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Nonfics (Substack)

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Nuisance Bear  (2026) Christopher Campbell You’ll want to watch it twice, at least once on a big screen, to really appreciate how much is going on with this film, and many more before it.
Posted Feb 03, 2026  Edit critic review
Soul Patrol (2026) Christopher Campbell Another war film masterpiece...I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like this documentary.
Posted Feb 03, 2026  Edit critic review
Give Me the Ball! (2026) Christopher Campbell Garbus and Wolff do something with Give Me the Ball! that breaks from the celebrity biography norm: they hold the applause to the end.
Posted Feb 03, 2026  Edit critic review
Ghost in the Machine (2026) Christopher Campbell Structurally, Ghost in the Machine is an effective, chaptered essay, even if its points may be narrow in their concerns. Aesthetically, there is more to be desired.
Posted Feb 03, 2026  Edit critic review
Cookie Queens (2026) Christopher Campbell It’s a good reminder of the importance of quality over quantity.
Posted Feb 03, 2026  Edit critic review
Seized (2026) Christopher Campbell With so many documentaries focused on the importance of journalism and journalists lately, it’s fair and necessary that we get one about a rare small-town newspaper still in operation.
Posted Feb 03, 2026  Edit critic review
One in a Million (2026) Christopher Campbell The title One in a Million may as well refer to its existence as a documentary that came together so well because of both directorial and editorial acumen...I wish it weren’t such a rarity, but it’d probably stand out regardless.
Posted Jan 31, 2026  Edit critic review
Natchez (2025) Christopher Campbell What starts seemingly as a curious look at one Mississippi town’s legacy regarding slavery winds up as a deeper exploration of how history should be represented, especially when it comes to humanity’s mistakes.
Posted Jan 31, 2026  Edit critic review
2DIE4 (2026) Christopher Campbell If it grabbed me enough through its hour-long runtime, those who do care for racing are going to love it.
Posted Jan 31, 2026  Edit critic review
Deepfaking Sam Altman (2025) Christopher Campbell Deepfaking Sam Altman is interesting for what it says about humans more than machines, confirming again that our impending extinction will be our own fault.
Posted Jan 17, 2026  Edit critic review
Seeds (2025) Christopher Campbell One montage sequence in the middle of the movie, presenting the cotton harvest, is possibly worth the price of admission alone, but the documentary as a whole is too long.
Posted Jan 17, 2026  Edit critic review
Shuffle (2025) Christopher Campbell It’s infuriating and could be very helpful to a lot of people, parents particularly, but they won’t be seeking it out at their local cinema.
Posted Jan 17, 2026  Edit critic review
LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2001) Christopher Campbell Retrospectively, LaLee’s Kin now just looks like "poverty porn," with its images of one family’s life in squalor and little boys bathing in buckets. However, viewed contextually for the present and going forward, it’s increasingly more damning.
Posted Jan 13, 2026  Edit critic review
Been Here Stay Here (2024) Christopher Campbell Been Here Stay Here is a beautiful and serene documentary that may lull us toward a shared acceptance of our fates. The score by James William Blades is epically soothing. Every shot composed by Usui and Peter Steusloff is stunning and full of grace.
Posted Jan 09, 2026  Edit critic review
Holding Liat (2025) Christopher Campbell As far from propaganda as it can be for an issue and situation that has been heavily propagandized from multiple sides.
Posted Jan 09, 2026  Edit critic review
All the Walls Came Down (2025) Christopher Campbell Especially coming so soon after Last Flight Home, her film about her father’s death, she’s been through a lot, yet is strong for continuing to show us all of it.
Posted Jan 09, 2026  Edit critic review
Critical Incident: Death at the Border (2025) Christopher Campbell While essential coverage of this story, Critical Incident, unfortunately, feels like old news.
Posted Dec 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Cover-Up (2025) Christopher Campbell Cover-Up isn’t the best film about journalists this year, yet it ranks fairly well on our list of the best documentaries of 2025, partly because it does have a subject with great screen presence.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Breakdown: 1975 (2025) Christopher Campbell Its timeline is a bit scattered, its memory a bit generalizing, its points wandering, but I do like it when Neville cross-cuts different movies together to seem to be in conversation with one another.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
Megadoc (2025) Christopher Campbell Whether you’ve seen Megalopolis or not, this depressingly disaster-focused documentary on its making is worth watching as a companion piece to (the much better) Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.
Posted Dec 12, 2025  Edit critic review
WTO/99 (2025) Christopher Campbell The more I think about it, I’m less affected by its point, or what point I infer from the film, than I am by examples of its impeccable editorial craftsmanship.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
The New Yorker at 100 (2025) Christopher Campbell The New Yorker at 100 reminds us of the titular publication’s cultural importance rather than just its history...Even if you’re not a New Yorker reader, you should check it out.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Night in West Texas (2025) Christopher Campbell It’s not a thrilling tale, but the film respectfully addresses historical and cultural circumstances while following the latest in the story involving the pursuit of exoneration.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
The Tale of Silyan (2025) Christopher Campbell Among the most beautiful documentaries of 2025...there’s something very universal about the protagonist’s struggle, as well as something very timely.
