The Best Documentary Films of 2008

Irena Salinas' documentary is about the global crisis we face as Earth's fresh water supply constantly diminishes. The film presents top experts and advocates to show us that every aspect of human life is affected by pollution, wastefulness, privatization and corporate greed as it relates to fresh water--a natural resource more valuable than oil. The film shows in no uncertain terms that if we continue to abuse our water supply, Earth will become uninhabitable and humankind will become extinct. The investigation points fingers at water companies such as Nestle, Vivendi, Thames, Suez, Coca Cola and Pepsi. This is an extremely important must-see film!

Bad boy journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson -- equally famous for his railings against the Nixon administration in the pages of Rolling Stone and his well-chronicled personal adventures with drugs, alcohol and the Hell's Angels -- was an iconic counter-cultural hero of the 1960s and '70s. Alex Gibney's highly entertaining documentary profile of the journalist who invented the term 'Gonzo' is both a memorial and lament, showing Thompson's fascinating work to be highly subjective, reflecting his personal views on politics and culture with somewhat hallucinatory and sometimes twisted expressions.

In The Footsteps of Marco Polo documents Francis O’Donnell and Denis Belliveau's two-year travel adventure, as they set out to retrace the route the famous 13th century Venetian explorer took when he journeyed to China in search of knowledge and treasures. O'Donnell and Belliveau face numerous challenges--armed guards, freezing weather, short supplies--as they enter into lands seemingly unchanged since Polo visited them so long ago. If you have adventure in mind, this wonderful film will encourage you to get up and live it.

Filmmaker Patrick Creadon presents the lowdown on how America‘s national debt, a sum that’s topping the 11-trillion dollar mark and is rising at an incredibly rapid rate, is leading to economic calamity. It's important to be informed about this topic, and I.O.U.S.A. gives you all the basics in a credible and compelling documentary film.

In Man On Wire, director James Marsh recreates the magic moment in which Philippe Petit stepped off the top of one of the World Trade Center twin towers, onto a wire, and walked across space to the other tower in 1974. Awestruck observers watching from the streets below or on news reports filmed from helicopters were mesmerized by the amazing stunt. The film is like a thriller, showing how Petit and his crew plotted their history-making stunt.

In Moving Midway, noted film critic Godfrey Cheshire uses his cinematic smarts and sensibility to good effect in his first feature documentary--about the relocation of his ancestral home, an antebellum North Carolina plantation named Midway, from its original site, now surrounded by Raleigh’s urban sprawl, to a more secluded and peaceful spot. The film is a fascinating study of family, location and changing times in the South.

Pray The Devil Back To Hell celebrates the courageous women of Liberia who organized politically, successfully ousted the corrupt and cruel Nigerian tyrant Charles Taylor, ended the civil war that had ravaged their country for decades, and inducted their country's first female head of state.

In Standard Operating Procedure, famed filmmaker Errol Morris expands on the infamous photographs of U.S. soldiers torturing suspected terrorists imprisoned at Abu Ghraib to expose the U.S. military's 'standard operating procedure' as cruel and inhumane. The commonplace interrogation practices, it turns out, are almost as damaging emotionally to American soldiers who use them as to they are to the victimized suspects. A must-see film for anyone who is concerned about upholding American ideals and maintaining America's image abroad.

Traces of The Trade: A Story From The Deep North is a deeply personal documentary made by seminarian-turned-filmmaker Katrina Browne, who sets out to investigate her forebears' occupation as prominent New England slave traders and tries to identify what that fact of family history means to her living relatives and herself.

Trouble the Water shows how Hurricane Katrina didn't defeat the can do spirit of Kimberly Rivers, who actually filmed the horrific storm while it was raging around her, and went on to rebuild her life in its wake. Using Rivers' footage, filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal create a powerful documentary to remind us of the weather ordeal that shocked our nation.

Dalton Trumbo's career as one of Hollywood's leading screenwriters crashed when he refused to answer questions posed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, was blacklisted and became one of the Hollywood 10, all of whom were famously persecuted for standing up for their First Amendment rights. Replete with fascinating archival footage, revealing interviews and exquisitely appropriate interpretations of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's letters from prison and exile, Trumbo is a compelling profile of Trumbo, his life and times.