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At their best, documentaries illuminate the world around us and can even result in policy changes, unjustly-imprisoned people being freed, and help spark political movements.
With a heated presidential election around the corner, we revisited political documentaries from decades gone by, winnowing down a large group of contenders to a select group of 10. Some were so provocative their studio or TV backers avoided releasing them, while others were a hit out of the box. These documentaries tackle topics from voter suppression to a mock election in a Chinese elementary school. Several won Oscars; they all have enduring power.
Primary (1960)
This pioneering film forever changed political documentaries with its cinema verité style, and six decades later remains a startlingly fresh look at two very different Democratic candidates on the campaign trail. Producer Robert Drew had cameramen including D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles follow Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy as they pressed flesh in Wisconsin, favoring ambient sounds, closeups and on-the-cuff interviews over static shots of talking heads in the resulting hour-long program. Drew had trouble convincing major networks to air it, but the documentary community soon adopted its distinctive style.
Navalny (2002)
Image Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute
“Navalny” plays like a thriller but with higher stakes because the person at the center of Daniel Roher’s documentary is in grave danger. “Come on, Daniel,” protests Russian dissident Alexei Navalny when the director asks him about his potential demise early in the film. “It’s like you’re making a movie for the case of my death.” “Navalny,” which won the Oscar for documentary following its 2022 release, is bravura filmmaking, all the more haunting in the wake of the political dissident’s death earlier this year while incarcerated.
The War Room (1993)
“The War Room” opens amid allegations of Bill Clinton’s infidelity in early 1992, and the resulting furor seems almost quaint after all the drama surrounding political candidates in recent years. Married directors Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker concentrate on colorful campaign strategist James Carville and a baby-faced George Stephanopoulos, then Clinton’s communications director, and it’s to the film’s benefit: Their fly-on-the-wall interactions in the campaign’s war room animate the documentary.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection
Provocateur Michael Moore took derisive aim at George W. Bush’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks with this record-breaking documentary, the first to win the coveted Palme d’Or prize at Cannes since 1956. Two decades after its release, the connections Moore made between Bush’s family and the Saudis provide the film’s greatest power, along with heartbreaking footage of families affected by the U.S. war against Iraq. “Fahrenheit 9/11” demonstrated documentaries can bring in big bucks and remains a pointed look at a fraught time for America.
All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020)
Stacey Abrams is the star of “All In” for good reason: She is a passionate advocate for fair voting practices. Directed by Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés, the film opens with Abrams initially refusing to concede her first gubernatorial race due to what she characterizes as voter-suppression tactics and goes on to outline the history of repressive measures against Black voters in the South. As recent legislation has shown, the battle to protect voter rights is far from over; determination and grit are needed — both of which Abrams and her cohort have in full.
The Fog of War (2003)
Image Credit: ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Robert McNamara loomed so large over the nation’s consciousness as secretary of defense during the Vietnam War that Paul Simon sang in 1965 about being McNamara’d into submission. Decades later, the former Kennedy administration whiz kid proved to be a maddeningly elusive — but always fascinating — subject of this Errol Morris documentary, subtitled “Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” Released shortly after the controversial 2003 invasion of Iraq, the doc went on to win an Oscar.
Please Vote for Me (2007)
Image Credit: Steps International/Courtesy Everett Collection
Alternately charming and unsettling, “Please Vote for Me” chronicles an election for third-grade monitor in Wuhan, China. Democracy is new to the rambunctious 8-year-olds, but they prove quick studies, aided and abetted by their parents: Before the votes are counted, we have seen candidates play dirty tricks on one another, bribe classmates and display troubling authoritarian impulses. Weijun Chen’s 58-minute documentary, which won a prize at SilverDocs, provides glimpses of contemporary life in China while suggesting some campaign impulses are innate, even in a communist society.
Hearts and Minds (1974)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection
So pointed about America’s role in the Vietnam War that Columbia Pictures balked at releasing it, “Hearts and Minds” aims to humanize the consequences of that conflict. There are soundbites from presidents dating back to Truman, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and controversial Gen. William Westmoreland, along with vignettes of soldiers on the ground and Vietnamese people coping with loss of family and home. Warner Bros. ended up releasing the documentary, which won an Oscar weeks before the U.S. evacuated its embassy in Saigon.
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)
Image Credit: Everett Collection / Everett Collection
This film exposed so many uncomfortable truths about the Nazi occupation of France that the head of the country’s state-run TV station refused to air it in 1969. Through a mix of archival footage and contemporary interviews, director Marcel Ophuls, who fled the country with his family during World War II, paints a complex portrait of a military occupation where some citizens collaborated with Nazis while others resisted. It was nominated for an Oscar and further immortalized in “Annie Hall,” when Woody Allen’s Alvy takes Diane Keaton’s character on a date to see it.
Black Panthers (1968)
Image Credit: Courtesy Criterion
More than a half-century since Agnès Varda filmed it, “Black Panthers” remains a potent time capsule about politics and race relations during an especially fraught period in America. The godmother of French New Wave, then living in Los Angeles with her filmmaker husband Jacques Demy, flew up to Oakland to film protests for the release of Huey Newton during the summer of 1968, capturing discourse about Black beauty along with political views. The result is poignant viewing during another period of political unrest.
