Streaming guide: Dynamic documentaries to watch in lockdown

Ready to mix up your lockdown viewing while keeping it real? Here are twelve of the best documentaries you should stream.

Let’s mix it up a bit – and keep it real while we’re doing so – by rounding up twelve of the best documentaries which have found homes on the various streaming platforms.

UNTOLD: MALICE AT THE PALACE

NETFLIX

Remember how much you enjoyed Netflix’s acclaimed 2020 docu-series The Last Dance? Then you will be pleased to know the streaming giant has just started rolling out another clutch of quality sports docos under the Untold banner. The first feature in the collection – which will be updated weekly – is Malice at the Palace, and it is a ripping effort. This is the full, unvarnished tale of an infamous basket-brawl that ended a November 2004 game between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers. With just seconds to go, several players on both teams lost their cool in a manner not normally associated with the NBA brand. Even now, the footage of the incident looks as if it has been beamed from another dimension. Those who were there – and especially, those still living with the consequences – are front and centre in what is a top-notch production.

Untold: Malice at the Palace.

WOODSTOCK ‘99: PEACE, LOVE & RAGE

FOXTEL, BINGE

If you watched either of the extraordinary docos about the spectacularly doomed Fyre Music Festival, you must track down this revealing look at another major open-air event that was destined to be a non-event from its moment of creation. A 30-years-after sequel to the iconic 1960s Woodstock Festival should have a been a win-win-win situation for music lovers, artists and promoters alike. Instead, it was a dangerous and rather distasteful debacle, notorious in particular for its gallingly shabby treatment of the female patrons in attendance. A crash course in how to should tens of thousands of people a bad time they will never forget. (Side note: this is the first release in a rolling series to be titled Music Box. Executive producer Bill Simmons says he has plans “to make Music Box the 30 For 30 of music documentaries.” Can’t argue with him after getting off to such a hot start here.

COLLECTIVE

DOCPLAY OR RENT

In hindsight, it is nothing short of astonishing to reflect that this devastating work of (and also about) investigative journalism did not win the most recent Best Documentary Oscar. Initially, the focus is on a tragic nightclub fire in the Romanian city of Bucharest, where 27 people died and hundreds more were severely injured. Months later, a local sports newspaper detects a chilling trend: many of those who survived the blaze are dying suddenly and inexplicably in hospitals across the country. As gripping as it is disturbing, this significant production packs a haunting, lasting punch.

The Last Cruise.

THE LAST CRUISE

FOXTEL, BINGE

A mesmerising journey back in time to the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, when a generic cruise liner named the Diamond Princess suddenly signalled that dark times were just around the corner for us all. Using mobile-phone footage shot by passengers and crew, the film eerily channels what it was like to be trapped on a ship as a then-unknown virus swept the vessel. Shunned by many sea ports during its fateful voyage, the Diamond Princess became the equivalent of a floating jail.

THE DISSIDENT

DOCPLAY OR RENT

An essential true crime documentary, recounting a murder that captured the world’s attention for a myriad of reasons. On October 2, 2018, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul to pick up some paperwork required for his upcoming wedding. He never came out. His Turkish fiancee waited patiently outside for several hours, hoping that her husband-to-be had merely been detained due to some kind of admin bungle. Instead, she would later learn from Istanbul police investigators that Khashoggi was ambushed by Saudi agents and ruthlessly executed in a conference room. A former ally of the Saudi royal family who had become one of their most outspoken critics, Khashoggi had been warned his life was in danger. However, the terrifying degree of planning and use of blunt force that were applied to his killing – with the full blessing of the Saudi regime – was not thought possible by even his most cautious associates. Until it actually happened. The evidence presented by this rigorously researched doco (from the makers of 2018’s Oscar-winner Icarus) is chilling to work through, but damning to those who thought they could get away with such a despicable act.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Picture: AFP

WILD CARD: THE DOWNFALL OF A RADIO LOUDMOUTH

FOXTEL, BINGE

Craig Carton was making over $2 million a year in a dream job for sports fans everywhere, yelling his thoughts on basketball, baseball and football into a microphone that broadcast to millions. And yet, the top-rating New York DJ lost it all and ended up in jail, convicted of constructing a dumb Ponzi scheme too easily traced back to him. The dirty secret behind Carton’s fall from grace? An addiction to high-stakes wagering that went way, way beyond betting on his own outlandish theories on sport.

