Documentary | Reason Archives (original) (raw)
Review: Like Friday Night Lights, But For High School Mariachi
A documentary on Netflix follows a team of young musicians vying for competition wins in Texas.
Fiona Harrigan | 11.15.2024 6:00 AM
Watch Now: Classified: The War on Backpage.com
Reason's new documentary is now streaming on the video platform CiVL. I hope you'll watch.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 10.9.2024 12:00 PM
Ford Fischer: What's the Untold Story Behind 'Stop the Steal'?
Documentarian Ford Fischer discusses his experience covering the "Stop the Steal" movement, January 6, and what it all means for the future of journalism and democracy.
Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe | 10.3.2024 1:15 PM
War Game Documents an All-Star Political Live-Action Role-Playing Game
What happened when some officials role-played a bigger, noisier rerun of January 6, 2021
Jesse Walker | 9.27.2024 8:15 AM
Mike Rowe on Patriotism, Paul Harvey, and American Progress
"We're never going to be finished. Our country is a work in progress," says the producer of the new Something to Stand For documentary.
Nick Gillespie | 9.26.2024 6:30 AM
Review: The Women Entrepreneurs of Impoverished Countries
She Rises Up manages to be inspirational without being sappy, like so many documentaries are.
Katherine Mangu-Ward | 7.19.2024 6:00 AM
Review: Documenting Julian Assange's Legal Battles
Kym Staton's documentary also tries to debunk several accusations against the WikiLeaks founder.
Brian Doherty | 6.27.2024 7:00 AM
Reason Wins 7 Southern California Journalism Awards
First-place finishes include an investigative piece on egregious misconduct in federal prison, a documentary on homelessness, best magazine columnist, and more.
Billy Binion | 6.24.2024 1:51 PM
Review: An Arkansas Jail Unlocked the Cells. Did it Work?
A new Netflix documentary series shows what happened when inmates were free to roam the cellblock with no guards in sight.
Natalie Dowzicky | 6.21.2024 6:00 AM
Super Size Me Was Not Groundbreaking Journalism
Morgan Spurlock's death and legacy are a reminder that skepticism is a necessary part of any balanced diet.
Billy Binion | 5.24.2024 5:30 PM
Review: How Ray Trapani Scammed the Crypto World and Got Away With it
Netflix's Bitconned explores Centra Tech's scammy business dealings.
Katarina Hall | 3.22.2024 6:00 AM
Review: Ken Burns Explains the Anti–Native American Plot To Kill Bison
The American Buffalo documentary charts the fall and rise of American bison.
Matt Welch | 2.9.2024 6:00 AM
Review: Netflix Delivers a Surprisingly Balanced Take on Vaping
Big Vape presents differing views on the supposed youth vaping epidemic.
Jacob Sullum | 2.2.2024 6:00 AM
Review: How To Live to 100
It's not as easy as Netflix's Secrets of the Blue Zones makes it seem.
Natalie Dowzicky | 11.24.2023 6:30 AM
Review: Shiny Happy People Charts the Downfall of the Duggar Family
The Amazon miniseries examines the Institute in Basic Life Principles, focusing on the Duggar family and its multiple sex abuse scandals.
Emma Camp | 9.29.2023 6:00 AM
Review: Ithaka Chronicles the Fight To Save Julian Assange
"If he goes down, so will journalism," Assange's father John Shipton says in the documentary.
Jacob Sullum | 6.30.2023 6:00 AM
Review: Endangered Documentary Exaggerates Threats to U.S. Journalists
The HBO movie muddies important distinctions.
Jacob Sullum | 4.21.2023 6:30 AM
Review: Pelosi in the House Is a Nepotistic Puff Piece
The glowing documentary makes no mention of her failures or even shortcomings as speaker.
Joe Lancaster | 3.3.2023 6:00 AM
What the Madoff Series Left Out
A Netflix documentary series blames the SEC for missing the Ponzi scheme and then calls for giving the SEC more power.
Zach Weissmueller and Danielle Thompson | 2.21.2023 11:50 AM
Brickbat: Cut the Cord
Charles Oliver | 2.2.2023 4:00 AM
Review: Post-Roe America Is Unlikely To Resemble the One Seen in The Janes
An underground network in Chicago helped women terminate thousands of pregnancies amid abortion prohibition.
Jacob Sullum | 1.13.2023 6:30 AM
Review: God Forbid Chronicles Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Fall From Grace
Falwell and his wife engaged in extramarital trysts with a younger man and introduced him to powerful friends, such as future president Donald Trump.
Joe Lancaster | 1.6.2023 6:00 AM
Brickbat: Royal Disaster
Charles Oliver | 12.30.2022 4:00 AM
Review: When Americans Turned Their Backs on Holocaust Refugees
The U.S. and the Holocaust condemns anti-refugee policies of the World War II era.
