Formula One racing is something of a mystery on these NASCAR-obsessed American shores. As a consequence of that, we’ve all heard much more about the Dale Earnhardts and Jeff Gordons of the U.S. automotive world than Ayrton Senna, the late Brazilian driver who’s widely considered to have been one of the best racers of all time. Travel many places outside North America, though, and Formula One is part sport and part religion, attracting legions of fans, reams of sponsors and an enormous swath of media attention. So it’s possible that the celebrity of Senna, who won three world championships and 41 races over the course of his ten-year career (1984-94), eclipsed that of even the most fervently-admired NASCAR racers. Asif Kapadia’s Senna, a documentary about the athletic giant, is one part useful primer into his feats and one part perceptive character study. Consisting entirely of contemporaneous footage — home video images provided by Senna’s family as well as gritty race scenes and revealing behind-the-scenes imagery — the film simultaneously hurls you into the highly-charged world of Formula One and the private emotional space of its complex protagonist.

Why Watch? Because it’s art about art. This short documentary is from the same time that made Catfish, but its subject matter is miles away from that film. Here, they step inside the workshop of famed artist Chris Burden to share his car-centric kinetic sculpture called “Metropolis II.” The art is stunning, the voice over illuminating, and one of the most breathtaking moments actually happens when he kills the power, and his city stops. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time. Check out Metropolis II for yourself:

“What I’m doing is more important than who I am.” The words of a man wearing a cloth skeleton mask over his face, a fedora, and a full length trench coat that hides every inch of skin. He is inhuman. Completely anonymous. And yet, his words ring true. His actions speak louder than what he’s wearing and who he defines himself as. He’s a real-life superhero. In a cinema world saturated by them, Michael Barnett chose to turn the cameras on those among us who don a cape and cowl in order to patrol the streets. The documentary Superheroes gets to the very heart of noble intentions, dangerous work, and a complex sense of humanity that comes from trying to be something beyond human.

When the fine folks over at Twitch tossed out the names of Zodiac, Exit Through the Gift Shop and X-Files to try to describe this film, curiosity and eyebrows were already raised. Luckily, the Resurrect Dead trailer delivers. Ever since the 1980s, thousands of mysterious tiles (known now as the Toynbee Tiles) have been found in cities all over the world. What do they say? “Toynbee Idea/In Kubrick’s 2001/Resurrect Dead/On Planet Jupiter.” Cryptic enough? Then you’ll be happier when the mystery runs deeper. A documentary with mystery and science fiction leanings, this trailer looks absolutely magnetic:

Matthew Bate’s Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure has shown at a number of festivals this year after premiering at Sundance, but I’ve managed to miss it time and again. The film’s newly-released first trailer makes me feel pretty damn bad about that. Drawing on a conceit that almost anyone can relate to, at least on the outset, the documentary looks to shift into some strange and interesting new territories. The film tells the story of Eddie and Mitch, two regular dudes who clearly liked to party, and the crappy apartment they moved into back in ’80s San Francisco. As is typically the case with less-than-stellar living situations, the boys found out within mere minutes of signing their lease that they had more to deal with than just the hideous paint in their new “shithole,” they had a couple of whacked-out neighbors who would occasionally get loud. And by “occasionally,” I mean constantly, and by “get loud,” I mean that it’s amazing that their knock-down, drag-out verbal assaults didn’t ever crumble those disgusting pink walls.

Why Watch? Because Goodfellas can never be praised enough. Over twenty years later, Scorsese’s film about wiseguys has proven itself to be a modern classic, and this cool, breezy documentary allows directors like Jon Favreau, The Hughes Brothers, Joe Carnahan, Richard Linklater, Antoine Fuqua and Frank Darabont geek out about a movie they love. So what could be better than watching directors break down a fantastic film’s best elements while sharing the effect it had on them? What does it cost? Just 13 minutes of your time. Check out Made Men: The GoodFellas Legacy for yourself:

