Duane Byrge

Bratt certainly illuminates the uncertainty of her quest: the early dawns of heading out to rally strangers and the turmoil of a life fighting against superior, institutional forces.

What distinguishes Bushwick from your standard-issue, boneheaded video game is its cheeky cerebral wit.

It's Not Yet Dark is a heartfelt and stirring documentary

Joshua: Teenager vs. Super Power is actually a rousing documentary on a youth movement against, essentially, educational brainwashing.

Stylistically, The Settlers is crisp: It's an intelligent blend of interviews, historical exposition and newsreel footage.

Shock doc The Blackout Experiments augurs to be an experiment in audience walk-out.... it is neither scary nor shocking.

Throughout, Wang makes a virtue out of necessity: Her on-the-run scoping and jarring cuts infuse the film with a sense of desperate danger befitting its subject matter.

The film is a documentary gem.

Unlocking the Cage makes its case for reevaluation of non-human animals' legal status in crisp, convincing fashion.

Trapped is a succinct and heart-rending revelation of this complex and controversial subject. Most strikingly, it puts human faces on a social and personal issue that has been often engulfed by the invective surrounding it.

A blend of cornpone commentary and tongue-in-cheek exposition, Nuts! is consistently very entertaining.

Finders Keepers charts out a screwy insight into humanity that is usually only captured in the minds of twisted cartoonists.

Being Evel is a warts-and-all portrayal of a man whose ambition and need to be in the spotlight was both a positive and a negative. His insatiable appetites – liquor, women, attention – were parts of his personality that fueled his downfall.

It’s sobering and heart-wrenching.

Filmmaker Heineman vaults us into a true heart of darkness.

The film is a captivating, sobering look at the world’s endangered aquatic species, but it’s also a frightening revelation of what methane and carbon are doing to the ocean.

In this spellbinding story, filmmakers Katy Chevigny and Ross Kauffman thrust us into the red-alert lives of four E-Team members. It's a comprehensive portrayal of these people's personal and professional lives.

Sad and disturbing, this smartly and conscientiously crafted film is a powerful wake-up call, heard but not yet implemented, by the “civilized” world.

This smart HBO documentary convicts the media coverage and trial itself as guilty to Farce in the First Degree.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball is not just about baseball. It transcends the game and is a charming anti-establishment yarn.

Filmmakers Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia probe this phenomenon, jarring viewers with an inside look at one of these “reform” centers, as well as shedding light on the mindset of these Internet “addicts.”

In telling their remarkable story, filmmaker Leslie Zemeckis has not only etched a heart-wrenching portrait of their individual and dual misfortunes, she has subtly illuminated on the general public's dark fascination with “freaks.”

While one might agree or disagree with their theme, aesthetically Citizen Koch is feisty.

This intelligent and comprehensive documentary not only conveys the genuine nature of Hill herself, but also recreates the national sensibility of the time, an era when sexual harassment in the workplace was not yet a national concern.

A gloriously inspirational film documenting music’s healing power in Alzheimer patients.

Often heartbreaking, Rich Hill presents real life as few filmgoers know it. In certain respects it’s almost as if cultural anthropologists descended on a foreign land, but, unfortunately, it’s a withered part of this nation that is rarely visited.

American Promise shows the emotional toll that each boy endures, not only from the image that their privileged peers have of minority males but, accordingly, their own lack of confidence.

Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine have fashioned an informative, emotionally uplifting saga of the powers of optimism and persistence in the face of the cruelest odds.