin stars and a three-month reservation list. Apprentices go through rigorous training (one had to make egg sushi 200 times before he approved it). David Gelb's hypnotic film has a Philip Glass soundtrack.

20. Cheer (2020)

Greg Whiteley
Netflix
This big-hearted series follows a cheerleading team from Navarro College in Texas as they try to somersault their way to the top. Led by the inspirational coach Monica Aldama, the students from disadvantaged backgrounds throw themselves around the gym in a bid to be selected for the cheerleading competitions. They get bruises, sprain ankles and shed tears. Beyond the acrobatics, this series is a revealing insight into Trump-era patriotism, the sense of community in the Deep South and how the rigour of cheerleading can change lives.

19. Summer of Soul (2021)

Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson
Disney+
Using footage that was abandoned and unseen for 50 years, this extraordinary documentary showcases the stars of the Harlem Cultural festival of 1969. Stitched together by Ahmir Thompson, it is a delirious mix of documentary and live music, with performances by Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder, set against the political context of the assassinations of JFK.

18. Gimme Shelter (1970)

Albert & David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin
Netflix
Death is everywhere in this macabre, gripping document of rock's Sixties apocalypse. It begins with the murder of 18-year-old Meredith Hunter by Hells Angels during the Rolling Stones' December 1969 free concert at California's Altamont Speedway. The concertgoers, wired on bad drugs, look like zombies or war veterans, and the Stones appear terrified, exhausted and scared for their lives. The end of an era, but also the end of innocence.

17. Salesman (1969)

Albert & David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin
YouTube
Between Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross came Salesman, following four dogged door-to-door Bible salesmen from Boston to Florida through cheap motels, smoky diners and suburban living rooms. They struggle to keep their jobs as the boss seeks to "eliminate a few men". "It evokes drama worthy of Miller or Mamet from these everyday men," Paul Duane says. "Compassionate and chilling at the same time."

16. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Banksy
Amazon
It is difficult to work out what Banksy's documentary is: a success story about the world of street art told through the eyes of the graffiti artist Thierry Guetta, aka Mr Brainwash; a daring art hoax; a reveal of the real Banksy; or all three. Whatever it is, it is thought-provoking and entertaining. "It's a meditation about authenticity, hoaxes, the purpose of art and the process of becoming an artist wrapped up in an entertaining documentary that wrong-foots you at every turn," Suzy Klein says.

15. They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

Peter Jackson
BritBox
With the help of pioneering special effects, Peter Jackson took footage of the First World War and turned everything into colour, sharpened it and reduced camera judders. The soldier's faces are distinguishable, dead men are a light purple and 120 war veterans guide us. "For a lot of those kids, it was their first action, and they never knew more," one says. The result is outstanding. It is an insight into a solider's life.

14. The Gleaners and I (2000)

Agnès Varda
Curzon
The French New Wave director Agnès Varda is the master of making fascinating a subject you know nothing about. This beautiful documentary about the ancient French right to "glean" kickstarted Varda's late-career renaissance. She follows those who root through bins and market detritus. "Foraging for images, ideas and objects, Varda is as much a gleaner as her subjects, those on the margins of society gleaning for the discarded," Pratibha Parmar says. You can see its influence in The Truffle Hunters. A visual and sensory joy.

13. OJ: Made in America (2016)

Ezra Edelman
iPlayer
Five episodes totalling nearly eight hours. Yet every minute matters. Ezra Edelman uses the Shakespearean rise and fall of the US sporting superstar and celebrity Orenthal James Simpson as a means by which to tell a post-1968 history of Los Angeles in terms of race (and racism). It's a vast ambitious epic that plays out like a compelling cross between Citizen Kane and Goodfellas, albeit one that encompasses complex issues of class, celebrity, privilege, misogyny and the myth of the American dream. "This is a masterful Rubik's Cube of a series that pushed the boundaries of how archive footage can be deployed," Kate Townsend says.

12. Bros: After the Screaming Stops (2018)

Joe Pearlman/David Soutar
YouTube, Amazon
Joe Pearlman and David Soutar's fly-on-the-wall film charting the 30th anniversary reunion of the 1980s boy band siblings Matt and Luke Goss is an utter joy. The film-makers handle it totally straight, capturing the duo in moments of unintentionally hilarious Spinal Tap-like self-importance. Yet behind the philosophising is an often poignant profile of two bitterly estranged brothers still trying to cope with the loss of their mother and the painful aftermath of fame.

