Welcome to ‘Doctober’: 12 documentaries that have the world buzzing

People lined up from early morning for the slim chance they might get a first public view of “You Can See Everything,” Nathan Fielder’s top-secret Elizabeth Holmes documentary, which held a sold out premiere in New York on Wednesday before heading to theaters in two weeks.

One lucky person had a ticket — a subpar seat, near the back — that they had to get rid of because of a childcare commitment. They dropped the news into a Discord chat organized for the New York Film Festival, where the documentary was showing after a surprise peek at Telluride in September. The seller was swarmed, first by dozens, then eventually over 200 people. They organized a raffle, streamed live on YouTube — the interest was too much to handle.

The hype has been building online for weeks. A short clip of Fielder opposite Holmes has racked up nearly 8 million views on YouTube since it was released alongside the Telluride showing and immediately entered the zeitgeist, memed nearly to death. Ask people what they can’t wait to see this October, and it’s probably at the top of their list.

“You Can See Everything,” a collaboration between Fielder and documentary wunderkind Lance Oppenheim, is one of several docs that have grabbed the cultural conversation in recent weeks, ranging from features tackling human rights or beloved musicians to experimental fan favorites. That’s in addition to high-profile documentary series streaming about Jay-Z and the late “Friends” actor Matthew Perry, respectively. Are we living through a documentary renaissance? Call it … Doctober.

You can read the documentary glut as one response to a world where nothing feels real. In an AI-inundated world, “we’re teetering on the precipice of the uncanny valley,” said documentary filmmaker Christopher Chambers, who’s prepping to release human rights doc “A Fire Within.” “We’re in this abyss and we all want to feel something real. I think nothing brings us closer to that feeling that something is real and something is true than documentary.”

That doesn’t mean it’s an easy time to be a documentary filmmaker.

“Raising money for documentaries is extremely difficult,” said Chambers. But when a big doc gets buzz, like the “Tiger King” craze of 2020, “it creates within the minds of investors, but even more importantly, in the minds of buyers, the idea that there’s an audience for this.”

Here are some of the documentaries we’re excited about this fall:

Just a month before she was set to report for prison, disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes invited the man who’s made social awkwardness an art form into her home. The result is perhaps the year’s most-hyped doc.

John Wilson’s essayistic feature debut tackles the subject of documentary-making directly by tracking his maddening struggle to secure funding, even after he achieved relatively mainstream success on HBO.

As much as it wanders, Wilson’s movie is rooted in a celebration of reality — marked by episodes weirder than the strangest AI deepfake, moments that “you can’t predict or even write,” Wilson said in an interview.

And people are into it. The film “has blown past all our expectations,” with the biggest premiere for a documentary ever at NYC’s IFC Center , the theater’s vice president Harris Dew said. For Wilson, the success of a film largely dismissed by mainstream funders is a sign that viewers are eager for films that break the mold.

“People should try to experiment and make weird stuff because I think everyone is so tired of the same stuff out there,” he said.

Alex Gibney’s four-hour survey of the life and failures of the world’s wealthiest man moved up its theatrical premiere to October 9 due to high demand. The film has relatively little new to add to the barrage of reporting journalists have undertaken over the past few years on Elon Musk’s financial failures and pursuit of power. It is most successful as an archival document. When Elon has brought us all to Mars, people will watch this documentary for the definitive account of how we got there.

Featuring interviews with anonymous members of the Israeli military speaking about systems used to target civilians in Gaza en masse, “NAZA” is this year’s festival favorite, opening at Venice to a record-breaking 25-minute ovation . The film — executive produced by “Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer — has drawn widespread acclaim and also prompted Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu to threaten to revoke the citizenship of its two Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (who, alongside Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adran and Hamdan Ballall, were part of the team behind the Oscar-winning “No Other Land”) .

When director Brydie O’Connor pitched “Barbara Forever,” a documentary about avant-garde lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer, one network executive told her it was difficult to fund documentaries whose contents fell outside the “three C’s”: cults, crime and celebrity. But the film has been more successful than O’Connor ever expected, winning awards at Sundance and the Berlinale .

“It makes me so hopeful for the future of documentary filmmaking because I think it shows that there’s an appetite,” O’Connor said in an interview. “The reception for this film, for ‘Barbara Forever,’ is like hope in itself.”

If “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow” was not enough for you, at nearly six hours long, fear not: Director Julia Loktev has released a part two, also nearly six hours long. A cinema verite exploration of independent journalists in Russia facing increasing authoritarianism amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the subject is worthy, even if the runtime is a cinephile crime.