The only thing shocking about Cameron Crowe directing a music documentary about Pearl Jam, is that it’s not about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Wait? What? He already did that? Pearl Jam it is then! Crowe’s third foray into the music doc arena (joining his Petty film Playback and this year’s Elton John and Leon Russell-centric The Union), Pearl Jam Twenty, looks to feature all the stuff we think comes with the rock n’ roll lifestyle: bad fashion, smelly vans, experimental music videos, a lot of crowd surfing, and David Lynch interviewing Eddie Vedder. All rock bands hang with David Lynch, didn’t you know that? Put together from over 1,200 hours, per the band’s own admission, Twenty is “told in big themes and bold colors with blistering sound.” And, again, David Lynch conducting interviews with Eddie Vedder. Lynch aside, Crowe is a notorious music lover and scholar and has surely crafted a film that will speak to any music fan, not just Pearl Jam-specific fans. His feature films place heavy emphasis on their soundtracks (heck, even his least-liked feature Elizabethtown had a two-album soundtrack to drive it along), so Twenty should be a pretty fantastic entry into his resume. If not, strobe lights, guys! The film will have its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which is probably an environment more conducive to head-banging than say Sundance (too much danger of knitted beanies flying off heads). Check out the trailer after the break:

The Ramapough Indians are sick. The Native American tribe has lived on land in northern New Jersey since before the Mayflower landed, but their beautiful acres – replete with green forests and rolling hills – are poisoning them. In Mann v. Ford, directors Micah Fink and Maro Chermayeff explore the history of the people, splitting focus between the late 1960s when the Ford Motor Company began using the land as a dumping ground for its waste and near-current day when the people of the small town file suit against the company for gross negligence. It’s fairly well-tread subject matter – the kind that seems to infect a ton of documentaries each year and even makes bigger noise when a movie like Erin Brockovich (a film some people featured here are far too aware of) hits theaters. There’s nothing wrong with telling the narrative of a mistreated group of people and their lawsuit, especially if it’s a story as compelling as this, but ultimately this documentary is average in almost every way.

They wouldn’t be there if they weren’t guilty. That’s the prevailing mindset of almost everyone in Love Crimes of Kabul, even the women who find themselves in jail in Afghanistan’s capital. In the documentary, director Tanaz Eshaghian gets out of the way to let the stories of three women in Badam Bagh Women’s Prison speak for themselves. The application of fly-on-the-wall style produces a small window into a world that’s almost completely open to interpretation and might serve as a Rorschach Test for its viewers.

Why Watch? Because you won’t find yourself closer to joining the Marines than this. Unless you’re a Marine. This documentary is a fly-on-the-wall embed with Marines as they face a grueling battle against the Japanese in the Pacific theater. The fight on Tarawa is a furious and severe act, and this film shares a gut-curdling unease leading up to the flying bullets and bombers. It’s raw in its glory and ugliness, and stands as a reminder of a particular cost of the living in this nation (and those who pay that cost). What does it cost? Just 20 minutes of your time. Check out With the Marines at Tarawa for yourself:

A woman gets coffee from McDonald’s, spills it on herself, sues, and gets a bunch of money. That’s all there is to the story, right? We know it, and we can move on. Apparently not. Director Susan Saladoff wants to examine the human story behind an elderly woman who got third degree burns and needed skin grafts after a cup of coffee hot enough to give her third degree burns that required skin grafts spilled while she was sitting (idle) in the passenger seat of a car. In bypassing the Late Night Comedy Show butt of the joke story and heading straight for the facts of the case, Hot Coffee delivers a frustratingly compelling case for taking those kinds of lawsuits seriously. But more than that, the movie heads past what became the poster child for a corporate movement to protect large businesses from being culpable for any and all wrong doing, and explores the world that’s been created since. It’s not a pretty picture.

For the first half hour, it’s difficult to tell whether Sex Crimes Unit will have the momentum to make it through to the credits, and an impatient director might have shoved some glossy speed and bass-heavy beats into the proceedings. Fortunately, Lisa F. Jackson was wise enough to let her subject matter do the talking. The result is a documentary that is as without frills as its title. It is, in many ways, an anti-Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The television show may be injected with drama, but this documentary is far more impactful. With effortless timing, it weaves together four separate stories – retelling the history of a 16-year-old sex crime that was solved because of DNA, following 2 cases in real time, and giving a little history of a division of the New York District Attorney’s office that was the first of its kind (yet is only 40 years old).

