O.J.: Made in America (ESPN.com)

After 20 years of obsessing over the O.J. Simpson trial, from my teenage years glued to the live coverage of the trial to various TV specials to Jeffrey Toobin’s definitive The Run of His Life to the recent FX miniseries The People vs. O.J. Simpson, I thought I was done with the O.J. Simpson trial. I didn’t really feel like I needed any more of the story at this point, nor did I feel like there was much about the case that I still had to discover. Ezra Edelman’s seven-and-a-half hour O.J.: Made in America, which played in five parts on ESPN as part of their 30 for 30 series, proved me completely wrong: I needed a lot more O.J., and there was a lot more to learn.

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman aren’t murdered until well into the third hour of Made in America, and the trial ends with an hour still to go, which may be the smartest move Edelman makes in this film. Up to the murder, we get the most in-depth account I have seen into what drove O.J. Simpson. Edelman captures the contradiction that Simpson would become a hero of the black community after he had disregarded them for so long effortlessly. He crosscuts Simpson’s rise in football and Hollywood with the story of the civil rights movement during Simpson’s life, emphasizing how disengaged from the African-American community Simpson made himself and how little interest he showed in civil rights (every piece of this seems to come back in the end and make O.J.’s life a full circle, from Howard Cossell to the Black Panthers fist to the common theme of O.J. always running). The later fall of Simpson, not only the trial but Simpson’s attempt at refueling his career post-acquittal, is tragic, and Edelman paints a picture of a man both made by America and broken by America. Shots of a middle-aged O.J. partying with college students and making a prank TV show would be embarrassing to watch regardless, but after seeing the man in his prime we truly understand the dark side of our celebrity culture.

One of the great strengths of the film is the way that Edelman manages to get a candid reflection out of each of his talking heads and give them each their own arc. If the film is lacking a number of major faces, some deceased (attorneys Johnnie Cochran, and Robert Kardashian), some choosing to be silent (prosecutor Christopher Darden, attorney Robert Shapiro, Simpson’s family, and first wife), and some incarcerated (Simpson himself), it doesn’t lack for a number for startling viewpoints. It is still filled with many essential faces, including Fred Goldman, Marcia Clark, F. Lee Bailey, and Gil Garcetti, each of whom tell us their account of the story as we’ve heard it before. Edelman has the patience, though, to let all of his talking heads tell us their story.

He spends a lot of time with Mark Fuhrman, the detective who found the bloody glove and was later dismantled by the defense as a racist, calmly explaining a side that we haven’t heard before and taking subtle responsibility for his actions. It is one of the best segments of the film. Edelman also lets some of O.J.’s closest confidants, including police officer Ron Shipp, and agent Mike Gilbert, tell their complete stories and takes us through the arc of loving O.J. to slowly realizing what he had done and distancing themselves from him. Gilbert might get the most chilling moments of the film, as he describes how Simpson confessed to him years later and how he hung on longer than anyone before finally cutting ties. It works because Edelman has let us get to know and trust Gilbert, along with all of the other players in Simpson’s life. ESPN originally wanted a five-hour piece, but when they saw Edelman’s seven-and-a-half hour cut, they told him they would figure out a way to show it uncut. It pays off. Nothing is rushed here.

Edelman manages something else remarkable, which even the best accounts of the O.J. Simpson trial have lacked, and that is making Nicole a three-dimensional character throughout the story. Because of the film’s structure, we get a lot of their courtship and understand her as a person before we see her as a victim. You understand what people loved about her, beyond the outer beauty, and the loss that her death brought to those who loved her. Throughout the trial, Edelman returns to her at various times, filling in holes of her story and reminding us of her vibrancy (Edelman attempts to do this with Ron Goldman too, but since he doesn’t intersect O.J.’s life before he is murdered, it is more of a struggle and doesn’t fully work). For the first time we see the gruesome crime scene photos of both victims, making their deaths feel more real than any discussion could possibly make them and also underlying the way Nicole was literally hacked down. This is her story as much as it is about O.J. or anyone else.

Edelman also cuts out a lot of the circus of the trial itself: the jury dismissals, the haircuts and nude photos, the behind-the-scenes lawyer drama and the peripheral circus around people like Rosa Lopez, Faye Resnick, and Kato Kaelin. O.J. Made in America shows the trial for what Edelman sees it was at its core — the story of a black celebrity charged with murdering his white wife, whom he was known to have beaten in the past — and lets everything stem from that. He puts O.J.’s football career, movies, marriages, children, arrest, chase, glove, acquittal, robbery, jail sentence, celebrity, and impact all in that context. In the end, Edelman’s portrait of O.J. is a national hero turned racial icon turned fallen idol desperate to reclaim any of what he had. More importantly, though, it is a portrait of the America that made him all of those things.

He Named Me Malala (HuluPlus)

Davis Guggenheim, who won the Academy Award for the Al Gore documentary An Inconvinient Truth, does a smart thing in He Named Me Malala, about Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai. He waits until over halfway through the film to tell the part of Malala’s story that we all know: she speaks up against the Taliban, wanting equal opportunities for young girls in Paksitan, and they retaliate by boarding her bus to school and shooting her in the face. This is the Malala that we are familiar with: the miraculous survivor who is mature beyond her years, forced to grasp the horrific realities of the world too soon, and well-spoken and peaceful enough to be the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Before this, though, Guggenheim shows us a different Malala. He introduces us to a girl who hasn’t been allowed to grow up, who struggles in her science classes and wrestles with her brothers on the living room floor. There is a humanity to these scenes with Malala and her family, forced into exile in Britain and shuttled around the world shaking hands with a litany of political leaders, royalty, and rock stars. It is funny and light and heart-warming. Unfortunately, once we move out of her house the film becomes bland and pedestrian. If you want to know what makes Malala tick, this film doesn’t even seem to want that answer; we learn nothing of her story that a five-minute segment on cable news couldn’t tell us. It becomes obvious early on that Malala doesn’t much care about promoting herself, which is fine, but Guggenheim doesn’t try to find another way in. He tries showing us about how her father’s passion drives her (after all, he named her Malala after an Afghani folk hero who fought for independence), but it scratches little more than the surface. This is a story that needs to be told over and over again, but it is also a story that deserves a lot more than the surface exploration Guggenheim gives it.

(T)error (Netflix)

The most terrifying moments of (T)error, and there are many throughout the film, are not about the subjects but about the filmmakers. There are moments where you truly wonder how they are going to get out of the film alive. The film opens with Shariff, a former Black Panther and current FBI informant. The filmmakers get unprecedented access, without the knowledge of the FBI, to follow Shariff on a sting in an attempt to uncover Islamic terrorists in the United States. As frightening as it is to watch Shariff set up the sting, and deal with his paranoia about the FBI and the filmmakers, it doubles down when directors Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe suddenly gain access to Khalifah, the man whom Shariff is trying to pin down. The ensuing cat and mouse game soon takes over the narrative, to the point that you are wondering what the story is behind the scenes (and how Cabral and Sutcliffe are managing all of these personalities) more than what the story is going on on screen. Cabral and Sutcliffe leave several dots unconnected, which is unfortunate because the film has a lot of interesting things to say about how welcome and effective these terrorist stings are. As a piece of bravado filmmaking, though, it should be applauded.