Remember when creepy clowns took over the suburbs? Hulu does, and it’s ready to remind you with a doc trailer that looks more like that of a horror film.

William Greaves Productions

In 1972, the last surviving participants of the Harlem Renaissance got together at Duke Ellington’s Harlem townhouse. What transpired hasn’t been seen until now, with a father-son collaboration that’s been 50 years in the making.

Two decades ago, Sofia Coppola’s frothy pastel reimagining of the life of Marie Antoinette splashed onto the big screen and never really left. Coppola’s depiction of the loneliness and confusion of a young woman put on display still resonates today — perhaps even more so in our hyper-documented world. This behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the film is composed of footage by the late Eleanor Coppola, Sofia’s mother.

Ghoulardi Film Company

How do you follow up taking home the Oscars for best picture and best director? If you’re Paul Thomas Anderson, it’s by documenting emerging rock darling Cameron Winter, the frontman of Geese, as he takes on a solo show at New York City’s most prestigious venue.

Comedian on comedian: Judd Apatow takes on the life of the late comedian Norm MacDonald, who died in 2021. The Netflix doc is largely based on archival footage of the comic’s many performances.

The Oasis doc reportedly offers few answers about what preceded the Gallagher brothers’ long-awaited reunion tour . But it does feature a lot of gorgeous concert footage, brought to you by the team behind the LCD Soundsystem concert film “Shut Up and Play the Hits.” You just gotta roll with it.

人们从清晨就开始排队，希望能有机会先睹为快内森·菲尔德执导的伊丽莎白·霍姆斯高度保密的纪录片《你能看到一切》。该片于周三在纽约举行了首映式，门票售罄，两周后将在影院上映。

一位幸运儿因为要照顾孩子不得不转让一张电影票——虽然座位不太好，在后排。他把这个消息发布到了一个为纽约电影节组织的Discord聊天群里，这部纪录片在九月份的特柳赖德电影节上惊喜亮相后，将在纽约电影节上放映。卖家立刻被围堵，先是几十人，最后超过200人。他们组织了一场抽奖活动，并在YouTube上进行了直播——反响实在太热烈了。

几周以来，网上对这部电影的期待值一直在飙升。菲尔德与霍姆斯对戏的短片自特柳赖德电影节放映期间发布以来，在YouTube上的点击量已接近800万，并迅速成为热门话题，几乎被各种梗玩烂了。问问人们今年十月最期待看什么，这部电影很可能名列前茅。

由菲尔德和纪录片奇才兰斯·奥本海姆合作的《你能看到一切》是近几周来引发文化热议的几部纪录片之一，这些纪录片涵盖了从关注人权或深受喜爱的音乐人到实验性佳作等各种题材。此外，还有分别关于Jay-Z和已故《老友记》演员马修·佩里的备受瞩目的纪录片系列正在热播。我们是否正在经历一场纪录片的复兴？不妨称之为……纪录片十月。

你可以把纪录片的泛滥解读为对一个处处缺乏真实感的世界的一种回应。在人工智能充斥的世界里，“我们正徘徊在恐怖谷的边缘，”纪录片导演克里斯托弗·钱伯斯说道，他正准备发行一部名为《内心之火》的人权纪录片。“我们身处深渊，渴望感受真实。我认为没有什么比纪录片更能让我们感受到真实和真理。”

但这并不意味着现在做纪录片导演很容易。

“为纪录片筹集资金极其困难，”钱伯斯说。但当一部热门纪录片引起轰动时，比如2020年的《虎王》热潮，“它会在投资者心中，更重要的是，在买家心中，创造一种观念：这部纪录片是有受众的。”

以下是我们今年秋季最期待的一些纪录片：

就在即将入狱服刑前一个月，声名狼藉的Theranos创始人伊丽莎白·霍姆斯邀请了一位将社交尴尬发挥到极致的男士到她家做客。最终的成果或许是今年最受瞩目的纪录片。

约翰·威尔逊的散文式长片处女作直接探讨了纪录片制作的主题，记录了他即使在 HBO 取得相对主流的成功之后，仍然为获得资金而进行的令人抓狂的斗争。

尽管威尔逊的电影风格多变，但它根植于对现实的赞颂——影片中穿插着比最奇怪的人工智能深度伪造还要怪异的片段，威尔逊在一次采访中说，这些片段“你无法预测，甚至无法写出来”。

