The Arts & Faith Top 25 Spiritually Significant Documentaries
The 2023 list of Top 25 Spiritually Significant Documentaries was the tenth themed list created by that site. Designed as one-offs in years the site did not update its Top 100 list, the smaller lists have delved into themes and genres that didn’t get as much appreciation in the master list as voters expected. Introductions have generally either acted as perfunctory descriptions of the site or broader examinations of the topic.
There are three notable features of the documentaries list. First, the results more closely mirror the Top 100. As participation has decreased (the jury size this year was twelve, less than half the size of the last Top 100 panel), particular favorites gain more sway, and films rise and fall with more volatility. Yet of the eleven documentaries that made the 2020 Top 100 lists, eight made their way onto the documentary shortlist. Another, At the Death House Door, was replaced by a different film from the same director, Steve James’s Hoop Dreams. Only The Work and Cameraperson did not transition from best of any genre to best of their own genre.
The second notable feature is the list’s tilt towards recency. Over half of the films in the Top 20 were released (or had an installment released) after 2000. Is this a golden age of documentaries? Has the dissemination of video technology made it easier for a broader array of talent to participate? Or is the converse an explanation — that more limited choices create a quicker consensus? As someone who loves documentaries, I will admit that it feels as though there is more attention given to the genre than ever before. And while the recency bias does trouble me slightly, I acknowledge that my personal favorites are more recent entries.
Which leads to a third point about documentaries. It was perhaps harder than anticipated to decide on what made a documentary “spiritually significant.” Historically this phrase has been left intentionally vague, allowing viewers to be more autobiographical in their choices: what films have influenced my own moral, spiritual, religious, or ethical development? Perhaps, then, there is an understandable appreciation for films that describe “our” world rather than the historical world that influenced it. Even films from the past, with the possible exception of F for Fake, land hard because of their subject matter more than artistry. That’s not to say documentary directors are without skill. Far from it. There is novelty and innovation to be found in many of these films. It is meant to suggest that subject matter does have an impact. If narrative films can serve as an escape from reality, documentaries are an important mirror that keeps us from being too isolated in ivory towers, too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good. While there are films here that overtly treat religion, there are also plenty that deal frankly with crime, race, money, sex, and politics.
Perhaps, then, a spiritually significant documentary is not just one that documents reality but one that frames the reality of the viewer in such a way that allows him or her to (re)discover truths about the world we inhabit.
