Steve James Honored By The IDFA, Gives His Top 10 Documentaries

As with many things, often times, the best critics of a specific thing are those who participate in its creation.   Be it music, sports, or in this case, cinema, no one knows more about what truly makes a great film great than those influenced directly by it.

Now, thanks to documentary filmmaker Steve James and the IDFA (Europe’s top documentary festival), we now have the former’s top 10 documentaries of all time.

The festival will be playing a James retrospective and will also be including these features, which include, 28 Up, American Movie, Fallen Champ: The Untold Story Of Mike Tyson, Golub: Late Works Are The Catastrophes, Grey Gardens, Le joli mai, Our Trip To Africa, The Staircase, The Times of Harvey Milk and Tongues Untied.

This is one hell of a top notch list.   I’m a huge fan of Harvey Milk, 28 Up and particularly the underseen Tongues Untied, a real gem of a documentary.   Documentary films do a cavalcade of things, and each of these films do something quite different.   Be opening your eyes to a thing you aren’t privy to, or to the life of a person, documentaries are some of the greatest and most intriguing pieces of cinema around.

What are your favorite documentaries?

Source Kartemquin