Documentary Films and Programs

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      ‘Finding Yingying’ Review: Vanishing Point

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Finding Yingying’ Review: Vanishing PointThis documentary about the search for a missing student in Illinois takes a compassionate approach to grim material.A march to promote the finding of Yingying Zhang.Credit…MTV Documentary FilmsDec. 10, 2020, 12:00 p.m. ETFinding YingyingDirected by Jiayan ‘Jenny’ ShiDocumentaryNot RatedFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The chilling documentary “Finding Yingying” watches a family grapple with an unfathomable horror: the disappearance and probable death of a loved one who was living far away. Yingying Zhang, a visiting scholar from China at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, went missing in June 2017. What happened with the investigation and in court can be found online, but most of the film deals with the dread-filled uncertainty before those outcomes, and with the continuing search for Zhang’s body.The director, Jiayan “Jenny” Shi, reads Zhang’s diary entries in voice-over and ponders her similarities with the missing woman. Both attended the same university in China, and shortly after arriving in the United States, Shi herself got into a car with a stranger, as Zhang is shown doing in security footage. (Zhang, in one of her most foreboding diary entries, had written of another circumstance in which she was walking in heavy rain and yearned to be inside a passing car.)Cultural expectations become a huge part of the story. Zhang’s family and boyfriend grow frustrated with the justice system in the United States (the pace is slow and there’s no way to make a suspect talk). Shi films Zhang’s family members in China as they consider their lives without her. (“Americans won’t give up on my daughter, right?” her mother asks.) The film captures their ordeal with compassion and a measure of self-reflexivity, which is as much as this unavoidably grim material could ask for.Finding YingyingNot rated. In English and Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Assassins’ Review: Duped Into an International Murder Plot

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Assassins’ Review: Duped Into an International Murder PlotA documentary tries to explain how two women were able to cause the death of the North Korean leader’s half brother.Doan Thi Huong, center, in the documentary, “Assassins.”Credit…Greenwich EntertainmentDec. 10, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ETAssassinsDirected by Ryan WhiteDocumentary1h 44mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The two women who smeared a nerve agent on the face of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, causing his death, have left a light pop-cultural footprint in the United States. This is especially so given that one of them was wearing a shirt reading “LOL” during the act. Anyone that meme-ready deserves at least one movie.Enter “Assassins,” a documentary from the filmmaker Ryan White (“Ask Dr. Ruth”), which traces with impressive clarity the path that led Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong to Kuala Lumpur International Airport that morning in February 2017. It makes a convincing case that they had no idea they were involved in an international murder plot.[embedded content]Both women — the Indonesian Siti and the Vietnamese Huong — were released from prison last year, with Huong pleading guilty to the charge of causing bodily harm. White’s film suggests that the Malaysian justice system had treated them as scapegoats. Drawing on the defense lawyers and plenty of video evidence, the movie maintains that Siti and Huong were independently recruited as actresses for prank videos. One routine their bosses taught them? Rub baby lotion on a stranger.As filmmaking, “Assassins” is not new: It pulls from the usual paranoid-documentary playbook, inviting the audience to pore over surveillance footage and leaning on a sweat-inducing score from Blake Neely. Its main virtues are a wild story and a stealth sense of outrage. It argues that these so-called assassins became political pawns and had to face the courts without witnesses who might have aided their defense.AssassinsNot rated. In Vietnamese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, English and Malay, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘A Dog Called Money’ Review: Lyrical Encounters With PJ Harvey

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘A Dog Called Money’ Review: Lyrical Encounters With PJ HarveyIn this documentary, the musician PJ Harvey travels to Kabul, Kosovo and Washington, D.C. to find inspiration.PJ Harvey in the documentary “A Dog Called Money.”Credit…Seamus Murphy/AbramoramaBy More

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      ‘Sing Me a Song’ Review: Technology vs. the Contemplative Life

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Sing Me a Song’ Review: Technology vs. the Contemplative LifeThe French filmmaker Thomas Balmès follows a Bhutanese boy as he becomes a man and finds a life outside the monastery where he grew up.“Sing Me a Song” a documentary film directed by Thomas Balmès about a boy in a Bhutanese monastery. It follows his film “Happiness,” which introduced the young boy, Peyangki.Credit…Gravitas VenturesBy More

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      What’s on TV This Week: A Bee Gees Documentary and ‘Couples Therapy’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat’s on TV This Week: A Bee Gees Documentary and ‘Couples Therapy’“The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” debuts on HBO. And a pandemic-focused “Couples Therapy” special airs on Showtime.From left, Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb and Barry Gibb, as seen in “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart.”Credit…Ed Caraeff/Getty Images, via HBOBy More

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      ‘Billie’ Review: A Legend, in a Different Light

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusClassic Holiday MoviesHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Billie’ Review: A Legend, in a Different LightThe journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl worked for years on a Billie Holiday biography before Kuehl’s sudden death in 1978. The director of this documentary bought her research, and uses it well.Billie Holiday, as seen in the documentary “Billie.”Credit…Michael Ochs/Greenwich EntertainmentBy More

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      ‘Crock of Gold’ Review: Shane MacGowan, Still Alive and Laughing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusClassic Holiday MoviesHoliday TVBest Netflix DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Crock of Gold’ Review: Shane MacGowan, Still Alive and LaughingRambunctious, even in a wheelchair, the hell-raising Irish musician is the subject of this Julien Temple documentary.Shane MacGowan, as seen in the documentary “Crock of Gold.”Credit…Andrew Catlin/Magnolia PicturesBy More

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      ‘76 Days’ Review: Fortitude on China’s Frontlines

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesWho Gets the Vaccine First?Vaccine TrackerFAQAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘76 Days’ Review: Fortitude on China’s FrontlinesShot in four Wuhan hospitals during coronavirus lockdown, the film takes a grounded, humane perspective on doctors, nurses and patients.A scene from the documentary “76 Days,” shot at hospitals in Wuhan early in the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…MTV Documentary FilmsBy More