Billie Eilish.

BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD’S A LITTLE BLURRY

APPLE TV+

This comprehensive chronicle of Ms Eilish’s unlikely rise from a lowly corner of the internet to the heights of worldwide fame benefits greatly from the oversight of a decorated filmmaker (R.J. Cutler of The September Issue fame). You do not have to be a fan at all to become involved with the subject’s unlikely ascension to the big leagues. The level of access granted to Cutler and his team is as wide-open as it gets in this era of carefully cultivated public personas. Indeed there is a rawness and warm honesty to Eilish and her family that invites any uncertain onlookers to forget what they think of her music and just hang out with ‘em a while.

A still from Brock: Over the Top

BROCK: OVER THE TOP

ABC IVIEW

Very well assembled but never slick, this quality Australian sports documentary is a ripping watch from beginning to end. The subject is the late, great Australian race driver Peter Brock, a towering figure on the touring car circuit who racked up an astonishing nine wins of the Bathurst 1000 across a record-breaking career. Where the documentary really gets its hooks into you is the ease with which it charts the complicated life journey taken by Brock when not at the wheel of one of his beloved Holdens. A fascinating portrait of a man who craved fame while not equipped to adequately deal with it. While vivid contributions from friends, family and arch rivals are rightly to the fore, the daring, skill and rebellious streak of the man himself linger longest in the memory afterwards.

Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen.

MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE

NETFLIX

An intriguing and immersive documentary canvassing the unconventional career of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, and the uncommon devotion of Marianne Ihlen, the Norwegian woman who inspired some of his landmark works. While Cohen’s surprise transition from failed writer and poet to major music artist and innovator pushed Ihlen into the shadows, she never fully disappeared from view. Music lovers of all persuasions – and romantics both hopeful and hopeless – should find and cherish this film.

OWN THE ROOM

DISNEY+

This unpretentious dose of inspiration will definitely pump some air into the deflated spirits of any youngsters watching. The subject is the annual staging of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, a life-changing competition designed to foster innovation and co-operation among the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. We get to follow five contestants from disparate parts of the planet, all of whom have converged on the island of Macau to pitch their big ideas and claim a six-figure cash prize. Like other docos mounted along similar lines (such as those set at spelling bees and the like) you will become attached to all the contenders, and disappointed that all of them will not be winning.

Human Flow documentary highlights the global refugee crisis.

HUMAN FLOW

ABC IVIEW

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei trains his gaze on the global refugee crisis. While not strictly a documentary in its purest form, the end result is still a striking piece of reportage. The raw humanity, the sweeping sorrow, and the faint hope captured here simplifies everything down to a single, telling point well worth pondering at length afterwards. As the displaced people of this planet grow in number every year, those prepared to extend a hand to help them are getting harder to find by the day.

JR and Agnes Varda in Faces Places.

FACES, PLACES

SBS ON DEMAND

A few years ago, at 89 years of age, revered French filmmaker Agnes Varda became the oldest competitive nominee in Oscars history. The reason why Varda’s name sat proudly in the Best Documentary category is the glorious Faces, Places, a road movie with a deep and delightful difference. The production is mighty difficult to describe. At times, it is a fascinating document of a mobile, open-air art experiment. Varda and 33-year-old outdoor installation artist JR (credited as a co-director here) travel around France in a van, simply talking to people, taking their pictures, and then presenting the images in dazzlingly beautiful ways. Not one photograph ends up on a gallery wall, A majority of them are blown up to several thousand times their original size, and appear on spaces such as the entire side of an office block, or a barn. At other times, Faces, Places charts an unlikely friendship growing, strengthening and solidifying before your eyes. Varda and JR arrive at a bond that transcends their adventurous, questing sense of the visual. Then out of nowhere, Faces, Places can knock you flat with an affectionate thunderbolt about what a wonderful, precious, absurd and vital thing any human life can be.

Originally published as Streaming guide: Dynamic documentaries to watch in lockdown