HTN’s 10 Most Anticipated Films of DOC NYC 2026
DOC NYC, the festival for documentaries, descends on lower Manhattan starting November 11th through the 19th. Occupying 3 venues; the IFC center, the SVA theater and Village East by Angelika, the fest boasts over 200 docs, including 26 world premieres and another 27 US premieres. To help you sift through the program lead critic Chris Reed, editor in chief Don Lewis, and frequent contributor Rendy Jones offer 10 recommendations below. If you’re planning to attend, look out for NYC locals Rendy Jones and editor at large Matt Delman on the red carpets. Get tickets for all showings at the link!
The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs (dir. Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi)
Every artist who agrees to have a movie made about them should be so lucky as to have their work photographed in as exquisite a manner as that used by Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi (Icaros: A Vision) for the canvases of Sara Flores. In The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs, they craft a loving portrait of their septuagenarian subject, an indigenous woman from Peru who adapts the kené designs of her Shipibo-Conibo people within carefully constructed frames, and has now, late in life, become something of an international sensation. The directors return, time and again, to her home in the Amazon basin, magnificent to behold. Unfortunately, this stunning world is now far from pristine and is disappearing more every day, courtesy of illegal logging tolerated by the country’s central government. The documentary is therefore not only a showcase of Flores’ œuvre, but also of the local pushback to out-of-control deforestation. The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs is a bold choice to open this year’s DOC NYC. (Christopher Llewyn Reed)
Rehearsals for a Revolution (dir. Pegah Ahangarani)
Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals for a Revolution is essential viewing for anyone unaware of Iran’s revolutionary history and a powerful memoir wrapped in loving, poetic narration and threaded with incredible filmmaking from everyone in Ahangarani’s orbit. Told in five chapters, each chronicling a different mentor, Ahangarani maps how true radicalism forms and continues generationally, demonstrating that the resistance of the individual — no matter how loud or quiet, or which faction they operate in — trickles down to the next generation. From her filmmaker father and mother’s Super 8 footage of 1979 to her own camcorder during the 2009 Green Movement, Ahangarani turns a lifetime of rebellion into an intimate cinematic reckoning, an illustration of how hope and the pursuit of self-expression drive revolutions. (Rendy Jones)
Robert Richardson: The White Devil (dir. Jana Hojdová)
I am a sucker for a film related documentary about a prickly person or a troubling production and, judging from the title, Robert Richardson: The White Devil
seems to be right up my cinematic alley. The doc is the feature debut of Jana Hojdová and features Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Kate Hudson, and Andy Serkis to name but a few. I only know Robert Richardson as an all-time great cinematographer (he won Director of Photography for JFK, The Aviator, and Hugo) but I don’t know much about the man himself. Do I want to know? Hmm, again, that title… watch for yourself and find out. (Don Lewis)
Jane Elliott Against the World (dir. Judd Ehrlich)
The day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a white schoolteacher in Iowa named Jane Elliott created a lesson to help educate her third-grade students about the realities of racism. This “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise divided the kids (all white) into groups by eye color, giving some more privilege than others. Not surprisingly, such a project generated controversy. Now 92—89 during the making of the documentary Jane Elliott Against the World—Elliott is as independently minded as ever, a fact which has not always gone down so well within her own family. Director Judd Ehrlich (The Price of Freedom) follows his subject’s rise as a leader in antiracist practices and the toll this fame has taken on the relationship with her children. It’s a fascinating portrait of someone committed to the highest ideals, even as the pace of change threatens to outpace her. With the rise of right-wing fascism, however, she is once more as relevant as ever. (CLR)
A still from ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM
Once Upon a Time in Harlem (dir. the Greaves family)
If you’re a New Yorker attending DOC NYC and not prioritizing Once Upon a Time in Harlem, why bother? And even if you’ve screened it once, do so again. The late William Greaves and his son David Greaves’ archival document of Greaves’ 1972 party at Duke Ellington’s Harlem townhouse, which assembled the living luminaries and pioneers of the Harlem Renaissance, brings Black excellence back to life in a way that ensures it will not be forgotten. Aaron Douglas, Arna Bontemps, Eubie Blake, James Van Der Zee, and many more, several of whom hadn’t seen one another in decades, converse, party, and discuss their tribulations pursuing art, breaking down barriers, and shaping history during the Civil Rights movement. This is one of the best documentaries of the year. Once Upon a Time in Harlem is a moving tribute to Black American history and a triumphant must-see of the fest. (RJ)
