The Art of the Steal (2009): The Barnes Foundation once owned one of the world’s best post-Impressionist art collections, valued at about $25 billion in 2009. This is the blow-by-blow account of what some consider the worst art crime since the Nazi plunder during World War II.
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Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008): Director Kurt Kuenne’s haunting documentary spotlights the murder of his oldest childhood friend. But what started as a cinematic memorial to his friend’s son, ends up as a crime thriller of epic proportions.
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Hot Coffee (2011): We’ve all heard about the woman who sued McDonald’s over a burning-hot cup of coffee. Like us, you probably rolled your eyes. Hot Coffee sets the record straight about what really happened to the 79-year-old Albuquerque woman and also takes a look at how big businesses used this case and others to distort the facts and promote tort reform.
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Burt’s Buzz (2013): Jody Shapiro’s documentary takes an intimate look at Burt Shavitz, the eccentric, hermit-like beekeeper from Maine who co-founded and eventually lost the Burt’s Bees empire.
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It’s a Girl (2012): The practice of female infanticide, primarily in China and India, is the focus of It’s a Girl. The film, which took four years to shoot, opens with a woman standing in a field in India explaining why she’s strangled eight of her newborn girls.
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The Imposter (1997): This is the gripping, true life story of Frédéric Bourdin, a French charlatan who impersonated Nicholas Barclay, a Texas boy who disappeared at the age of 13 in 1994.
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Smash His Camera (2010): Oscar-winning director Leon Gast turns his attention on Ron Galella, the pioneering paparazzi famously sued by Jackie Kennedy and slugged by Alec Baldwin. The dishy documentary is ridiculously entertaining and illustrates why Galella was considered both a viper and a national treasure.
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The Woman Who Wasn’t There (2012): Tania Head, the former president of the influential group World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, is possibly one of the most famous “survivors” of 9/11. Her personal story of that tragic day reads like a nightmare. But here’s the catch: She made it all up.
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Crazy Love (2007): Burt Pugach and Linda Riss Pugach have one of the most bizarre romances of the 20th century. Their story, which has been fodder for the tabloids since the 50s, is chock-full of deception, incarceration and a blinding attempt to thwart separation. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.
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Vanishing of the Bees (2009): Honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing across the globe, caused by a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Vanishing of the Bees is an eye-opening account of what’s happening and how it affects us all politically, economically and ecologically.
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