Posted Nov 28, 2025  Edit critic review
All the Empty Rooms (2025) Christopher Campbell It’s a film where the subjects’ work is more worthy of honoring than the film they’re in, but it’s still the most polished documentary short I’ve seen this year.
Posted Nov 28, 2025  Edit critic review
Teenage Wasteland (2025) Christopher Campbell Its storytelling is near-perfect, thrillingly guiding viewers through the narrative as if it were unfolding right in front of them.
Posted Nov 21, 2025  Edit critic review
Cutting Through Rocks (2025) Christopher Campbell It probably could have worked at half the runtime, but Shahverdi and her feminist efforts, including her support for young girls staying in school and not marrying as preteens, are never not captivating.
Posted Nov 21, 2025  Edit critic review
Come See Me in the Good Light (2025) Christopher Campbell The pace and cinematography beautifully match the poetic nature of its participants, and the documentary will have you in tears for happy and heartbreaking moments throughout.
Posted Nov 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter (2025) Christopher Campbell The filmmakers lost me when they showed their intervening helpful hands and steered the documentary rather than letting things play out naturally.
Posted Nov 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Thoughts & Prayers (2025) Christopher Campbell The film doesn’t do enough to dig into the problem of the active shooter industrial complex and expose which aspects of these proposed solutions are ineffective.
Posted Nov 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Caterpillar (2023) Christopher Campbell Mandelup got lucky with the circular way this true story goes, even if it ends sort of predictably. As is her approach, Caterpillar often plays like a fiction film, but not in a way that ever feels manipulated.
Posted Nov 07, 2025  Edit critic review
Brothers on Three (2025) Christopher Campbell The only problem with Brothers on Three is that it wants to cover more ground than it needs to, even if most of its content returns to addressing the significance of the team.
Posted Nov 07, 2025  Edit critic review
Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus (2024) Christopher Campbell As is stressed throughout, Diane “Q” Luckey always deserved better, this film included.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
The White House Effect (2024) Christopher Campbell I’m a sucker for these kinds of films, but its chronicling of the George H.W. Bush administration’s handling of the problem plays like a light gathering of historical material as merely a look back at why we are where we are today on the issue.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (2025) Christopher Campbell Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk deserves to be seen not for its own sake but for Hassona’s.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Coexistence, My Ass! (2025) Christopher Campbell Coexistence, My Ass! isn’t just a promotion of Shuster-Eliassi’s comedy and causes, and you don’t have to like her or her politics to appreciate her story, as it’s depicted in the film.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Down and Out in America (1986) Christopher Campbell Outside of its significance to documentary history, Down and Out in America is sadly still relevant today.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
I Was Born This Way (2025) Christopher Campbell [Carl Bean] is a good storyteller, and I enjoyed listening to, more than viewing, the film, which doesn’t have a lot of necessary or interesting visual elements.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Love+War (2025) Christopher Campbell We’ve seen other films about women like Addario, but Love+War manages to make the familiar content captivating enough.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (2025) Christopher Campbell I’ll always watch and share documentaries like this, and I hope they empower rather than discourage current or future journalists.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
The Man Who Saves the World? (2025) Christopher Campbell Director Gabe Polsky features himself as a character, and it becomes as much his quest to make his film and to trust and understand his subject. He also serves as a proxy for the audience as he’s at different points skeptical, curious, and open.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Louie Bluie (1985) Christopher Campbell Memorable for Armstrong’s erotic drawings and the discussions of women and sex between him and other musicians.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
John Candy: I Like Me (2025) Christopher Campbell It’s rather slow, fairly repetitive in its sentiments, and extremely sappy. As someone who grew up with Candy’s movies and even his Saturday morning cartoon, and counts himself as a huge fan, I don’t feel I got anything out of watching this film.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
The Perfect Neighbor (2025) Christopher Campbell Very rarely do we get a true-crime documentary as unique in its construction as The Perfect Neighbor...it’s more immersive and riveting than anything of its kind.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Mistress Dispeller (2024) Christopher Campbell I love the look and sound of Mistress Dispeller. The narrative I didn’t find as engrossing.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost (2025) Christopher Campbell As with a lot of documentaries made by the children of their subjects, this one ultimately comes across as being more about the filmmaker than the people it’s supposed to be about. It’s like a form of therapy shared with viewers. That’s not a bad thing.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
The Alabama Solution (2025) Christopher Campbell I wish we still lived in a time when documentaries this powerful could make a difference.
Posted Oct 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Viktor (2024) Christopher Campbell As tragic as the war is, I have to admit that it’s given way to some of the most varied creative documentary perspectives ever produced on any event in history, and Viktor is a phenomenal addition to the mix.
Posted Oct 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Trains (2024) Christopher Campbell I haven’t seen and probably won’t see a better-looking documentary than Trains this year, which is wild since it consists entirely of archival footage from the first half of the 20th century.
Posted Oct 03, 2025  Edit critic review
The Librarians (2025) Christopher Campbell The Librarians isn’t so much a film about the issue as it is a spotlight on the titular professionals risking their jobs to fight against it. I wish, then, that it were more memorable as a character-driven piece.
Posted Oct 03, 2025  Edit critic review
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