Netflix is particularly savvy at burying all its categorical key words; “biographical documentaries” isn’t exactly a phrase or sub-genre that comes to mind immediately when browsing for something to stream. See also: “biographical music & concert documentaries” or “gritty biographical documentaries” or “German biographical documentaries,” and so on. Which is why Paste is here to pick through all the algorithms to find the best of what that esoteric signifier has to offer.
Here are the best biographical documentaries currently streaming on Netflix:
35. The Missing Picture
Year: 2015
Director: Rithy Panh
The task of chronicling the unimaginable is handled with great care in The Missing Picture, an affecting documentary about the brutality of Cambodian strongman Pol Pot’s reign. Filmmaker Rithy Panh, who lived through the horrors as a boy, has shaped a compelling story with the help of an intriguing gambit that, while not always successful, forces us to see atrocity in a fresh light. The Missing Picture, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, gets its name from the notion that Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime sought to bolster its image through propaganda films that soft-pedaled its barbaric treatment of its citizens. Panh wants to restore the full picture of a dark era that began in 1975, and he’s chosen to do that by depicting his family’s imprisonment in labor camps through miniature dioramas populated by hand-carved clay figures. These scenes are then juxtaposed with actual propaganda films or recovered footage from the period. Though the dioramas are striking in their simplicity and the figurines’ melancholy faces convey endless amounts of misery, this representation of starvation and execution is so lovingly and delicately rendered that it can disconnect us from the misery, creating a safe distance that seems antithetical to Panh’s intentions. Still, the strategy largely works as the dioramas thrust us into a surreal other world suffused with sadness. These scenes’ hushed solemnity—complemented by Panh’s confessional, diary-like voiceover remembrances—draws us in, rather than pushing us away from the horrors we hear recounted. But those silent clay faces also prove to be a powerful representation of voices muzzled by a repressive regime. Stoic and hard, they become tiny memorials for the people Panh still cannot forget 40 years later. —Tim Grierson
34. The Fear of 13
Year: 2015
Director: David Sington
Sington’s The Fear of 13 has a unique vision often not associated with (though probably well suited for) true crime, applying a stark, poetic narrative style to a fairly run-of-the-mill criminal justice story. Death row inmate Nick Yarris sits in a dark room, like in a black box theater, and recounts his story. The film relies almost entirely on Yarris’s charisma and gift for storytelling—developed during the years he spent educating himself in prison—with just the occasional visual or sonic flourish. It’s a risky strategy, but it pays off: The delights of The Fear of 13 lie in Yarris’s elegantly rendered anecdotes in which death row inmates sing in the dark, a bathroom break provides an opportunity for a nail-biting escape and how there’s palpable joy in learning new words like “triskaidekaphobia.” Though Sington leaves the viewer context-less for most of his film—Is Yarris telling the truth? Is he really on death row? Is he guilty or not?—he answers all in due time, but not before taking viewers on a pleasure of a ride. —Maura McAndrew
33. Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan
Release Date: May 24, 2017
Directors: Adam Schlesinger, Linda Saffire
Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan isn’t a “dance movie,” per se. Except during the last 10 minutes (and even then, in what looks like a truncated form), there aren’t really any sustained ballet sequences in which to marvel at the former New York City Ballet principal dancer’s legendary physicality. It’s doubtful that neophytes will come away from Adam Schlesinger and Linda Saffire’s documentary with a deeper appreciation of the art form. Instead, this is a portrait of an artist at a professional and personal crossroads, as Whelan faces the potential death of the creative livelihood that has sustained her for so many decades, one that has given her life joy and meaning. Whelan’s process of trying to rediscover herself after a personal setback would not have been half as involving as it is if she hadn’t been so generous with the access she granted the filmmakers. She isn’t afraid to lay bare her vulnerabilities for the camera, and Schlesinger and Saffire are able to capture their subject in occasional private moments that make their subject seem poignantly human. It’s that intimacy that makes Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan an artist documentary that will play movingly—inspiringly, even—for those who aren’t already fans. —Kenji Fujishima