The Trials of Darryl Hunt

This 2006 film chronicles the story of Darryl Hunt, a North Carolina man who spent 20 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a brutal crime he did not commit. This film casts light to the injustice of the court system and the racism that is still prevalent in the South today.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix.

Stolen recounts the story of the largest art heist in modern history in Boston in March of 1990.

Two thieves disguised as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and stole 13 works, including three Rembrandts, a Manet, and the priceless “The Concert” by Vermeer. The film follows an obsessive art detective on the trail as he hunts down the famous paintings.

Update: After 20 Years, a Break in a Famous Art Heist

This film is currently streaming on Netflix!

Hit So Hard: The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel

Hit So Hard is a 2011 documentary that chronicles Patty Schemel’s (the drummer of Hole) struggles with substance abuse, her sexuality, and coping with the darker side of celebrity that often accompanies fame set against a backdrop of the 1990s grunge subculture in Seattle: Nirvana, heroin chic, and the deaths of fellow musician friends Kurt Cobain and Kristen Pfaff to suicide and an overdose.

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Kurt Cobain and Patty Schemel with Frances Bean Cobain.

Also see: Kurt Cobain: About a Son

Hit So Hard is currently streaming on Netflix!

Since its inception in 1995 as a service for friends to find local events in the San Francisco Bay Area, craigslist has expanded to numerous cities in the US as well as 50 countries worldwide.

Many think of craigslist as a place to look for a job, find an apartment, or perhaps find a date, but in the age of social media craigslist is often referred to as the “town square” of the internet and has become a thriving subculture of its own.

With the emergence of web 2.0 and new social media sites popping up every week, filmmaker Joe Garner sets out to explore if this increasing number of social networking sites has actually led to more personal isolation, and in turn less sense of community among humankind.

In order to answer this question, Joe sets out on an adventure across America; his travels take him everywhere from San Francisco up to Portland and Seattle and over to Chicago and New York City, down to Florida, over to New Orleans, and back to San Francisco – but with a few provisions.

He is not allowed to bring any money, nor can he contact any relatives or friends during the 31 days he will be gone. He can only take his laptop and the clothes on his back. He cannot barter his services for money, but only in exchange for food, shelter, and transportation. Can Joe survive a whole month relying on the kindness of others in the age of the internet?

This film is currently streaming on Netflix.

Craigslist Joe [official film site]

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This documentary follows the lives of ten students at Seattle’s Academy of Burlesque and explores not only “the art of burlesque” but also feminism, sexuality, and body image.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Witness to Jonestown

This made for TV documentary by MSNBC takes us back to the mass tragedy at Jonestown in November of 1978. The mass suicide was orchestrated by People’s Temple leader Reverend Jim Jones and killed 913 people through ingesting cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.

The People’s Temple was a cult disguised as a church started by Jim Jones, a charismatic leader with close political ties in San Francisco. One of the biggest questions people have since the terrible tragedy has been, “how did it even happen in the first place? How did people believe a word this wacko says?”

While the majority of Jones’ followers were poor black people, many of The People’s Temple members were well-educated and prominent members of San Franciscan society. Cults thrive through brainwashing and other mind-numbing psychological techniques, and Jim Jones used these tools of depersonalization to the extreme.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix!

Paris is Burning

This superb documentary from 1990 is one of my personal favorites. Tragic, beautiful, honest, heartbreaking, and touching, this film explores the underground “House Ball” culture in the 1970′s – 80′s in Harlem. This film features a colorful cast of characters and covers a broad range of topics including race, class, alienation, fame, homophobia, transphobia, gender identity, and AIDS.

The film also looks at how underground subcultures influence popular culture; Madonna adopted their “vogueing” style of dance they invented for the music video for her 1990 hit song “Vogue.” Though the film was wildly popular at film festivals, it caused quite a controversy within the general public – a Christian group boycotted the film and described it as “despicably evil” and as “promoting a lifestyle that God abhors.”

Madonna herself was a big fan of the film and attended the Los Angeles premiere with the cast.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix!

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

This captivating film explored the infamous 1977 underage rape case of acclaimed film director Roman Polanski, and explores his dual identities as revealed through the European and American press.

The European press viewed him as a “tragic, brilliant, historic figure” who survived the holocaust as well as the murder of his young pregant wife Sharon Tate by the Manson Family in 1969, while the American press saw him as a criminal of the lowest kind.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix!

You can also watch this film free online at DocumentaryStorm!

Our Time

Our Time is a fascinating documentary on America’s youth; four newly-graduated guys head out on a road trip across the lower 48 states and interview young Americans from every walk of life. Inspiring, uplifting, and at times sobering, we hear the stories of everyone from a cancer researcher in Boston to an Iraq veteran in Florida to a farmer in the midwest.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix!

You can also watch it free online at SnagFilms!

This documentary premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival and profiles 1980′s night club kingpin Peter Gatien on his rise to the pinnacle of success through his brushes with the law and his eventual deportation back to his native Canada.

Gatien owned a handful of other (in)famous night clubs that were popular in the 1980′s party scene in addition to The Limelight including Palladium, and Tunnel and was largely responsible for the birth of American rave culture in the later 1980′s.

This film is currently streaming on Netflix!

Still needing a NYC subculture fix? See Chelsea on the Rocks and We Live in Public.