10 Odd Documentaries I Loved in 2024

Agnès Verda explores the creative underworld of Los Angeles in Mur Murs (1981)

So we meet again. This is my third end-of-year list of documentaries that are slightly off the beaten track. If you’re not familiar with these lists—or my so-called “methodology”—let me explain it this way: There are plenty of docs that should be good, and that you expect to be good. They are well-financed, polished, topical. They may impress, but they’re not likely to surprise.

On the other hand, there is a raft of lesser seen films out there: the obscure, the quirky, and the under-marketed. Some of them were likely admired in their day, but the passing of the years—coupled with the emergence of Netflix culture—have left them looking dowdy by today’s standards. Of course, choosing among such titles can be a roll of the dice. I’ve lost many an evening to a clunker, and many other times the long shots are just OK. But when I find a gem hiding among the endless rows of docs on Tubi, I get downright giddy.

For the record, I logged a number of excellent, more polished docs in 2024. Secret Mall Apartment, Death and Taxes, and 20 Days in Mariupol spring immediately to mind. Alas, this list is for the misfit toys of documentary streaming.

Confessions of a Superhero (2007) The late aughts were an underrated era for doc films, marked by minimalist production, mini-DV camcorders, and quirky outcasts for subjects. If King of Kong had been focused not on arcade gamers but folks who dress up as cartoon characters and panhandle on the streets of Los Angeles, this would be the result. The vibes are immaculate. This film won’t change your life, but it doesn’t need to. Ordinary people are fascinating. Director: Matthew Ogens

The Big Lonely (2014). Breathtaking in its intimacy and honesty. Director Michael Nelms does most of his work before and after production. In between, he hands the camera and creative direction to his subject, a fiftysomething homeless man living alone in the deep woods of rural Oregon. Ten years after the fact, the film feels like a message in a bottle … if it were somehow possible to slip an 82-minute feature film into its mouth. Director: Michael Nelms

No Sex Last Night (1996). The opening minutes feel like an overambitious art project. But No Sex’s rhythms kick in swiftly, and soon we are in the back seat of a vintage car road-tripping toward romantic disaster. Calle often lays video stills atop continuous audio. I found this off-putting at first, but ultimately surrendered to its hypnotic effect. A former girlfriend once likened the final months of a romantic breakup to toppling a vending machine. “You don’t just push it over. You have to rock it back and forth.” Calle and Shephard agree. Directors: Sophie Calle Greg Shephard

Racist Trees (2022). This entry is an exception. It’s of recent vintage and beautifully shot, but its story is quirky enough for inclusion. Sara Newens and Mina T. Son explore how a simple row of tamarisk trees in Palm Springs came to symbolize something more than innocent urban planning. Whereas American racism is often ugly, overt and even criminal, the racism here is layered, complex, and engrossing. I also admired that in an era where films about race lean toward didactic, Racist Trees trusts viewers to reach their own conclusions. Directors: Sara Newens, Mina T. Son

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (1968). First, let’s get this out of the way: this is not actually a documentary. Or is it? It all comes down to how we define the word. Classifications aside, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm—a mash-up that means, roughly (I think), “the circularity of the environment and the human psyche”—is brilliant. Bill Greaves captures a film crew shooting a movie in New York’s Central Park while privately deliberating whether Greaves himself has any idea what he’s doing. The crew bandies about the possibility of mutiny, or an intervention, or … well, something! It’s all too good to be true, but also too good not to be true. Or is it? Director: William Greaves

Journeys with George (2002). Before George W. Bush became the lightning rod at the center of two wars and the Great Recession, he was a freewheeling presidential candidate in the dying moments of pre-9/11 America. The Dubya we see through Alexandra Pelosi’s omnipresent camcorder is unguarded, flirtatious, charming, inappropriate, and far savvier than the guy who would soon dominate American politics of the 2000s. Alt title: The Frat Boy Who Would Become King. Directors: Alexandra Pelosi, Aaron Lubarsky

Bright Leaves (2003). A confession is in order. I’d never seen a Ross McElwee film before 2024. This borders on an unpardonable sin for a guy running a web site about documentary films (as penance, I ripped through McElwee’s full catalog in two weeks). It’s difficult to describe McElwee’s work. His films are personal meditations, tied to broader themes, and in his narrative the personal becomes universal. Sherman’s March is McElwee’s best-known work, but I chose Bright Leaves because it’s the film I saw first—and the one that made me fall in love with McElwee. Director: Ross McElwee

Crumb (1994). Terry Zwigoff was famously in therapy when he pitched this film to his friend and famed cartoonist Robert Crumb. Crumb consented, partly out of friendship, and a masterpiece was born. In Crumb, we get an intimate window into the world of a creative genius. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the strangely charismatic Crumb and his reclusive brother. The gorgeous 35mm photography doesn’t hurt either. Robert Crumb is an original, and so is Crumb. If Zwigoff has influences, they are deeply internalized. (As an aside, one can easily draw a line between Crumb and a later Zwigoff classic, Ghost World.) Director: Terry Zwigoff

Chronicling a Crisis (2012). A strange, seemingly directionless film that nevertheless leaves an emotional mark. Filmmaker Amos Kollek has hit a plateau in a previously successful career, and here we see him grasping for direction, meaning and love. The film is a patchwork quilt of characters, scenes and themes that somehow, in a feat of creative alchemy, just works—perhaps because Kollek’s voice is so unique and his filmmaking chops so powerful. Director: Amos Kollek

Mur Murs (1981). I struggle to articulate why I love this film so much. A summary could never do it justice. Its ostensible focus is the murals of Los Angeles, but legendary director Agnès Varda is after something deeper here. She uses the murals as a portal into a creative underworld known only to locals and urban explorers. Varda’s energy can be felt in every scene, and her subjects are quirky, lovable and entirely of a different time. It all combines into a priceless time capsule of Los Angeles—if you had wandered beyond Wilshire Boulevard and the Hollywood sign. Director: Agnès Vardas