Fans of non-fiction films had another good year. A great selection was sprinkled through the programmes of various festivals and a worthy handful came back for seasons. Among the best:
KEY POINTS:
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES (Canada)
It only played in the midwinter festival and in a Canadian festival but Jennifer Baichwal's film about the work of the celebrated photographer Edward Burtynsky was the year's most eyepopping, taking us into "made" landscapes either degraded or uber-industrialised that were hard to conceive ofas earthly.
LEONARD COHEN: I'M YOUR MAN (USA)
This long-overdue valentine to a colossus of music and popular culture had as many dodgy covers as brilliant ones, but it was just great to spend some time in the presence of The Man.
WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE (USA)
Spike Lee's four-hour epic, made for HBO, about Hurricane Katrina was angry and elegiac, a celebration of the spirit of New Orleans and an excoriating j'accuse against those who let it die.
DEEP WATER (UK)
The story of the strange last voyage of would-be round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst was astonishing, exciting and deeply sad.
JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN (UK)
In what's been a good year for rock movies, Julien Temple's eulogy of the Clash's Joe Strummer was another stand-out for its frank portrait of the punk era idealist.
