Recommended Documentaries

Recommended Docs

  • Public

This is a topic where you can say which documentary has really impressed you, and why people should see it. Can be a recent one or an all-time favourite. Can't be your own though, sorry...

Praise the work of others, not your own. If you want to beat the drum for your own documentary, please don't do it here. Professionals have their own Shameless Self-Promotion topic.

We also have a Documentary Films topic for our Professionals where the debate is private and possibly more controversial. This topic here is for recommendations to the documentary-interested public.

John Burgan

Here's a classic for anyone who loves the movies: Angela Christlieb & Stephen Kijak's CINEMANIA

Don't just take my word for it:

We loved it! These characters in Cinemania, have clearly crossed over some line and can no longer be considered normal or sane. After watching your film, we are ready to cross that line ourselves. (D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus)

It's for free on Vimeo, but if you enjoy it please make a contribution to their tip jar

More information in hidden section

CINEMANIA (2002) is a documentary about the culture of intense cinephilia in New York City that reveals the impassioned world of five wildly obsessed movie buffs. They spend their waking hours in darkened theaters, and now, these full-time audience members step from their seats onto the big screen in this entertaining documentary which celebrates their obsessions – from the grandiosity of their aesthetic dreams to the austerity of their domestic realities. In Cinemania, the Silver Screen's biggest fans become the true stars. This is the story of their lives, their memories, their unbending habits and the films they love.

Directed by Angela Christlieb & Stephen Kijak
A Hanfgarn & Ufer production, in cooperation with Loop Filmworks

"A crisp, intelligent film" Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"NO WAY!!!... It's like My Big Fat Greek Wedding for our crowd, better entitled My Big Fat Movie Obsession." Film Threat

"Unsettling docu about the civilians who virtually surrender everything else in life to attend up to five films a day. The non-narrated "Cinemania" is an unsparing, if light touched, look at obsession, denial and where to find the cheap seats in Manhattan... The soundtrack´s French popsongs, all about cinephilia, add a dose of fun, as does the perfect finish, which finds the five protags in a small screening room, commenting snarkily on a rough cut of the pic we´re watching."
Ken Eisner, Variety

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