15 Best Documentaries Of 2020

Veteran cinematographer Kirsten Johnson uses the documentary format to come to terms with the inevitable loss of her elderly father in this formally daring, amusing and touching film about death. Having lost her mother to Alzheimer’s seven years prior, Johnson now faces losing her father to the same illness. Reflecting on how little footage she captured last time, she resolves to get her dad’s last years on tape.

This is no family movie, though. Johnson and her father Dick deal with the coming trauma head on by imagining the myriad graphic ways he might die - struck by a falling air conditioner, falling down the stairs, beheaded - and create graphic pre-creations.

Dick, a former psychiatrist, is more game than most parents might be, and his presence is warm and charismatic, even if it’s grim to see him slowly fade as his illness takes hold. The process is anything but conventional, but clearly serves a purpose for both Johnsons. This is a unique approach to grieving, but if you’ve got the means, it seems to work!