"The Criterion Collection contains some of the greatest documentaries, and these are my favorites. These discs give you a good dose of Werner Herzog (in front of the camera), Les Blank, and Errol Morris. You also get the short Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, which makes me laugh me every time I watch it."

"The Criterion Collection contains some of the greatest documentaries, and these are my favorites. These discs give you a good dose of Werner Herzog (in front of the camera), Les Blank, and Errol Morris. You also get the short Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, which makes me laugh me every time I watch it."

"The Criterion Collection contains some of the greatest documentaries, and these are my favorites. These discs give you a good dose of Werner Herzog (in front of the camera), Les Blank, and Errol Morris. You also get the short Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, which makes me laugh me every time I watch it."

"It’s a documentary, but I remember liking Crumb a whole lot. When Crumb came out I would go and see it like three times a week; I would be bringing different people to see it. I’d seen a couple of documentaries before, from Errol Morris or whatever, but that, I mean that one took it to a whole other level as far as I was concerned. I just thought it was the most interesting family I’d ever seen in a movie, really."

"That movie is spectacular in so many ways. It has everything a documentary should have: unexpected twists, characters that are flawed and complex and crazy. And the story is told in a way that it feels like a compelling — almost fictional — narrative but its obviously as real as it gets. But there are times when you’re watching it and you just go, “Oh my God, did this really happen? Is this real?” I love documentaries and there are a lot of great ones. I’m a big Werner Herzog fan as well, and Errol Morris."

"Another documentary. [Director Errol Morris has] got so many movies that I love and there are so many other documentaries that I love too. But The Thin Blue Line is interesting to choose right now because now there is a resurgence of true crime documentaries — a lot of them [are] series like Making a Murderer or The Jinx. But Thin Blue Line was kind of the original true crime documentary that really sort of made you question police tactics and I think anyone who’s into Making a Murderer or Serial or The Jinx — or any of these shows right now, and podcasts — and hasn’t seen Thin Blue Line should check that out. It’s just a well-made movie in general but it’s also a fascinating story of a crime that someone may or may not have done."

"As someone who’s really passionate about what he does, I have a lot of opinions about documentary films. A lot of documentary filmmakers don’t really think about their films cinematically, and some documentaries almost seem like they were just copy-and-pasted like Microsoft Word documents. I’ve always loved how Errol Morris takes a wrecking ball to those conventions. His films are constantly exploring the idea of what a documentary is. His films tweak and twist reality, and they don’t just try to serve the audience digested ideas on a platter. If I had to pick a favorite, it’s his transcendent 1988 classic The Thin Blue Line, which recounts a murder case and then riffs and re-riffs on it like a Bach fugue. It was the first film to really use re-creation and reeneactment scenes in a new and highly cinematic way, both to explore a case and to challenge a viewer’s own bias and subjectivity. Nowadays, its approach and editing style loom over every one of these multipart true crime series and podcasts. The Thin Blue Line is almost like the influential band that’s been ripped off so often that new converts may not realize just how significant it is."