Top 10 Film Releases for Summer 2022
At the risk that this will cause you to completely discount the below recommendations, I have a confession to make: this is the first Top Ten Films List I’ve ever assembled. Working in Collection Development for a large university library, I’ve made plenty of my own lists, marking down titles that catch my interest each time I analyze the contents of bulk streaming collections or process individual faculty requests for harder-to-find titles, but those were just for me. How would I go about creating an objective list that appeals to everyone?
The answer, I quickly realized, is that every list like this will be subjective, and no list is going to appeal to all. I could only use my research skills, combing through lists of new streaming releases, reading reviews, and watching what I could, combined with my own judgment and knowledge of the film industry. In the end, the process was a blast, and I’m very excited by the resulting list.
With a focus on educational films, and especially on those related to current events, the titles listed here are a fairly eclectic mix, some of which were released cinematically several years ago but have only now made their way to an academic streaming platform, others of which were newly released for the first time. From Macedonion female beekeepers struggling to make a living amid changing climate conditions, to a cinematic ode to the daily lives and struggles of Alabama’s Black communities, to an exploration into the characteristics of, and challenges faced by the Millennial generation, these films cover a wide range of subjects and perspectives.
Many thanks to David Parker for guiding me through this process, and especially to Lorraine Wochna for her sage advice, support, and encouragement.
The Films
Honeyland, 2019, 1hr, 29 min. Turkish with English subtitles.
Director: Ljubo Stefanov & Tamara Kotevska
Production Company: Neon
Genre: Climate change, Documentary
Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. When an unruly family moves in next door, what at first seems like a balm for her solitude becomes a source of tension as they, too, want to practice beekeeping, while disregarding her advice.
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards. Nominated for Best Documentary at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Winner of the World Cinema: Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cinematography Award, and Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Available to stream via Kanopy.
The Hunt for Planet B, 2021, 1hr, 34 min. English.
Director: Nathaniel Kahn
Production Company: Crazy Boat Pictures
Genre: Women in STEM, Documentary
‘The Hunt for Planet B’ captures the human drama behind NASA’s high-stakes Webb Telescope, due to launch in October 2021—the most ambitious space observatory ever built. The film interweaves the creation of this massive machine with the story of a pioneering group of female scientists on a quest to find life beyond our solar system. What begins as a real-time scientific adventure turns into a deep meditation on our place in the universe. On the brink of seeing farther out than ever before, we find ourselves looking back at our own imperiled planet with new eyes.
Official selection at the SXSW Film Festival. Golden Owl Award Winner at the Bergen International Film Festival.
Available to stream via Film Platform.
Hale County: This Morning, This Evening, 2018, 1hr, 17 min. English with transcript.
Director: RaMell Ross
Production Company: Cinema Guild
Genre: Black Studies, Documentary
In the lives of protagonists Daniel and Quincy, quotidian moments and the surrounding southern landscape are given importance, drawing poetic comparisons between historical symbols and the African American banal. Images are woven together to replace narrative arcs with visual movements. As Ross crafts a tapestry made up of time, the human soul, history, environmental wonder, sociology, and cosmic phenomena, an aesthetic framework emerges that offers a new way of seeing and experiencing the heat, and the hearts, of people in the Black Belt region of the U.S. as well far beyond.
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. Peabody Award Winner.
Available to stream via Academic Video Online (AVON).
Sorry We Missed You, 2019, 1hr, 41 min. English with closed captioning.
Director: Ken Loach
Production Company: Kino Lorber
Genre: Economics, Drama
The British working class is once again the empathetic subject of Ken Loach's ‘Sorry We Missed You’, an intimate family drama that exposes the dark side of the so-called "gig economy," capturing the sacred moments that make a family as well as the acts of desperation they need to undertake to make it through each day.
Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Available to stream via Kanopy.
In the Same Breath, 2021, 1hr, 40 min. English, Chinese with English subtitles.