Mohabat (dir. James Longley)
Filmmaker James Longley is one of the best commentators on the Middle East that we have. He has written books and made award winning documentary films on Iran, Iraq and the Gaza Strip. Mohabat follows three Afghan brothers, including 12-year-old Mohabat, whose father was killed in an American drone strike while out hunting for rabbits. With so many docs about the neverending intensity surrounding the Middle East, Longley provides a new angle on the toll this takes on Afghani youth, offering a new understanding of life there and beyond. (DL)
Pretenders (dir. Joss Crowley)
By now, the conventions of nonfiction biopics are familiar and, if done well, also enjoyable. Pick any public figure—or musical group—that you admire, and chances are that a competently made movie will engage and entertain. Such is the case with Pretenders, the latest foray into the genre from director Joss Crowley (Simple Minds: Everything Is Possible). As a kid, I listened to The Pretenders quite a lot. Songs like “Brass in Pocket” (from their self-titled 1980 debut album), “Back on the Chain Gang” and “2000 Miles” (from the 1984 Learning to Crawl, their third album), and “Don’t Get Me Wrong” (from the fourth album, Get Close) helped form the soundtrack of my teen years and beyond. Band founder and lead singer/rhythm guitarist Chrissie Hynde’s evocative voice is forever ingrained in my memory, and that’s a good thing. (CLR)
All About The Money (dir. Sinead O’Shea)
Sinéad O’Shea’s latest doc, All About the Money, chronicles multimillionaire James “Fergie” Cox Chambers, an estranged heir to the Cox family fortune, and how his radical leftist views led him to fund a communist housing project in rural Massachusetts. O’Shea captures Fergie from June 2023 to November 2025, examining the resources of capitalism deployed for an anti-capitalist movement while filming him in real time, as interest wanes and the resources flow endlessly. Though the subject is as much to be desired as so many left nepo-babies and more eyes are on him than the residents, it’s a glimpse of the fragile, faux-pas-prone world of contemporary left philanthropist culture. The man even tried to bribe O’Shea into shelving the doc so it wouldn’t make him look bad, a testament to the film’s power. (RJ)
Rapinoe (dir. Rebeca Huntt)
Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine’s rousing documentary LFG offered a fist-pumping homage to the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT), whose captain and star was, for many years, Megan Rapinoe. When that film came out, the team was still the holder of the World Cup trophy, which they had won in 2015 and 2019. In Rapinoe, director Rebecca Huntt (Beba) picks up where the previous movie left off, with Rapinoe about to make a penalty kick at the 2023 tournament (where the USWNT lost to Sweden in the Round of 16). At the moment of truth, Huntt cuts backwards in time to walk us through her subject’s life, from her earliest days playing soccer with her twin sister Rachael to later family drama and the challenges of balancing career and personal identity (including her identity as an out-and-proud lesbian). As a cinematic biography, Rapinoe offers the usual bag of filmmaking tricks, incorporating copious home movies, interviews, and the like. It may be conventional, but it’s also effective in telling a moving story. (CLR)
Scenes from the Divide (dir. Alison Klayman)
Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City (in NYC) in 2025, defeating former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. His victory was by no means a given. As a Muslim man who vocally supported Palestinian rights, he had to confront our country’s usual Islamophobia. In NYC, many older Jewish residents were concerned about what they believed were antisemitic views and statements he had made in the past. In her short (32min) documentary Scenes from the Divide, director Alison Klayman (Jagged) follows the campaign from the perspective of generational conflict within NYC’s Jewish community, with Nicole, a volunteer for Mamdani, in director opposition to her Russian Jewish parents. We also focus on then-comptroller (now congressman) Brad Lander and his daughter, Rosa (both pro-Mamdani), and a diverse cast of other subjects from all sides of the “divide.” It’s a truly engaging look at how to bridge political chasms and forge meaningful connections through conversation. Sometimes, the differences remain, but sometimes … sometimes things actually change. (CLR)
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm), Rendy Jones (@Rendy_Jones) & Don R. Lewis (@ThatDonLewis)