观众反响热烈。纽约IFC中心副总裁哈里斯·杜表示，这部电影“远远超出了我们的预期”，其首映式创下了纪录片在IFC中心有史以来最盛大的纪录。对于威尔逊来说，这部几乎被主流投资方忽视的电影能够取得成功，表明观众渴望看到突破常规的作品。

他说：“人们应该尝试做一些新奇的东西，因为我觉得大家都已经厌倦了千篇一律的东西。”

由于需求旺盛，亚历克斯·吉布尼执导的这部长达四小时的纪录片，深入剖析了世界首富埃隆·马斯克的人生及其失败，并将院线首映日期提前至10月9日。这部影片并没有为过去几年记者们对埃隆·马斯克的财务失败和权力追求所做的铺天盖地的报道增添多少新内容。它作为一部档案文献最为成功。当埃隆最终带领我们登上火星之后，人们将会观看这部纪录片，以了解我们是如何实现这一目标的权威解读。

《纳扎》（NAZA）是今年威尼斯电影节的热门影片，影片中采访了多位匿名以色列军方人员，讲述了他们如何利用各种系统大规模袭击加沙地带的平民。该片在威尼斯电影节首映时，获得了创纪录的25分钟掌声。这部由《利益区》（Zone of Interest）导演乔纳森·格雷泽担任执行制片的影片广受好评，同时也引发了以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡的威胁，他扬言要剥夺两位以色列导演尤瓦尔·亚伯拉罕和雷切尔·索尔的公民身份（他们与巴勒斯坦电影人巴塞尔·阿德兰和哈姆丹·巴拉尔共同执导了奥斯卡获奖影片《别无他乡》（No Other Land））。

当导演布莱迪·奥康纳（Brydie O'Connor）向电视台推介纪录片《芭芭拉永恒》（Barbara Forever）时，一位电视台高管告诉她，如果纪录片的内容不属于“三C”范畴——邪教、犯罪和名人——就很难获得资金支持。这部纪录片讲述的是前卫女同性恋电影人芭芭拉·哈默（Barbara Hammer）的故事。但这部电影的成功远超奥康纳的预期，在圣丹斯电影节和柏林电影节上都斩获了奖项。

奥康纳在一次采访中说：“这让我对纪录片的未来充满希望，因为我认为这表明人们对纪录片有需求。《芭芭拉永恒》这部电影的反响本身就是一种希望。”

如果你觉得近六个小时的《我的不受欢迎的朋友：第一部——莫斯科的最后一缕阳光》还不够过瘾，别担心：导演尤利娅·洛克捷夫推出了第二部，同样近六个小时。这部影片以真实电影的手法，探讨了在乌克兰全面入侵之际，俄罗斯独立记者们如何面对日益严峻的威权主义。题材本身值得一看，即使片长对影迷来说简直是犯罪。

你还记得那些恐怖小丑占领郊区的往事吗？Hulu 记得，它准备用一段看起来更像是恐怖电影的纪录片预告片来唤起你的记忆。

威廉·格里夫斯制片公司

1972年，哈莱姆文艺复兴运动的最后几位在世参与者齐聚杜克·艾灵顿位于哈莱姆区的联排别墅。这场酝酿了50年的父子合作，其成果直到今天才得以公之于众。

二十年前，索菲亚·科波拉以轻快柔和的粉彩色调重新演绎玛丽·安托瓦内特的一生，这部影片一经上映便风靡全球，至今仍经久不衰。科波拉对一位被置于聚光灯下的年轻女性的孤独与迷茫的刻画，在今天依然引起共鸣——或许在如今这个信息爆炸的时代，这种共鸣更加强烈。这部关于影片制作的幕后纪录片，由索菲亚的母亲，已故的埃莉诺·科波拉拍摄的影像资料组成。

古拉迪电影公司

继斩获奥斯卡最佳影片和最佳导演奖之后，你该如何继续创作？如果你是保罗·托马斯·安德森，那么你的答案是：拍摄冉冉升起的摇滚新星、Geese乐队主唱卡梅隆·温特在纽约市最负盛名的场馆举办个人演唱会的纪录片。

喜剧演员谈喜剧演员：贾德·阿帕图执导了已故喜剧演员诺姆·麦克唐纳的传记片，麦克唐纳于2021年去世。这部Netflix纪录片主要基于这位喜剧演员众多表演的档案影像资料。

据报道，这部绿洲乐队的纪录片并没有解答加拉格尔兄弟期待已久的重聚巡演之前究竟发生了什么。但它确实收录了大量精彩的演唱会片段，这些片段是由制作LCD Soundsystem演唱会电影《Shut Up and Play the Hits》的团队打造的。你只需要好好欣赏就好。