11. American Movie (1999)

Chris Smith
Amazon
Before Tiger King there was American Movie, Chris Smith's influential, funny and moving account of the indie film-maker Mark Borchardt struggling to make a short horror film called Coven, from scraping together the cash to endless takes of hamfisted scenes. It's about class, ambition and the rust belt. Jon Ronson calls it "sweet, empathetic and hilarious. I literally fell off the sofa laughing during the moment about a scream."

10. Senna (2010)

Asif Kapadia
Now, YouTube
Ayrton Senna was the charismatic driver who won the heart of Brazil, then broke it when he died aged 34 after a crash in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Asif Kapadia's film invites audiences to relish the rollercoaster ride of the racer's life. It is driven by its flawless editing, which matches the driver's relentless racing style. And the best thing about Senna is that you don't need to care about racing to enjoy it. It's a moving portrait of a sporting star lost too soon.

9. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

Andrew Jarecki
Amazon
Andrew Jarecki's Oscar-nominated film begins with children's party entertainers in New York, then goes in an unexpected direction. David Friedman, known as the clown Silly Billy, had his father and brother arrested on child-abuse charges and filmed everything: family parties, arrest, trial and imprisonment. Jarecki combines Friedman's footage of a middle-class family torn apart with interviews and upsetting audio to throw doubt on every side of the story. "I love documentaries that dramatically shift focus as layers are peeled away," Jeanie Finlay says.

8. Paris Is Burning (1990)

Jennie Livingston
Netflix
At a time when RuPaul's Drag Race franchise dominates our screens, it's easy to forget how groundbreaking Jennie Livingston's documentary was. Filmed over ten years, following a group of African- American and Hispanic gay men and transgender women through the 1980s New York drag ball subculture, it's a film that inspired Madonna's Vogue and brought queer terms such as "shade" and "reading" into common parlance. Most importantly, Raul Niño Zambrano says: "Watching these beautiful characters from outside mainstream society join a 'house' with a 'mother' showed the importance of community."

7. Get Back (2021)

Peter Jackson
Disney+
You don't simply watch this voluminous eight-hour miniseries on the making of the Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be and the subsequent rooftop concert, you immerse yourself in it. You begin as an eavesdropper, certainly, but gradually lose yourself in the squabbling and camaraderie, make friends with John, Paul, George and Ringo (and, yes, even Yoko) before getting caught up in the entire thrilling adventure of it all.

6. Man on Wire (2008)

James Marsh
YouTube
The twin towers are an arresting and poignant image. This film goes back before 9/11 to tell the story of the high-wire artist Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Told through archival footage and interviews with Petit's friends, this film centres on the French risk-taker's dangerous obsession with fulfilling a boyhood dream. "It is the ultimate testament to the thrill of movement and bodily freedom," Suzy Klein says.

5. Up Series (1964)

Michael Apted
BritBox, Apple, Netflix
With nine series and counting, this chronicle of the lives of 14 British children from 1964 onwards is not always an easy watch. As with all of us, there are triumphs and tragedies, elation and depression, and as anyone who has followed the adventures of Tony, Neil, Jackie, Lynn and Sue down the years will know, the emotional bonds are strong. Steel yourself for the heartbreaking story of young Neil. You will weep.

4. Navalny (2022)

Daniel Roher
iPlayer
A jaw-dropping portrait of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is now in prison. Filmed in secret by the director Daniel Roher, it charts Navalny's clashes with the Kremlin, resulting in his poisoning by novichok in 2020. It is crammed with unbelievable moments, such as Putin refusing to say Navalny's name; the time the opposition leader called the government's agents who poisoned him; and when Navalny's wife, Yulia, tried to visit her husband in hospital, but was blocked by Putin's henchmen. It was released only months after Russia invaded Ukraine and never has a film felt more urgent.

