Documentaries about Brooke Shields, Judy Blume and Michael J. Fox, films from veteran directors like Nicole Holofcener, an adaptation of the viral New Yorker story “Cat Person” and the feature directorial debut of actors Alice Englert and Randall Park are among the world premieres set for the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Julia Reichert, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker behind “American Factory” whose films explored themes of race, class and gender, often in the Midwest, has died.
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— One of the year’s standout documentaries , Margaret Brown’s “Descendant” takes a wide lens to the discovery of the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring African captives to the American South for enslavement.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Documentaries about feminist leader and politician Bella Abzug and a deadly 1985 Philadelphia police bombing are the winners of this year's Library of Congress film prize.
“Bella!” and “Philly on Fire” were selected by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and veteran documentarian Ken Burns, the latter among those for whom the prize is named.
What gets you, deep in the gut, are the smiles. The broad, awkward, sometimes silly smiles of people on an unremarkable day in an unremarkable town in 1938 Poland, fascinated by this new thing called a movie camera and oblivious to the fact that one day, this amateur travel movie will become a devastating historical artifact.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two documentaries detailing the punishing effects of Russia's war on Ukraine will air on PBS' “Frontline” investigative series.
The specials are part of an extensive collaboration between the series and The Associated Press that includes gathering, verifying and cataloging potential war crimes and co-publishing stories and videos from AP and “Frontline" war reporting.
Few documentaries looking at the past offer as real a vision of the future as “The Janes.”
Directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes have taken a look at a dozen or so women who came together in Chicago to secure abortions at a time when the procedure was illegal in most of the country.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Vangelis, the Greek electronic composer who wrote the unforgettable Academy Award-winning score for the film “Chariots of Fire” and music for dozens of other movies, documentaries and TV series, has died at 79.
Brent Renaud, an acclaimed filmmaker who traveled to some of the darkest and most dangerous corners of the world for documentaries that transported audiences to little-known places of suffering, died Sunday after Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle in Ukraine.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — How U.S. history is told and taught is being challenged and potentially constricted on several fronts, but television's approach to Black History Month is firmly in overdrive.
There's a wealth of provocative and creative Black-focused programs in February, looking deep into the past to examine topics such as the roots of slavery and the achievements of towering figures including Frederick Douglass.
Filmmaker Robert Greene knows well the burden of responsibility in making a documentary. It’s not just to the film itself, the audience or the storytelling. It’s the responsibility to the subjects in front of the camera.
NEW YORK (AP) — Can a music scene still develop the way grunge did in 1990's Seattle or hip-hop did in the Bronx in the 1970s? Or has the digital makeover of music made such geographical-based explosions obsolete?
The lights may be dim at the Eccles Theater and Park City's Main Street will have fewer cinephiles packing the snowy sidewalks when the Sundance Film Festival begins its 44th edition Thursday night.
Documentaries about Julia Child, “Black Woodstock,” the pandemic and The Velvet Underground and acclaimed international films like Japan’s “Drive My Car,” Iran’s “A Hero” and Norway’s “The Worst Person in the World” just got a little closer to scoring Oscar nominations.
The Sundance Film Festival is returning to the Utah mountains in January armed with documentaries about Bill Cosby, Princess Diana, Kanye West and Lucille Ball and the directorial debuts of Eva Longoria, Tig Notaro and Jesse Eisenberg.
NEW YORK (AP) — The label “date movie” hasn’t traditionally been applied much to documentaries but filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen have twice now made non-fiction films of trailblazing female icons that also happen to be portraits of loving, supportive marriages.
NEW YORK (AP) — Who was Jacques-Yves Cousteau, exactly?
He was an oceanographer and explorer but held no scientific degree. He was an environmentalist whose voyages were nevertheless sometimes funded by oil companies seeking drilling sites.
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
The label “date movie” hasn't traditionally been applied much to documentaries but filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen have twice now made non-fiction films of trailblazing female icons that also happen to be portraits of loving, supportive marriages.
