Get Me Roger Stone (Netflix)

Get Me Roger Stone, the new Netflix documentary about political operative Roger Stone, tells his story by mostly focusing on the man who most famously got Roger Stone: Donald J. Trump. Stone is the self-proclaimed architect of Trumpian America, and Get Me Roger Stone might do more than anything else I’ve seen recently to explain what Trump is thinking and how he got to where he is. The answer is merely, he got Roger Stone. By telling the story of how Stone, who has wanted Trump to run for president for thirty years, got Trump to the White House, Get Me Roger Stone illuminates that journey for those of us who witnessed it in real time. Along the way, it also sheds light on the history of Roger Stone, from his pride at being the youngest person to testify in the Watergate hearings to his boasting that he devised the scheme to get George W. Bush in the White House. Stone is a constant figure in the film, narrating his own successes and failures and not apologizing for any of them. In his own words, it is better to be infamous than not be famous at all. For anyone trying to make sense of America today, this is required viewing.

I Am Not Your Negro (Amazon Prime)

Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary this year, emphasizes the document part of the word documentary. It is a series of primary-source documents layered on top of each other: James Baldwin’s decades-old writing (read by Samuel L. Jackson) over images, both contemporaneous and contemporary, intermingled with TV appearances by Baldwin. Peck uses all of this to show how history is circular, or at least hasn’t moved in a few decades, as Baldwin’s words about the Civil Rights Movement seem to echo hauntingly over images of Obama, Ferguson, and modern America. It is hypnotizing to watch and makes a lot of startling comments on modern America.

Mommy Dead and Dearest (HBONow)

A good documentary can many times be held up by one great central character, and Mommy Dead and Dearest has found that in Gypsy Rose Blanchard. To give away too much is to ruin the pleasure of watching the film reveal itself. Gypsy was charged with the murder of her mother Dee Dee, and as the film unfolds, truth after truth is unfurled and proven untruthful until you get to a point where you aren’t exactly sure what is real anymore. All you can be certain of is that you want to know more, and Blanchard draws you in with a charming personality and a possibly horrifying backstory. If the film suffers, though, it is from being too close to the timing of the story. Blanchard was convicted less than a year ago, and in the end, a little more distance might lead to a little more clarity on what is truly going on rather than leaving us in a haze of a wonderful ride with no certainty at the destination.