Jacob Sullum | 12.23.2022 6:00 AM
Netflix Teams Up With the Obamas To Produce Big Government Propaganda
The G Word, a new documentary, only occasionally covers serious issues. But it opts not to do honest reporting.
John Stossel | 10.19.2022 12:30 AM
'Riotsville, U.S.A.' Explores the Origins of Police Militarization
Sierra Pettengill's documentary focuses on the fake towns, built by the Army in the 1960s, to train law enforcement.
Meredith Bragg | 10.7.2022 11:25 AM
Review: The AnCap Revolution Goes to Mexico in The Anarchists
Activists were divided about whether to professionalize the political community or keep it ideologically pure. Sound familiar?
Christian Britschgi | 10.7.2022 6:30 AM
Review: Barack Obama and Adam Conover Want To Shift the Blame for Government Failures
Netflix's The G Word tries and fails to restore faith in big government.
Scott Shackford | 9.30.2022 6:30 AM
A White Woman's Documentary About Muslim Extremists Is Being Canceled. Guess Why.
Numerous critics object to the fact that the filmmaker, Meg Smaker, is a white woman.
Robby Soave | 9.26.2022 10:11 AM
Review: After Cult Leader Was Convicted, His Compound Was Raided by Child Protective Services
The Netflix docu-thriller Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey shows the downfall of Warren Jeffs and the unjustified taking of 450 children inside his religious community.
Natalie Dowzicky | 9.2.2022 6:30 AM
What If We Tried Anarchy? HBO's The Anarchists Explores.
"There really is no panacea, either technological like cryptocurrency or philosophical like anarchism," says director Todd Schramke.
Zach Weissmueller and Danielle Thompson | 8.24.2022 10:00 AM
The G Word Begs Americans To Fall Back in Love with Uncle Sam
Adam Conover and President Barack Obama want to unruin the federal government. But they’re not really willing to truly consider that it’s too big and too wasteful.
Scott Shackford | 7.4.2022 7:30 AM
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
The new documentary revisits the draconian political response to the crack cocaine "epidemic" of the 1980s.
Jacob Sullum | 4.1.2022 6:00 AM
Four Hours at the Capitol
This new HBO documentary portrays the January 6 riot as more of a temper tantrum than an incipient coup.
Jacob Sullum | 3.18.2022 6:00 AM
Why Does Kenny G Drive Critics Crazy?
Penny Lane’s new film explores the gap between diehard fans and critical elites.
Nick Gillespie and Regan Taylor | 12.17.2021 4:06 PM
234 Million Reason TV Fans Can't Be Wrong! Support Our Video Journalism!
Our videos make the case for "Free Minds and Free Markets" to millions of people a year.
Nick Gillespie | 12.4.2021 7:15 AM
Penny Lane: Can 75 Million Kenny G Fans Be Wrong?
The HBO documentary Listening to Kenny G brilliantly explores the gulf between market success and critical acclaim.
Nick Gillespie | 12.1.2021 1:55 PM
The Best of Cold War Culture
Books, films, and more related to the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Peter Suderman, Fiona Harrigan, Jesse Walker, Christian Britschgi, Stephanie Slade, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Ronald Bailey | 11.5.2021 6:00 AM
Review: Dune and The Velvet Underground
Back to the future, out of the past
Kurt Loder | 10.15.2021 7:30 AM
The Innocence Files
Netflix's limited series documents how bad forensics, faulty witness testimony, and misconduct by police and prosecutors let us down.
Scott Shackford | 10.1.2021 6:30 AM
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Unearthed relics tell the story of the long-forgotten Harlem Cultural Festival, which featured the likes of Nina Simone, B.B. King, and Stevie Wonder.
Fiona Harrigan | 9.17.2021 6:00 AM
Documentary on CIA's Hunt for Bin Laden Doesn't Truly Pull Back the Curtain
As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, prepare for the many, many looks back.
Glenn Garvin | 9.3.2021 2:05 PM
COVID Diaries NYC
The HBO documentary provides plenty of examples of people conflating moral and medical judgments.
Jacob Sullum | 8.13.2021 6:00 AM
Philly D.A.
For progressive Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, getting elected was the easy part.
C.J. Ciaramella | 7.9.2021 6:00 AM
CNN Memorializes America's Trashiest Romance Writer
Jackie Collins was a pop culture force to be reckoned with in the 1980s.
Glenn Garvin | 6.25.2021 2:00 PM
Chinese Immigrants in the Deep South Struggle and Thrive in PBS Documentary
A tale of heartbreak and tenacity in post-Reconstruction Mississippi.
Glenn Garvin | 5.7.2021 1:30 PM
Kingdom of Silence
The new documentary traces the evolution of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's attitude toward the Saudi regime.
Jacob Sullum | 5.7.2021 6:30 AM
HBO Documents the Tragic Tale of Lucy, the Chimp Raised Like a Human
An experiment to see if nurture could overcome nature did not end well.
Glenn Garvin | 4.23.2021 12:15 PM