Goodness, was 2024 ever a tumultuous year for documentary. The year started off well by putting a bit of pre-Sundance hand-wringing to rest with some high-figure sales and some docs that set the bar for the festival circuit to come. However, the spring marked a change in the winds with Participant closing, Hot Docs hitting the fan, and acclaimed docs like Union and No Other Land failing to land distribution and, therefore, indicating that the market wasn’t rebounding as well as it seemed, especially for films tackling tough or controversial topics. Even big premieres like Sundance winner Porcelain War and toe-tapper Luther: Never Too Much took undue amounts of time to land homes. Risk aversion dominated an industry that should reward filmmakers who stick their necks out.
For audiences and critics, though, 2024 proved that the state of documentary is in terrific shape artistically. Filmmakers countered the formulas favoured by distributors. There were extraordinary films on the circuit: timely portraits of unfolding crises, stories of everyday heroes, and thrilling innovations in non-fiction form. Let’s salute the year in documentary and hope that whatever powers that be on the buying front start to have as much faith in audiences as filmmakers and festivals do.
Pat Mullen’s Best Documentaries of 2024
1. Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
(dir. Lucy Walker)
I didn’t rank Mountain Queen in last year’s list since it screened at TIFF as a work in progress and it didn’t feel right to top a top ten with an unfinished film that few people had seen. The bar for 2024 was about as high as Everest thanks to Mountain Queen and Lucy Walker’s extraordinary achievement rewarded upon repeat viewings. It’s a top notch character study of Lhakpa Sherpa, who made history as the first woman to summit Everest ten times. The film observes Sherpa in her modest life in Connecticut where she works at Whole Foods to support her daughters and it’s the kind of amazing feat of filmmaking that should inspire audiences to consider all the hidden stories housed within the immigrants who puts dreams on hold while stocking grocery shelves, driving cabs, or delivering take-out to support their families.
The mountain keeps calling Sherpa back, though, and Walker, returning to Everest as well after her 2006 doc Blindsight, follows her on the expedition for a shared career high. The film shows why this summit poses the ultimate challenge for Lhakpa as one of her daughters joins her on the trip. Walker deftly builds the story summit by summit as Lhakpa tells an inspiring tale of overcoming the odds, conquering gender inequality, escaping an abusive relationship, and starting fresh in a foreign land where she didn’t speak the language. As she tells her story in her expressive “Lhakpa-ese,” you will be immediately inspired by Lhakpa Sherpa as Walker and her team of high altitude cinematographers capture her journey to the summit. The top of the world never looked or felt this good. Mountain Queen is now streaming on Netflix.
2.Mistress Dispeller (dir. Elisabeth Lo)
It’s another Toronto triumph for documentary. This year’s TIFF Docs standout, for me, was another runaway with Elisabeth Lo’s sophomore feature Mistress Dispeller providing a jolt of fresh talent. This highest compliment I can give a film is that it continually proves to be a pleasure the more one writes about it and talks about it. I never get tired of discussing this movie with fellow film buffs. This observational doc invites audiences to be a complicit conspirator in a high stakes study of a love triangle. The film introduces Teacher Wang, who is something like a unique fusion of private detective and marriage counsellor who, at the request of a spouse suspicious of infidelity, infiltrates a marriage to uncover a husband’s affair, befriend his mistress, and resolve the matter. What’s truly remarkable—not just for Lo, but for all parties—is that the film gains access to each player in the love triangle and affords their stories equal weight. It’s a jaw-on-the-floor observation of unbearable intimacy, openness, and hunger in our shared desire for connection. Mistress Dispeller is now on the festival circuit.
3. Daughters (dirs. Natalie Rae, Angela Patton)
There’s a trend in the top docs of 2024: collaboration and agency. Daughters adds to the growing body of films that see creative partnership as essential to telling a story. Vancouver native Natalie Rae invites activist Angela Patton to join her in bringing to screen the story of the Dance with Dad program she founded. The film follows young women as they prepare for the annual daddy-daughter dance that connects girls with their fathers who are in prison. The documentary intimately observes the incarcerated men as they learn some dance moves and prepare to connect with their daughters. Patton plays an onscreen presence in these scenes, while Rae’s eye for cinéma vérité observes the families on the other side of the prison wall as they long for their absent fathers. Daughters proves very moving as it underscores how deeply incarcerated men and their families are deprived by the sense of touch. Physical contact and physical presence become a luxury in a prison industrial system that reduces family time to screen time. Seeing these families connect will bring you to tears. Daughters is streaming on Netflix.
