As Bisbee community members take on the roles of both deputized corporate thugs and workers demanding better lives, in many cases inhabiting the personas of their own ancestors, they come to better understand the sway such history still holds over today. 2018’s Bisbee ’17 chronicled the reenactment, on the event’s 100th anniversary, of the forced removal and abandonment of more than 1,200 striking miners from their homes into the Arizona desert. Kate Plays Christine, from 2016, uses Kate Lyn Sheil’s preparation to play Christine Chubbuck-the newscaster who died by suicide on air 42 years earlier-in part to navigate an actor’s responsibilities when trying to resurrect a real person relegated to folklore. In his films, Robert Greene has tried to bring the alienated past into the present.
Here are 40 of the best documentaries currently streaming on Netflix right now: 1. If you’re looking to find new, compelling stories, there are plenty to peruse here, but browsing the documentary section of Netflix also might convince you that documentary movies didn’t exist before 1990.įor other genres and types, check out Paste’s many, many Best Movies lists, and then make your way through the following so-called “truths.” While the selection of docs available on Netflix isn’t what it used to be, the streaming giant has still provided groundbreaking and important documentaries a much broader audience, be it semi-obscure essentials like Casting JonBenet and Shirkers festival finds like Crip Camp and Mucho Mucho Amor Oscar-nominated originals like Strong Island and The Edge of Democracy or titillating true-crime docs like The Tinder Swindler. So many of best documentaries on Netflix are now Netflix Originals.