Director: Nanfu Wang
Production Company: HBO Enterprises
Genre: COVID-19, Documentary
‘In the same breath’ examines the ways two countries dealt with the initial spread of the novel coronavirus – from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States. Directed with a deeply personal approach by Nanfu Wang, who was born in China and now lives in the U.S., the film recounts the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the pandemic, exploring attempts to contain the virus amid rampant confusion and unchecked efforts to shape the public narrative. Featuring workers, activists, and grieving family members who risked everything to expose the truth, ‘In the same breath’ illuminates the parallel American and Chinese misinformation campaigns that devastated the globe.
Nominated for Outstanding Direction, Outstanding Production, and Winner, Outstanding Broadcast Film at Cinema Eye Honors. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Available to stream via Swank.
The Revolution Generation, 2021, 1hr, 20 min. English.
Director: Josh Tickell, Rebecca Tickell
Production Company: Big Picture Ranch, Sustainable Films, Social Construct Films
Genre: U.S Politics, Activism, Documentary
Through interviews and highlighting a theory by generational demographists Neil Howe and William Strauss that history can be viewed as a series of 80-year cycles — and within that, into four “seasons'' that bring with them profound societal changes — this film shows the impact of the WWII Generation, Baby Boomers, and Gen X. But Millennials occupy a special spot: they’re creators of social tech and native digital users, are anti-corporate crusaders, are more empathetic than any previous group ... and they now have to secure voting rights, equality, and the safety of the planet itself. Can they do it? A kinetic, perceptive documentary of a generation and why they are who they are.
Winner, Best Screenwriting, Best Producer, & Humanitarian Award at DOC LA.
Available to stream via Film Platform.
Five Years North, 2020, 1hr, 28 min. English with closed captioning.
Director: Zach Ingrasci, Chris Temple
Production Company: The Film Sales Company
Genre: Undocumented Immigrants, Documentary
‘Five years north’ is the coming-of-age story of Luis, an undocumented Guatemalan boy who just arrived alone in New York City. He struggles to work, study, and evade Judy - the Cuban-American ICE officer patrolling his neighborhood.
Winner, Metropolis Grand Jury Prize at DOC NYC.
Available to stream via Kanopy.
Lioness: The Nicola Adams Story, 2021, 1 hr, 30 min. English.
Director: Helena Coan
Production Company: Gravitas Ventures
Genre: Biography, LGBTQ+ Studies, Documentary
A young girl was once told she was too black. Not feminine enough. She couldn't, and shouldn't play the way the boys did. That girl became World Boxing Champion, and the first female boxing Olympic Gold medalist in history. Her name is Nicola Adams. From the streets of Leeds to the World stage, Adams fought her way to the top and changed the game. This is her story.
Available to stream via Swank
Zero Days, 2016, 1hr, 53 min. English with closed captioning.
Director: Alex Gibney
Production Company: Magnolia Pictures
Genre: Cybercrime, True Crime
‘Zero Days’ tells the complete story of Stuxnet, a piece of self-replicating computer malware that the U.S. and Israel unleashed to destroy a key part of an Iranian nuclear facility, and which ultimately spread beyond its intended target, ushering in a new generation of cyberweapons.
Official Selection at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Available to stream via Kanopy.
© Digitalia Film Library
En el murmullo del viento (In the whisper of the wind), 2019, 1hr. Spanish with Spanish, English, or Portuguese subtitles.
Director: Nina Wara Carrasco
Production Company: Pedro Lijerón Vargas
Genre: Latin American & Indigenous Studies, Documentary
The fantastic stories narrated by Nina's father about the music of northern Potosí in Bolivia take her back to Llallaguita, her idyllic childhood place, to explore the elements that make up the mysticism of rituality in this area.
Audience Award at the International Environmental Film Festival (FINCA) BsAs, Argentina.
Best Sound Script at the Bienal Internacional do Cinemasonoro.
Official selection at the XVI International Exhibition of Women in Film and TV. Mexico.
