documentary
The NHS is to blame for Bonnie Blue
Channel 4’s documentary begins as the ‘adult content creator’ Bonnie Blue (real name: Tia Billinger, 26, Derbyshire) prepares to beat…
The vicious genius of Adam Curtis
In an interview back in 2021, Adam Curtis explained that most political journalists couldn’t understand his films because they aren’t…
What did Leni Riefenstahl know?
Leni Riefenstahl: what are we to make of her? What did she know? Often described as ‘Hitler’s favourite filmmaker’, she…
Confection of sex, bad history and nonsense: Apple TV+’s Carême reviewed
Antonin Carême was known as the ‘chef of kings and the king of chefs’. His patrons and employers included Talleyrand,…
How come the only Palestinians Louis Theroux met were non-violent sweeties?
Louis Theroux: The Settlers was never likely to be a programme with much of a narrative arc – and so…
How fun is it being part of an Amazonian tribe?
Tribe with Bruce Parry ran for three fondly remembered series in the mid-2000s. Now, upgraded to Tribe with Bruce Parry,…
Outstanding and eye-opening doc about North Korea: Beyond Utopia review
The documentary Beyond Utopia follows various families as they attempt to flee North Korea. It is eye-opening and outstanding. In…
Losing the plot
The Reunion opened in 1997 with some young people being carefree: a fact they obligingly signalled by zipping around the…
Dog days of the USSR
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
Bang goes nothing
Crossfire was a three-part drama in more ways than one. Running every night from Tuesday to Thursday, it brought together…
What a ride
Moonage Daydream is a music documentary like no other, which is fitting as the subject is David Bowie. If it’s…
Old news, but good news
When TV makes shows about TV, it rarely has a good word to say for itself. In the likes of…
Some like it hot
Mary Wakefield on Katia and Maurice Krafft, who loved volcanoes and each other
P is for pointless
The Princess, a new documentary film, is the first re-framing of the Princess Diana story since it was last re-framed,…
Not one for the naive
The Undeclared War has many of the traditional signifiers of a classy thriller: the assiduous letter-by-letter captioning of every location;…
Beyond a joke
Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous movie stars ever and is certainly the most famous movie star with…
Wright and wrong
Ian Wright: Home Truths began with the ex-footballer saying that the home he grew up in was ‘not a happy…
Women’s troubles
It has never been easy for women in the music industry. Once upon a time the evidence was largely anecdotal.…
Filthy lucre
If you’re after an exciting, twisty programme about police corruption that doesn’t also feel a bit like sitting an exam…
Nothing personal
Pelé is a two-hour documentary about the great Brazilian footballer — the greatest footballer ever, some would say — who…
When music was more than a click away
In Teenage Superstars, a long and slightly exhausting documentary about the Scottish indie scene of the 1980s and ’90s, there…
Joining the dots
‘History,’ wrote Edward Gibbon, ‘is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.’ In…
It’ll blow you away
When I recommend this documentary to people, telling them it follows the journalistic investigation into a fire that broke out…
Blue notes
This documentary about Billie Holiday is transfixing. Not just because it’s about Billie Holiday — I am not into jazz…