Considering the number of movies, documentaries and other entertainment vehicles made about Muhammad Ali, it would seem that — much like the former heavyweight champion at the end of his 1971 fight against Joe Frazier — there’s not much left to offer that's fresh.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Guitarist Jimmy Page says he turned down a lot of “pretty miserable” pitches over the years to make a documentary about Led Zeppelin. But he finally bit when he received a deeply-researched proposal focusing almost exclusively on the music and chronicling the band’s birth in 1968 and its meteoric early rise.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oakland filmmaker Peter Nicks had already made two well-regarded documentaries capturing the flawed institutions of his city and their role in shaping local lives: 2012’s “The Waiting Room,” about a public hospital, and 2017’s “The Force,” about the Oakland Police Department during a wave of shootings and protests.
Alvin Ailey and Bill T. Jones may have a generation between them, but the two influential choreographers crossed paths at a few pivotal moments. Ailey was the one who commissioned Jones’ first work, “Fever Swap,” in 1983.
CANNES, France (AP) — It's not hard to find people at the Cannes Film Festival dedicated to the big-screen, theatrical life of movies. But even among the devoted flocks of Cannes, Mark Cousins stands out as a true believer.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Several documentary filmmakers — some backed by NBA superstars — are shedding light on the historically ignored Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific tragedies in American history.
The Oscar isn’t the only one celebrating its 93rd trip around the sun at the Academy Awards ceremony this year...
NEW YORK (AP) — For a man who first appeared on television when he was 2, showing Bob Hope how he could already swat golf balls, the public actually knows little about Tiger Woods...
A Questlove-directed documentary about the other major music event of the summer of 1969 and documentaries about the creators of Sesame Street and the coronavirus pandemic in China are among the 72 feature films debuting at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival...
NEW YORK (AP) — The election has unleashed an avalanche of documentaries like no season before it...
NEW YORK (AP) — Adam McKay was head writer at “Saturday Night Live” during the 2000 election — a heady era for the sketch show that saw the phrase “strategery” become lodged in the nation’s consciousness, Darrell Hammond’s Al Gore explain his “lockbox” and a blue-suit clad Will Ferrell dance as Janet Reno...
Anonymous sources in documentaries have often been reduced to a shadowy, voice-distorted figure — or worse, a pixelated blur...
The director of a new documentary about Roy Cohn is not exactly a neutral party. After all, Cohn played a key role in getting her grandparents executed...
NEW YORK (AP) — Filmmaker Sasha Joelle Achilli has made documentaries on the Ebola virus and now the coronavirus. Ask which virus scares her more, and the answer is easy.
“The frightening thing about COVID is it's everywhere, and you just don't know,” she said.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fate of “ Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind ” hung on a Robert Wagner interview. Director Laurent Bouzereau knew that it would be a delicate conversation.
Sports and cinema have an uneasy alliance.
For every “Raging Bull,” there are an abundance of flicks that get it wrong when they try to recapture a memorable event or famous athlete...
The planet and its wondrous inhabitants take center stage this week in celebration of Earth Day.
Several documentaries will spotlight the wonders of the outside world, while a live R&B battle and a new Beastie Boys documentary provide a chance to get moving in our homes...
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — “The Assistant” is one of the first narrative films to come out of the #MeToo movement and the Harvey Weinstein scandal...
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Lin-Manuel Miranda knows that, for some, the story of his life is already written...
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — In documentaries, anonymous sources have often been reduced to a shadowy, voice-distorted figure — or worse, a pixelated blur. But a new documentary premiering Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival has, with the aid of advanced digital technology, gone to greater lengths to preserve the secrecy of its sources while still conveying their humanity.
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A searing documentary about the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi made its anticipated debut at the Sundance Film Festival, unveiling a detailed investigation into the Saudi Arabia regime and the companies and governments that do business with it...
Who's that amazingly expressive actor they got to play Diego Maradona? The one you can't take your eyes off of, whose every facial muscle can project joy, pain, sadness, humor or anger from miles away, and sometimes all at once...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a July 5 story about TV specials marking the 1969 moon landing, The Associated Press erroneously reported that a July 20 concert celebrating the event will air on PBS. The National Symphony Orchestra Pops concert at the Kennedy Center will not be aired.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 1969 moon landing turned an achievement seen only in the imagination and sci-fi movies into a most improbable television event, a live broadcast starring Neil Armstrong and a desolate landscape...