4. Yintah
(dirs. Michael Toledano, Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell)
Yintah delivers an urgent portrait from the front lines of the fight to defend Indigenous land This years-in-the-making film chronicles the courageous efforts of Wit’suwit’en land defenders as they protect the territory against devastating destruction to make way for a pipeline. Yintah won’t give comfort food to Canadian audiences, but if there’s a movie of the moment that everyone in this country needs to see, this is it. It’s a rallying cry to protect the land for generations to come, but it’s also a refreshing product of positive change within the documentary field as creators and artists hold themselves to higher duties of care when it comes to the stories they tell. Yintah is born from guidance of imagineNATIVE’s Pathways and Protocols for Indigenous representation in film, and is the result of a collective, collaborative process in which representatives from both families depicted on screen have an active role in the creative process. The depth and breadth of the film reflects this sensibility. Yintah is streaming on Netflix.
5. No Other Land
(dirs. Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal)
This extraordinary show of unity is sure to be studied for years to come. Palestinian Basel Adra join forces with Israeli Yuval Abraham, along with Israeli Rachel Szor and Palestinian Hamdan Ballal to chronicle the history of forced house demolitions in the West Bank. The film offers a shared call for peace embedded within a meticulous feat of citizen journalism as the collective draws upon years’ worth of footage shot by Adra chronicling violent efforts by settlers and the Israeli army to displace residents of his community, Masafer Yatta. Besides serving as an essential time capsule of the events preceding October 7, 2023, it’s a powerful and frequently devastating snapshot of the genocide unfolding in Palestine. And yet, as harrowing as it may be, No Other Land ultimately offers hope. As the Palestinian and Israeli journalists/filmmakers work together in search of a common goal, No Other Land provides a personal illustration that there’s no chance for peace in one land when its neighbour continues to be rocked by violence. It’s something of a miracle that this film exists. No Other Land is seeking distribution.
6. Samsara (dir. Lois Patiño)
I don’t consider myself a spiritual person, but I can only describe Samsara as a religious experience. Documenting the afterlife isn’t easy, and this film does the impossible: it will make you believe in reincarnation. This experimental odyssey through the bardo transports a viewer through the transitional state between life and death in Buddhist theology. Around the halfway part, the film offers a bridge between its two-act structure as an elderly woman at a monastery passes away. The film advises audiences to close their eyes and, honestly, provides a truly transporting experience. One joins this woman’s soul as she traverses to a new vessel. Gongs clang while flashing lights let a viewer experience a unique layer of cinema of the mind with a 15-minute centrepiece that provides a Zen awakening. And when my eyes opened, I was a goat.
7. Skywalkers: A Love Story (dir. Jeff Zimbalist)
Imagine Man on Wire, but the cameras are up in the sky for every step of the vertigo-inducing journey. Skywalkers lets audiences walk perilously on the edge alongside daredevil influencers Angela Nikolau and Vanya Beerkus. They fuel their love and personal brand by daringly climbing to new heights for dizzying and dazzling photos. This is a very risky endeavour with no room for error as the climbers violate a few laws—trespassing, breaking and entering—in service of the perfect shot. However, much like the daring dos of Mountain Queen and Never Look Away, Skywalkers offers a portrait of what it means to live on the edge. Some of the best documentaries are the ones that let viewers see the world from a vantage point they might never otherwise encounter. Skywalkers gives one thrilling perspective after another. It’s a testament to Zimbalist’s effort, too, that one never roots for the influencers to fall. Skywalkers is streaming on Netflix.
8. Never Look Away (dir. Lucy Lawless)
Lucy Lawless’s feature directorial debut Never Look Away proves that she has serious muscle behind the camera. So too does her subject, cameraperson Margaret Moth, who bravely captured images from the front lines of war for CNN. Moth’s work is the product of a perfect balance of fearlessness, recklessness, and artfulness. Never Look Away reminds audiences of the power of the on-the-ground journalism that reports from the thick of conflict. Lawless gives audiences a sense of Moth as both a woman and as a storyteller by inviting figures from Moth’s life—colleagues, past lovers, family members—to reflect upon a complicated woman with a sharp eye and an addiction to the adrenaline rush of reporting from the front lines. Moth’s footage receives an exhilarating assembly here as Lawless creates a profile of a maverick journalist that feels appropriately punk. Never Look Away is playing in select theatres.
9. Union (dirs. Stephen Maing, Brett Story)
This masterful vérité documentary observes the fight for labour rights in America as the directors follow several players in the Amazon Labor Union as they rally their colleagues to organize. Rather than simplify the story as a tale of corporate greed, Union captures the challenges of unifying a workforce that’s defined by huge turnover rates, precarious work situations, and small pay in the face of the high cost of living. These aren’t easy conversations that the film captures, particularly as the robots that scurry through the Amazon warehouse demonstrate how easily people can be replaced. The real drama, though, comes through the challenge of confronting the Goliath as the many workers struggle to organize as a united front. It’s a story of labour rights, but also a thoughtful parable about shifting from an individualistic society to a collectivist one. Union is seeking distribution and plays at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Jan. 11 & 12.
10. Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story
(dirs. Michael Mabbott, Lucah Rosenberg Lee)
This Banger Films/NFB doc by Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee tells the story of the R&B singer who broke ground on the Toronto music scene during the 1960s as an out Black transwoman in the spotlight. Despite Shane’s popularity and captivating voice, she virtually disappeared from public life until shortly before her death in 2019. The doc features a wealth of archival photos of Shane, and while the amount of video footage of her is extremely limited, the filmmakers pull off a tricky feat of making Shane an active presence in the doc as rotoscope animation brings her to life for visual materials. Meanwhile, the soundtrack invites a new generation to discover an authentic voice. This toe-tappingly great music doc offers an overdue appreciation of Shane’s music and legacy. It’s an all-around beautiful work with a good soul. Any Other Way is on Crave.
Honourable mentions: Adrianne and the Castle; Beethoven’s Nine; Dahomey; Girls State; I Am Celine Dion; The Last Republican; Look Into My Eyes; Men of War; Ninan Auassat: We, the Children; Piece by Piece; Porcelain War; The Soldier’s Lagoon; Sugarcane; The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal; Will & Harper.
Marc Glassman’s Top Ten Documentaries of 2024
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise
To leave them open for so long?—Jackson Browne
When asked by my colleague Pat Mullen to compose a 2024 doc 10-best list, my thoughts fell back to Charles Dickens’ extraordinary description of the French Revolution, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Wonderful words but aren’t they always true when discussing life and love and all cultural matters? Can’t we always find the great and the terrible in each year—sometimes in the same film? Perhaps that’s the challenge, to find the extraordinary amidst the ordinary—and extoll the brightest and bravest new fare.
Echoing a favourite ballad of my younger years, “Doctor, My Eyes,” I have kept my eyes open for a long time, seeking and occasionally finding transformative documentaries, films which affect me—and others—politically and emotionally. Though the documentary movement is suffering through dark times with funding cutbacks from public and national television outlets in Europe, Asia and North America and inconsistent support from streamers and film institutions, independent non-fiction films are still being made and seen by a discerning audience at festivals, some cinemas and select broadcasters. Let’s celebrate a top ten of worthy documentaries.
1. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (dir. Johan Grimonprez)
1960 was an extraordinary year, politically and culturally. 15 years after the end of World War II, the old imperial order was finally collapsing. 17 African states were created that year, in Somali, Niger and so many other nations including the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Belgium-born filmmaker Johan Grimonprez concentrates his extraordinary distillation of this year of radical change on the fate of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the former Belgian Congo, whose assassination is widely seen as a crushing of the idealistic pan-African movement so representative of the period.
Grimonprez accompanies the tragic tale of Lumumba with a startling and effective evocation of jazz, the preeminent popular music of the period in the U.S. The soundtrack to Grimonprez’s film is American jazz, which was quite contradictory at that time, being both old fashioned Dixieland and Swing on the one hand, and revolutionary post-Bop on the other.
While musicians like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington travelled to Africa and Asia to present American through populist tuneful non-threatening music, the angry, political jazz of performers like vocalist Abbey Lincoln and her husband, the eminent drummer Max Roach was not promoted abroad. In an era when segregation was still taking place in the American South, free jazz attacked the U.S.’s hypocrisy while the Establishment used older jazz musicians to make America look good. This contradiction is at the heart of Grimonprez’s extraordinary critique of a colonialist period that never was eradicated and still persists today. Soundtrack to a Coup d’État opens in theatres in January.
2. Dahomey (dir. Mati Diop)
The royal treasures seized from the legendary Kingdom of Dahomey by their French oppressors are finally returned to the modern state of Benin, offering filmmaker Diop the opportunity to critique imperialism and its on-going effect on Africa. Diop concentrates much of the film on the transportation of the statues from Europe to Africa and the unpacking and placing them in their new—and ancestral—home in Benin. But she loves employing the supernatural, as she did so spectacularly in her first feature Atlantics. Here Diop employs magical realism emotionally and spiritually by having the statues come to life in their crates, talking about their past and bewilderment upon their return. Diop aces her critique of French paternalism and latent colonialism by having students at a local Benin university debate about the efficacy of the return, especially when over 6000 statues remain in France. Dahomey streams on Netflix beginning December 13.
