Documentary

Director Laura Poitras set out to make a documentary that followed a prisoner released from Guantanamo Bay. But her movie about Salim Hamdan became more complicated when she met Hamdan's brother-in-law Abu Jandal, an enigmatic man and Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard. David Edelstein says the film is a fine one, full of "haunting ambiguities."

Exit Through the Gift Shop is the sardonic title of a new art-world documentary about street artists whose renegade work has ended up selling for lot and lots of money. The credited director is the renowned English street artist "Banksy," whose true identity is a matter of much conjecture. Critic David Edelstein says that even if doubts about its authenticity linger, it's a wonderful, often hilarious film.

German tenor Max Lorenz had a voice that could move millions — though Lorenz will be most remembered as Hitler's (and Wagner's) favorite. A new documentary about The Life and Times of Max Lorenz, chronicles the conflict and triumph of his unlikely voice and paints an intimate portrait, according to critic Lloyd Schwartz.

When Sacha Baron Cohen grants an interview, it's usually in character -- as Borat, the clueless faux-Kazakh journalist; or as Bruno, the outrageously shallow, ostentatiously gay Austrian fashionista at the center of Cohen's most recent film. Today, though, Cohen joins Fresh Air as himself, for a conversation with Terry Gross and Bruno director Larry Charles.

A new six-hour documentary about Monty Python's Flying Circus commemorates the show's 40th anniversary. Reviewer David Bianculli calls it entertaining and "completely different."

Colin Beavan, the protagonist of the documentary No Impact Man, spends a year living "eco-effectively" — eating only locally grown foods and, eventually, forgoing electricity and toilet paper. Critic David Edelstein calls the film a "21st-century climate-change comedy of manners."

Louie Psihoyos' new film graphically — and movingly — documents the sale and slaughter of dolphins captured by Japanese fishermen. David Edelstein says the movie could be a game-changer for the industry.

Director Louie Psihoyos talks about his new documentary film The Cove, an expose of dolphin abuse in Japan. Former Flipper trainer Ric O'Barry joins the conversation.

Iranian-American author and human rights activist Roya Hakakian talks about growing up Jewish in post-revolutionary Iran.

In his new documentary, the director of Two Girls and a Guy turns his camera on Mike Tyson — who's been his friend since the former boxer was 19.

James Toback has created a new documentary about Mike Tyson, the ex-boxing world champ. Movie critic David Edelstein says that Toback's mix of old and new footage "flows seamlessly" and that the stream-of-consciousness movie is "revelatory."

Intent on documenting the effects of climate change, nature photographer James Balog ventured into ice-bound regions with 26 time-lapse cameras, which he programmed to shoot a frame every daylight hour for three years.

Kevin Rafferty's film Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 chronicles the famous 1968 football game between the two rivals. Rafferty's other movies include The Atomic Cafe and The Last Cigarette.

Parkinson's disease is part of journalist Dave Iverson's personal history: His father had it, his brother has it and he has it. Now, a new PBS "Frontline" documentary, My Father, My Brother, and Me chronicles Iverson's attempt to understand the disease.

Critic-at-large John Powers reviews Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, the new documentary about the famous 1968 game.

Filmmaker Ari Folman was a 19-year-old Israeli soldier serving in Beirut at the time of the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refuges. Though he has no memory of the time, he revisits the mission in his new film, Waltz With Bashir, a surreal, animated documentary of the terror.

Stefan Forbes' documentary looks at the life and controversial career of Lee Atwater, the political operative who ran George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign — and introduced the nation to Willie Horton.

Actor Liev Schreiber had what he thought was a good idea: He'd reach out to a Baghdad film student, offering him an internship on a shoot. But as Nina Davenport's documentary proves, good intentions don't always end in good outcomes. Critic-at-large John Powers has a review.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews three epically intimate new films — an Antarctica documentary from Werner Herzog, a Guy Maddin meditation on home and self, and the heartfelt biography Chris & Don.

Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews Standard Operating Procedure, a documentary from Errol Morris about the treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq in 2003.