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The 20 Best Documentaries on Max


Paris Is Burning, Hoop Dreams, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, and more.

Already selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, Hoop Dreams is a master class in documentary editing — James and his team trimmed 250 hours of footage into a riveting study of human exceptionalism. Director Dan Reed perfectly structures his film, focusing on the awful shooting of Sandy Hook first (while never mentioning the killer’s name), then detailing how Jones and his idiotic cohorts at Infowars distorted grief for profit. Rides like the Cannonball Loop and the Tarzan Swings were ridiculous torture devices, but this film doesn’t merely write off the decisions made at Action Park as a lark, noting that people actually died there, and then cover-ups took place.

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