Why Watch? Because we should challenge how we define a film. Most of the shorts featured in this column are either easy to spot as stories or completely experimental. Even when a documentary short is in the spotlight, it tells a clear tale of people doing things. This short, is none of those things. Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus is an informational film made entirely of voice over narration and motion graphics. It’s distilled knowledge about a new weapon that might be threatening a governmental computer near you, but it raises the same questions that all documentaries do. How accurate is it? How well can we trust the information? Isn’t it delivered in a sleek and shiny enough way that we buy it wholesale? It’s beautiful, compelling, and it does tell a story, but it’s nothing like most short films. What does it cost? Just 10 minutes of your time. Check out Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus for yourself:

Recent culture has given us a view of chefs as either dainty elitists, screaming lunatics or rats voiced by Patton Oswalt. Paul Liebrandt is none of these things. He’s an accomplished artist that makes for an incredibly compelling subject matter. He’s bold and inventive, but he’s also shy and somewhat socially reserved. He demands perfection and has the sharp tongue to do so, but he also praises his employees when they do well and treats them mostly as equals. He’s a genius that is on the cusp of being celebrated, but he’s still hustling it out in the kitchen. A film about Liebrandt is undoubtedly a great idea, which is why it’s a shame that A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt fails in its execution. It’s a too-straightforward look at the duller parts of the chef’s life, leading up to an incompletely portrait of the most important moment of his career.

In 2009, Lee Storey made the documentary Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story after finding out that her husband had been involved with the 1960s musical/ethical group. It played at Slamdance and several other festivals. Last March, US Tax Court Judge Diane Kroupa researched the film and its production with an eye to rule on whether or not Storey owes thousands in back taxes and penalties. The reason? Kroupa is determining whether making a documentary is a hobby or not. If she finds that it is, it could have a profound effect on documentary filmmaking.

All this summer, HBO is featuring documentary films in its line up, so all this summer, we’ll be reviewing them. On one hand, it makes complete sense to create a documentary about Bobby Fischer; he was a child prodigy, the world chess champion, and an insane person. All of those elements can add up to remarkably compelling storytelling. On the other, Fischer is undoubtedly a relic of another time whose 15 minutes of fame seemed artificially stretched beyond their breaking point by a people as obsessed with him as he was with chess. In Bobby Fischer Against the World, director Liz Garbus pieces together a monumentally beautiful documentary that’s only slightly uninteresting.

As you might know, Kill the Irishman is based on a lot of true stories. It’s also based on what little can be known about those true stories. Starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Linda Cardellini, and Christopher Walken, the film focuses on Danny Greene, a brutal man in league with the mob during the rough and tumble times of 1970s Cleveland. Fortunately, Cleveland looks exactly the same, so setting it in the 1970s wasn’t a big deal. The movie is out on DVD this week, and included in the special features is a documentary about the real-life story. This clip is a little bit sad, a little bit grotesque, and it’s a stirring reminder of the violence that men do.

Drawn in at first by the ashy drawing of a rabbit smoking a corn cob pipe, I watched the trailer for General Orders No. 9 and then sat in silence for more than a few moments trying to understand what was happening. At a loss, I resorted to reading the synopsis: “Awarded for its visionary cinematography, GENERAL ORDERS No. 9 breaks from the constraints of the documentary form as it contemplates the signs of loss and change in the American South. The stunning culmination of over eleven years’ work from first time writer-director Bob Persons, GENERAL ORDERS No. 9 marries experimental filmmaking with an accessible, naturalist sensibility to tell the epic story of the clash between nature and man’s progress, and reaches a bittersweet reconciliation all its own. Told entirely with images, poetry, and music, GENERAL ORDERS No. 9 is unlike any film you have ever seen. A story told in maps, dreams, and prayers, it is one last trip down the rabbit hole before it’s paved over.” Apparently there’s some competition facing Tree of Life for “Most Inaccessible Film of the Summer.” That’s always a good thing.

As pointed out by my favorite airman, Memorial Day is exclusively a day to remember those that died during service, but it’s almost impossible to honor their memory without being acutely aware of those that survived and those that continue to survive and fight. The Story of Stars and Stripes Honor Flight is a documentary about one last mission for the surviving veterans of WWII. With some impressive camera work and what will most likely be invaluable interviews with those that fought in the last Great War, this trailer might lead to a few tears or pride and poignancy. The main goal might be to bring as many WWII vets to the war memorial in DC, but the end result appears to be something much greater than that. Just in time for Memorial Day, check out this trailer for yourself:

Why Watch? Because all you need for a documentary is a camera and a person willing to talk. This is a poignant collaboration between Fifty People One Question and PostSecret. If you know either, there’s no reason to sell you on watching this because you’re already sold. If you don’t, the former puts a camera in front of 50 people and gets their perspective on 1 question. The results are almost always funny, sad and all-too human. The latter collects intricately personalized post cards which reveal the secrets of their senders. With their powers combined, this short doc delivers a human mirror that we can find ourselves in. Check out What’s Your Secret? for yourself: