If a filmmaker or publicist contacts me regarding my reviews, it’s usually to complain—with the unhappy missive-composers often forgetting that the job of a critic is to, well, critique and not to make friends or earn pats on the back.  One does not undertake this type of writing to be popular, or even liked.  (I could point to my school years as evidence of this, but never mind.)  If we’re lucky, a critic might see his or her name on publicity

Many people are familiar with the Kinsey Report on sexual behavior, which rocked the establishment in the early fifties, but far fewer know about 1976’s Hite Report, which effectively described the frequency and variability of female orgasm. The report’s author, feminist researcher Shere Hite, was alternately celebrated and vilified for her writing, with media outlets often outwardly hostile to her research. But she pressed on, with other reports on

At the start of the twentieth century, it was estimated that fewer than 1,000 bison were left on the Great Plains following two centuries of unchecked extermination. Today, thanks to conservation efforts, they number approximately 450,000—but still far, far below the tens of millions of animals that once roamed the continent.  

In “The American Buffalo"

It’s been a bit of a long road for Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv, whose new film about Golda Meir’s turbulent days during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 is dramatized in “Golda.” Working from a script by Nicholas Martin (“Florence Foster Jenkins”), the film casts Oscar-winner Helen Mirren as the embattled prime minister battling both foreign armies as well as an essentially all-male military power structure around her. “Golda” also shows

Thanks to a certain current blockbuster film, almost everyone is now familiar with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb. And while Christopher Nolan’s film starring Cillian Murphy does indeed touch upon the fact that Soviet spies worked alongside him at Los Alamos, what became of those spies is not discussed in “Oppenheimer.” However, “A Compassionate Spy,” the new documentary from Steve James (“Hoop Dreams"

At DC/DOX last June I saw “Kokomo City,” which details the lives of four Black trans sex workers facing multiple hardships. Director D. Smith, a trans woman and a Grammy nominee, spoke with me via phone during DC/DOX—and with the film now set to play in theaters this weekend, our conversation has been reposted.

How did you decide to make this documentary?

To do something like this, you really have

“PRUNING” Director: Lola Blanc

In this psychological horror short, Madeline Brewer (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) stars as an agitprop right-wing commentator in the model of Tomi Lahren, who will seemingly press any button in order to generate outrage. “Pruning” shows that Brewer’s character knows better than to say what she does but still going ahead

Ondi Timoner’s father Eli died in 2021 after an incredible career as a business executive. Even after a stroke in middle age—which resulted in his being exiled from the very airline he founded—Eli pressed on and lived his best life, leaving behind several children and grandchildren.

Eli’s final years were difficult as he was in constant pain and suffering from COPD and congestive heart failure.

“How Do You Measure a Year?” is a familiar lyric from a song in the Broadway show “Rent”; it’s also the title of a fascinating and experimental short documentary from Jay Rosenblatt (“When We Were Bullies”). Each year on his daughter Ella’s birthday, Rosenblatt filmed himself asking her a similar series of questions, including:

“How would you say we get along?”

“What are your hopes for the future?”

It’s always great to be first.  This weekend the nation’s capital saw the premiere of DC/DOX, a new film festival dedicated to truth in filmmaking. 

Opening night kicked off at the National Portrait Gallery, where festival founders Jamie Shor and Sky Sitney spoke about the necessity of founding a new venue for documentaries in the capital in the wake of AFI DOCS, which used to be