The Act of Killing

Five of the best documentaries, as chosen by Werner Herzog

From The Act of Killing to Vernon, Florida, the famed German director selects his favourite non-fiction films

Kathryn Bromwich

20, Nov, 2020 @9:00 AM

Lockdown watch: Joshua Oppenheimer on three essential recent masterpieces

The director of The Act of Killing suggests widening your self-isolation horizons with contemporary films from desolate Russia, war-torn Syria and rural Italy

Joshua Oppenheimer

10, Apr, 2020 @7:00 AM

The 100 best films of the 21st century

Gangsters, superheroes, schoolkids, lovers, slaves, peasants, techies, Tenenbaums and freefalling astronauts – they’re all here in our countdown of cinema’s best movies since 2000

Peter Bradshaw, Cath Clarke, Andrew Pulver and Catherine Shoard

13, Sep, 2019 @5:00 AM

A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot review - corruption and violence in Free Derry

Northern Ireland’s Troubles are still far from over as Sinead O’Shea’s film gets to grips with the trauma and bitterness surrounding ‘punishment shootings’

Simran Hans

17, Mar, 2018 @4:40 PM

The Killing Season; The Army and the Indonesian Genocide reviews – the truth about one of the 20th century's worst massacres

Two books crush Indonesian state accounts of 1960s anti-leftist massacres, implicate the US and UK and revise how we define genocide

Julia Lovell

15, Mar, 2018 @7:30 AM

Fight the power: documentaries to unleash the activist in you

Children in poverty, rape in the military, mass murderers at large … Oscar-nominated director Lucy Walker picks 10 powerful documentaries to galvanise you into action

Lucy Walker

02, Jan, 2017 @9:00 AM

The 50 best films of 2015 in Australia – No 2: The Look of Silence

Continuing our countdown of the best movies released in Australia this year, we’re still haunted by Joshua Oppenheimer’s chilling companion piece to The Act of Killing

Benjamin Lee

16, Dec, 2015 @7:05 PM

The Look of Silence tops winners at documentary association awards

Film takes different approach to recounting acts of the Indonesian genocide as
Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville’s Best of Enemies also won big

Nigel M Smith in Los Angeles

06, Dec, 2015 @8:40 PM

Live Q&A: Indonesia, identity and the lasting legacy of 1965 – as it happened

Following recent censorship of conversation around the massacres of 1965-6, a panel of Indonesian academics and activists discussed history, memory and the power of written and oral testimony in dealing with the legacy of this period

Nancy Groves

13, Nov, 2015 @12:39 AM

Indonesians have never stopped talking about 1965 – the world should listen

Escalated media interest in the mass violence of 1965-66 has largely ignored some Indonesians’ efforts to bear oral and written witness to the past

Jemma Purdey and Kate McGregor

12, Nov, 2015 @6:22 AM

Censorship is returning to Indonesia in the name of the 1965 purges | Laksmi Pamuntjak

Even by the standards of post-totalitarian nations’ lingering paranoia the last month in Indonesia has seen a disheartening return to Suharto-era tropes of repression and neurosis

Laksmi Pamuntjak

27, Oct, 2015 @3:55 AM