What makes a documentary special? What makes it important, worth watching, or even worth talking about? What makes us want to watch a small, independent feature with almost no action when we could be watching two superheroes duke it out in New York? Documentaries are not inherently cinematic, but they can be enormously cinematic with the right documentarian and the right subject. Documentaries offer a window to our world, and their stain-glass view can tell us everything we need to know about life, history, humanity, and geology. Our list includes the best of these explorations, from penguins to politicians.
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