3. Occupied City (dir. Steve McQueen)
McQueen has a dual career, as a highly acclaimed visual artist exhibited in prestigious galleries and an award-winning filmmaker, most famous for 12 Years a Slave. The extraordinary documentary Occupied City employs a relentless technique understood by gallery-goers, which is admittedly a stretch for filmgoers and, quite frankly, for mainstream critics as well. McQueen and his Dutch life and work partner Bianca Stigter have gone down the streets of downtown Amsterdam, to reveal the hidden histories of the buildings, many of which were occupied by Jews before the Nazis came to seize them in the early 1940s and, most often, killed them. A great idea but it’s overwhelming over four hours even when contrasted by then-contemporary scenes of the populace coping with COVID. Documentary? Art installation? Occupied City remains provocative particularly in a purportedly liberal city, which just engaged in anti-Semitic behaviour, supposedly in the name of the pro-Palestinian movement. The main question remains: how principled are the people of Amsterdam? Occupied City is now on digital platforms.
4. Beethoven’s Nine (dir. Larry Weinstein)
Tasked with creating a unique look at the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony, the eminent music documentarian Larry Weinstein structured the film around nine stories, all of which mesh with the music. Inherently political as well as emotional, the stories Weinstein highlighted included Leonard Bernstein chiseling out a brick in the Berlin Wall as it was being demolished in 1990; the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra touring internationally by Canadian Keri-Lynn Wilson; Enlightenment philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and the social scientist Steven Pinker giving insights into Beethoven’s intellectual era; and much more, including the beloved Peanuts cartoon character, the Beethoven loving pianist Schroeder.
Weinstein’s film would have been one of his typically wonderful (and sadly underrated) films if not for a terrible event, which put the filmmaker squarely in the picture. Weinstein’s sister Judih and her husband Gadi lived in a peace-loving kibbutz in Israel and were killed by Hamas on October 7. Larry, who has always been self-effacing in his films, felt forced to confront violence and tragedy in his life due to their deaths. The film remains life-affirming, in the spirit of Beethoven, who used Schiller’s poetry to express his love for humanity, even though he couldn’t hear his symphony, being profoundly deaf as he neared his death.
POV notes that Larry Weinstein and his filmmaking daughter Ali denounce Netanyahu and support the rights of Palestinians in their homeland. Beethoven’s Nine is a celebration of idealism and love in a tragic era. Beethoven’s Nine is now streaming on TVO.
5. Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
(dir. Lucy Walker)
The extraordinary Lucy Walker has been making brilliant docs for a couple of decades and it’s time that she becomes acknowledged for her consistent high standards and storytelling skills. Back in 2006, I was stunned by her Blindspot, a revelatory tale of a group of visually impaired Tibetan teens brought up Mount Everest by blind mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer and his teacher Sabriye Tenberken, who founded a school for them, Braille without Borders. I met Walker and Weihenmayer then and am not surprised that the filmmaker has returned to Everest for Mountain Queen, another extraordinary doc about those who climb that elusive poetic summit. Here, the focus is on Lhakpa Sherpa, who has climbed Everest ten times. The tale of the Sherpa who knows the mountain far more than anyone else is told with compassionate interest by Walker. One wonders: will there be a trilogy of Everest docs?
6. Yintah
(dirs. Michael Toledano, Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell)
Canada is a contested land in which the North’s beauty and natural resources is admired but still exploited by companies—and, ultimately, the Federal government—intent on making profits whatever the consequences. The latest film about the ongoing battle between the Indigenous and their well-financed opponents, Yintah, tells the story of the fight being waged by the Wit’suwit’en against those who want to exploit land that has traditionally been their home for centuries. A passionate doc, Yintah is a film that those of us in the South in Canada—the decision makers—should take to heart and advocate for the righteous cause of the true guardians of the land, this country’s Indigenous population.
7. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (dir. Raoul Peck)
Ernest Cole’s story is tragic and compelling. As a Black photographer in South Africa during its ugliest period of Apartheid, during the late 1950s and 1960s, Cole shot it all: the racism of a society controlled by a white minority, hell bent on maintaining its power despite its immorality. Cole was able to sneak out his photos through white radical friends and when he arrived in New York, it was possible for the publication of his classic volume House of Bondage to take place. Acclaimed as a revelation of life under Apartheid, Cole’s book allowed him to be feted for his courage and political stance, but not for the artistry of his work.