3. Amy (2015)

Asif Kapadia
Amazon
In this film's poignant opening, home video footage captures 14-year-old Amy Winehouse singing Happy Birthday to You at a friend's party, echoing Marilyn Monroe's serenade to President Kennedy and joking around. Less than 13 years later, that singer became an international sensation, but succumbed to drugs, booze and bulimia. She died aged 27. Asif Kapadia tracks her journey, using footage culled from video cameras, mobile phones and TV shows and voices of figures from the artist's life — boyfriends, managers and bodyguards. The singer's father hated his portrayal as someone greedy for fame and money, pushing his daughter to perform when she needed to go to rehab. Yet the film remains a fascinating account of how a prodigious talent was cut short.

2. Hoop Dreams (1994)

Steve James
iPlayer
The title suggests that this film will be about sport, but it's more like a compelling soap opera. We follow two African-American boys in Illinois as they go from basketball-obsessed 14-year-olds to 19-year-olds hoping for a better life. Steve James shot more than 250 hours of footage. His approach inspired a generation of film-makers to invest years in their subjects — including Richard Linklater for his Oscar-winning Boyhood. Norma Percy saw it while making her documentary The Death of Yugoslavia. She says: "It was so emotional and real andinvolving that it completely took me away from all my cares and concerns about the intricate policies of that civil war."

1. Grizzly Man (2005)

Werner Herzog
Apple TV
This astonishing film has two authors. One is Timothy Treadwell, the naive New York environmentalist who, between 1990 and 2003, filmed himself with Alaska's brown bears before a bear attacked and killed him and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. The other author, the moral centre of the story, is the great German director Werner Herzog, who takes Treadwell's raw footage, plus interviews with those who knew him, and transforms it into a terrifying, profound, blackly comic masterpiece about the miraculousness of raw nature. "It's Timothy Treadwell's obsession with bears, shaped by Herzog's philosophical commentary," Kate Townsend says. Herzog is simultaneously critical and sympathetic, addressing the ethics of the modern documentary. There is a pivotal scene in which the director refuses to play the audio of Treadwell and Huguenard being attacked and says he has no regrets. "You do not transgress into the dignity of an individual's death . . . We have to take a step back and declare an ethical borderline." It's a borderline many other film-makers have addressed, skirted and crossed without ever reaching the profound artistic heights of Grizzly Man.

Five documentaries coming soon

Civil: Ben Crump

Nicknamed "Black America's attorney general", Ben Crump has been the lawyer for the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Nadia Hallgren, the director of the Michelle Obama documentary Becoming, paints a portrait of Crump as he fights for these overlooked families.
Netflix, Jun 19

George Michael Freedom Uncut

The singer was editing this film a few days before he died on Christmas Day 2016, aged 53. Going from the highs of his bestselling album Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 to the death of his first love, Anselmo Feleppa, this film is an intensely personal account of fame, love and grief told through unseen archival and private footage and interviews with Kate Moss, Nile Rodgers and Elton John.
In cinemas, Jun 22

The Princess

We have been saturated with Princess Diana content, from Diana: The Musical to Spencer, via Emma Corrin's performance in The Crown. Now Ed Perkins, the director of Searching for Sugar Man, has made a documentary aiming to immerse audiences in Diana's life through archival footage. Starting weeks before her engagement to Prince Charles and ending with her sons walking behind her coffin, the film will examine the life of the People's Princess.
In cinemas, Jun 30

Fire of Love

The scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft died doing the thing that brought them together: investigating volcanoes. The daring French couple lost their lives in a 1991 volcanic explosion on Mount Unzen in Japan. They have already been featured in Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno (2016), but the new film will use the couple's footage to examine their lives and work.
In cinemas, Jul 29

Moonage Daydream

First the director Brett Morgen took on the life of Nirvana's frontman with the film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. Now he takes on another rock star: David Bowie. Told through archive material, live performance footage and Bowie's experimental work, the film promises to be an immersive journey.
In cinemas, Sep

The judging panel
The film-makers Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats), Norma Percy (Trump Takes on the World), Asif Kapadia (Amy), Pratibha Parmar (My Name Is Andrea), Paul Duane (Welcome to the Dark Ages), and Jeanie Finlay (Seahorse)
Raul Niño Zambrano, head of programmes, Sheffield DocFest
Suzy Klein, BBC head of arts
Kate Townsend, vice president of documentary, Netflix
Andrew Male, critic

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Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/best-documentaries-you-have-to-see-dnkp5zgmw

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