Top 10 Films Of DOC NYC 2023 [Part One]

As this year’s DOC NYC comes to its conclusion (festival ends on 11/26), we’ve compiled the ten best films from this year’s impressive slate. First up, we look at the films landing in the 10-6 slots (Part 2 will run this weekend)

10. Deciding Vote

Starting off this list is one of three shorts found within this first five films, one of the numerous works of short documentary that have made this one of the year’s best festivals for the medium. From directors Jeremy Workman and Robert Lyons, the film looks at the decision to, in the state of New York, legalize abortion, particularly through the eyes of former Assemblyman George Michaels, who cast the titular vote. Michaels cast this vote in 1970, despite being the representative of a largely-Catholic district, making this a story of a man who decided to ostensibly end his political career to cast this groundbreaking vote. With the pair of Emmy-nominated directors at its helm, Deciding Vote is a powerful, deeply moving short about one person’s willingness to do what’s right even if that costs him his career.

9. Bear

From director Morgane Frund comes Bear, a devastating piece of non-fiction filmmaking that, in just 19 minutes, stands as one of the festival’s more unshakable experiences. The film from a narrative sense, follows Frund as she attempts to help a filmmaker with his nature documentary about bears. However, when sifting through his archive, she uncovers footage that completely changes the complexion of both her experience working with him and this short itself. A profoundly upsetting portrait of an artist and the perversion of his gaze, this is an experience that is far too common, and rendered with unflinching maturity in this short. And to think, all of this is wrapped up in what is ostensibly a grad film. Frund is one of the young non-fiction filmmakers to keep the keenest of eyes on. This is a one of a kind deconstruction of the male gaze.

8. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Moving into the feature-length arena, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood comes from director Anna Hints and, after a debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film continues its fantastic festival run with a bow at DOC NYC 2023. The film places viewers in the center of a dark smoke sauna, where we become privy to intimate and engrossing conversations and experience firsthand the power of human connection. Sharing everything from joy to pain, the women at the center of this documentary share various experiences with one another, in an attempt to both connect with one another and also find some sort of healing through sharing their hopes, regrets and everything in between. This is a gorgeously shot documentary, a film whose cinematography engages with the intimacy shared between these women, and does so in a way that only amplifies their courage and power, never once exploiting it. The conversations here often lean into the incredibly intense (trigger warnings are worth discussing here, particularly since sexual assault is talked about here in detail), but the film renders these conversations with such beauty and humanity. A singular piece of work.

7. The Disappearance Of Shere Hite

Another beloved Sundance 2023 alum continuing their festival run at DOC NYC 2023 is the engrossing Disappearance of Shere Hite. From director Nicole Newnham comes this rumination on the 1976 bestselling book The Hite Report. A historic text in the timeline of sexual liberation, this groundbreaking document saw its author, Shere Hite, chronicle the experiences of thousands of women across the US, ostensibly being seen as the liberator of the female orgasm. An astounding piece of documentary collage, the film uses various different mediums ranging from sound clips to letters to tell the story of this study’s author, her rise and fall, and what the report meant to the women’s liberation movement writ large. A beautiful, entrancing documentary, director Newnham is able to not only strike at what made Hite such a lightning rod of a figurehead for the women’s liberation movement, but what her brand of sexual discourse is able to bring to today’s larger conversation over things like female agency and gender inequity in the bedroom. It’s one of the rare documentaries that feels entirely in conversation with its subject’s larger project rather than simply describing what that means literally.

6. Dipped In Black

And rounding out this half of the list, we return to the shorts program for one of their more rapturous entries. Dipped In Black comes from Australian directors Derik Lynch and Matthew Thorne, and over the span of 25 minutes viewers watch as Derik road trips back to Aputula from Adelaide with the hopes of finding peace, spiritually. Lynch is a queer Yankunytjatjara theater performer, and is hoping to return to his hometown to perform an inma, a form of performative storytelling with over 60,000 years of history. A profoundly personal piece of docu-fiction, Dipped in Black culminates with a dance sequence that’s among the greatest committed to film in ages, perfectly bringing to life the sense of liberation that a performance like this can only bring a person. There’s a stunning sense of transgressive catharsis within this picture, a type of energy that only makes its presence known when cinema breaks down into its purest form; human bodies in motion. An unforgettable picture.