But when Cole was sent to the American South to take photos of another racist society, the situation made him so uncomfortable that he couldn’t complete his magazine assignment. Derided as a photographer who couldn’t work “properly” in America, Cole spent time in Sweden and continued to shoot work thanks to a Ford Foundation grant, which allowed him freedom of expression. Increasingly isolated, Cole became more reclusive while losing his health and self-esteem.
Raoul Peck, the director of the extraordinary James Baldwin feature doc portrait, I Am Not Your Negro, the anti-colonialist series Exterminate All the Brutes and two films about the assassinated Congo leader Patrice Lumumba has made a brilliant doc about the photographer. Using archival photos in imaginative and powerful ways, Peck demonstrates that Cole didn’t lose any of his artistic insights as a photographer when he arrived in America. The film and subsequent photo exhibitions curated through Magnum demonstrate that Cole’s work deepened in significance after he spent time in the States. His photography should be acknowledged—it’s never too late. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is now playing in theatres.
8. Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story
(dirs. Michael Mabbott, Lucah Rosenberg Lee)
Toronto’s baby boomers—today’s Zoomers—will fondly recall “Any Other Way,” a stirring r’n’b (rhythm and blues) Sixties hit, which was beautifully sung by Jackie Shane. During the Sixties, Shane, noted for her great stage presence and wonderful voice, was a regular in Toronto’s downtown club scene. Her disappearance was noted at the time, with wide speculation about what had taken place, and no answers provided. Decades later, the tale of the transgender Shane’s return to Nashville and ultimate quiet life became clear. The bravado that allowed the extraordinary Jackie Shane to become a star deserted that individual, leaving her decades to live as a pariah, even at home. Any Other Way is a tragic tale of someone born too soon to claim the stardom they deserved.
9. Never Look Away (dir. Lucy Lawless)
Margaret Moth led the kind of life that turns the cliché “truth is stranger than fiction” into an absolutely verifiable statement. Just take a look at the facts: born a fearless New Zealand Goth princess with a brilliant photographic eye moves to Texas, Moth hooked up with CNN in its infancy, traveled to war torn lands in the Middle East and the Balkans, was shot, disfigured, almost died—and emerged triumphant if severely damaged, to come back as an extraordinarily resolute documentary cinematographer.
It’s curious but surprisingly apt that Lucy Lawless, internationally known as the iconic Xena: Warrior Princess, has chosen the life of Margaret Moth to be the subject of Never Look Away, her first directorial project. To be blunt, both are beautiful women from New Zealand, bold and controversial, with alliterative made-up names—Moth was born Wilson and Lawless, Ryan. But even if Lawless had chosen Moth’s life story rather frivolously—and there’ s no evidence that she did—the result is clear: Never Look Away is a clean, admirably made documentary. Lawless has depicted Moth’s life and career with clarity and restraint.
10. Piece by Piece (dir. Morgan Neville)
You haven’t seen a film like Piece by Piece before—and how often can you say that? Morgan Neville, the Oscar wining director of 20 Feet from Stardom, has combined forces with iconic producer, composer, performer Pharrell to create the first LEGO documentary.
Pharrell’s whole career has been defined by breaking barriers, and here, with the complicity of Neville, he does it again. The two have made a biopic telling the amazing story of how a kid from the projects in Virginia Beach, Virginia became one of the most successful figures in popular music. As Pharrell realized, a respectful live-action documentary would have been fine but all too typical. Instead, what we see in this colourful doc is totally new and at its best, euphoric: an animated documentary using LEGO imagery.
If there’s a problem with this film—and what work doesn’t have flaws—it’s in the depiction of Pharrell. Though we get to know him as a musician, the human being is missing. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why this film is in LEGO: Pharrell doesn’t really want to reveal himself. In a documentary made by Morgan Neville, there’s an expectation that the truth of the profiled individuals and their situations will be revealed. That doesn’t happen in Piece by Piece, which was done in complicity with “the subject,” Pharrell.
Although the film doesn’t fulfil all of the requirements demanded of a truly independent doc, what has been achieved by Morgan Neville in collaboration with Pharrell is extraordinary. Piece by Piece is a film that embraces music and art. When you hear Pharrell’s signature song “Happy” in the film, the reaction for most of us is something resembling ecstasy. One of the finest pop compositions of the recent past, it’s rendered with sensitivity and taste by Neville and Baker. It is memorable and so is this indelible film.
