The Most Depressing Documentaries*
New Winner Why We Fight
The argument this film makes is so solid, so well laid out and so horrifying, that it sucks the air out of your lungs. Why We Fight is a disaster film, a horror movie made real. We are so screwed.
| Most Depressing | Very Nearly as Depressing | Surprisingly, not so Depressing | |||||
| 2 |
Children Underground | 1 |
Devil's Playground | 1 |
Best Boy | ||
| 3 |
Stevie | 2 |
Hell House | 2 |
Jefftowne | ||
4 |
Salesman | 3 |
The Backyard | 3 |
American Movie | ||
| 5 |
Paradise Lost** | 4 |
American Pimp | 4 |
Grey Gardens | ||
| 6 |
Dark Days | 5 |
Capturing the Friedmans | 5 |
Southern Comfort | ||
*The above titles are all in a Non-Holocaust related category. There are a fair number of very well made and very depressing Holocaust/Genocide documentaries: Shoah, The Nuremberg Trials, The Sorrow and the Pity, and more recently, The Specialist, but the scope of the Holocaust tends to trump most anything else.
It's also very important to add that nearly all of the Films of Frederick Wiseman have the potential to be even more depressing than most of the above. White Walls Editor, Anthony Elms, suggests Domestic Violence II for the top prize. Because none of these are available for rental or purchase on video cassette or dvd, we have decided not to include them in the count, instead we place them in a special category of honor: The Finest Depressing Documentaries Ever.
** We were unable to even see the sequel, "Paradise Lost II: Revelations,"
because we couldn't even imagine how depressing that would be.