August 2025 documentary 10-pack: 'Sunday Best,' 'Jaws @50,' 'Death & Taxes,' 'Dear Ms.,' 'Going Going Gone,' 'Balloon Boy,' 'Shari and Lamb Chop,' 'Made in Ethiopia,' 'Empire Skate, 'Kerouac’s Road'
Reviewing 10 new documentary features.
I’m running the August 10-pack a day before the start of August, due to some flukes of the schedule that give me a couple of things to review right at the start of next month. Here we go:
Sunday Best
The final work of the great journalist and documentarian Sacha Jenkins, who passed away a couple of months ago, is a look back at The Ed Sullivan Show, and specifically Sullivan’s willingness in the early 1960s to feature Black guests when not everyone else would.
Featuring tons of great archival footage of everyone from Ray Charles to the Jackson 5 to Harry Belafonte, Sunday Best is likely to appeal to fans of Summer of Soul.
Sunday Best is also about things that a late-night talk show can do, which are suddenly relevant, the week of the doc’s Netflix debut, which came days after the cancellation of the show that’s currently based at Sullivan’s old theater.
It’s streaming now on Netflix, one of several festival documentaries from last year that the service picked up. And while it doesn’t appear that a trailer was ever produced, you can see Dionne Warwick, above, discussing it.
Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story
A movie about Jaws, and its legacy after a half-century, featuring new interviews with Steven Spielberg and most of the other major living people involved. Spielberg didn’t participate in most of the Jaws 50th anniversary stuff this summer, mostly because he’s finishing a new movie, but he has his say here.
No, it doesn’t depart too far from the conventional wisdom, and you’ll get to hear all the stories you’ve heard before about how the shark didn’t work and Spielberg felt like he was in over his head. But the film, directed by Laurent Bouzereau, is a must for any Jaws fan.
The film is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+.
Death & Taxes
Directed by Justin Schein, the film tells the story of the director’s late dad, Harvey Schein, a music industry guy who was obsessed with avoiding taxes, especially the estate tax, or as Republicans call it, “the death tax.”
The film goes back and forth between telling the story of Harvey and his relationship with his son, and using wonks and talking heads to tell the story of the political history of the estate tax. Adding a wrinkle? Frank Luntz, who coined the term “death tax,” comes right out and says the subtext out loud: This film is likely only possible because of whatever money the filmmaker inherited from his father.
That said, Republican presidents keep “ending” the estate tax, but rich people keep worrying about it anyway. Robert Reich, also the subject of a recent documentary, appears as a talking head, taking the anti-oligarchy side.
I liked this, but it’s a lot more compelling when it’s dealing with the family story, rather than talking head wonkery. It’s currently in theaters, in a series of one-shot screenings.
Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print
A history of the feminist magazine, Ms., specifically dealing with its 1970s and early ‘80s heyday, featuring interviews with Gloria Steinem and others involved with the magazine’s early history, as well as quotes from letters written to the magazine, hence the title.
That particular period of feminism has gotten a lot of pop culture reexamination in the last five years or so, but this finds a new, fascinating angle. The most fascinating part, by far, is the last third, focused on the often bitter fights the feminist movement had over pornography.
Dear Ms. is now streaming on HBO Max.
Going, Going, Gone: The Magic of the Home Run
Comedian Roy Wood, Jr., from The Daily Show, fronts a 48-minute documentary about home runs, timed to the baseball All-Star Game, and under the MLB production banner.
It’s light stuff, but as a baseball fan I had fun, especially in the appearances by baseball media icons Bob Costas and Chris Berman. I especially enjoyed the look back at the derby in 1998, when it’s pretty clear that most of the competitors were loaded with steroids.
Going, Going Gone is streaming on the Roku Channel.
Trainwreck: Balloon Boy
Netflix’s Trainwreck documentary series isn’t nearly as half-assed as its sports counterpart, Untold. Still, its specialty seems inconsistent, offering glancing examinations of viral news stories from 10 or 15 years ago that you vaguely recall.
And while the recent Rob Ford episode was way too short, the latest installment is just 50 minutes, and barely has enough to fill that time.
This one is about Balloon Boy, the kid who was feared to have flown off in a hot air balloon, in a balloon chase that aired live on national television, before he turned out not to be in it, he turned out to have a fame-hungry father, the kid appeared to blurt out the truth in a TV interview, and the dad faced criminal charges.
The dad is interviewed and claims to this day that it wasn’t a hoax. The film doesn’t quite get to the heart of what the truth is, which is what documentaries are supposed to do.
And if you liked this Netflix documentary about a guy who may very well have carried out a hoax but still denies it to this day… they’ve got a doc coming out about Jussie Smollett, in just a couple of weeks.
Shari and Lamb Chop
I think I first became acquainted with Shari Lewis and her puppet, Lamb Chop, on Hollywood Squares back in the ‘80s. But it turns out there was a whole, fascinating backstory that I had no idea about.
Finally out now after about two years on the festival circuit, director Lisa D’Apolito’s film follows Lewis’s life and career, beginning in the 1950s, and continuing through multiple comebacks until her death in 1998.
Much like in the Paul Reubens documentary, I was surprised to learn that Lewis’ act was a lot more adult-oriented than I remembered, including a running gag of Lamb Chop the sheep flirting and sometimes making out with male celebrities like Larry King, Dudley Moore and Robert Goulet.
Lewis was also able to pull off the nearly impossible feat of puppeteering and voicing more than one puppet at the same time.
This fine film was released theatrically in mid-July.
Made in Ethiopia
American Factory, the Oscar-winning documentary from a few years ago, was about a Chinese-run factory setting up shop in Ohio. Made in Ethiopia is about the Chinese factory culture coming to a very different country, Ethiopia. But the culture clash is very similar.
Directed by Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan, Made in Ethiopia landed in July on PBS, as part of the POV series, and remains available on the PBS app. The film is told through several figures, including Chinese entrepreneur Motto Ma, as well as the workers at the factory and the farmers who lost their land.
It’s another work about how modern China kept all the worst parts of communism, while also layering on top of it all the worst parts of capitalism.
Empire Skate
An ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, one of the only ones this year, looking at the New York City skate scene in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Directed by Josh Swade, it was a Tribeca Film Festival debut shortly before landing on ESPN and Hulu.
I was pretty transfixed, even though skateboard culture, and its related equipment and fashions, have never been something I’m especially interested in.
The doc ties in quite a bit with the 1995 film Kids, as it’s set in the same scene and even features some of the same people, paying tribute to the late Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter.
Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation
Also a Tribeca 2025 film, this film from director Ebs Burnough — a former aide to Michelle Obama — takes a look back at Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel “On the Road,” and how it continues to resonate nearly 70 years after its publication.
Unfortunately, it ends up very unfocused, mostly interviewing celebrities like Josh Brolin and Natalie Merchant, while using Michael Imperioli as providing the voice of Kerouac’s novel.
It ends up being all over the place, while going into some directions that are pretty far afield from what “On the Road” is about.
Kerouac’s Road hits theaters on Friday.