Few documentaries have triggered a real-world impact on the order of Surviving R. Kelly. Before the six-part series aired on Lifetime, the titular R&B singer-songwriter had managed to avoid significant harm to his recording career, despite allegations going back decades that he had sexually abused numerous teenage…

To Guillermo Navarro, executive producer of the National Geographic documentary series Hostile Planet, there’s no doubt global warming is dangerously real. "We've made sure to turn the oven a little hotter and things are cooking quicker," Navarro comments ruefully. "In these last 50 years the planet has evolved more…

Chef's Table has become one of television's most celebrated food-themed programs since it debuted in 2015, but there was a time the Netflix series faced an uphill battle getting made. "Nobody wanted to hear a pitch about a food show without a celebrity host attached to it except for Netflix," creator and executive…

For director/producer Sophie Lanfear shooting the "Frozen Worlds" episode of the Netflix documentary series Our Planet involved less than posh accommodations. "When we were in Russia filming the walrus we lived in a shed. I was the only female and there were seven of us…stacked on shelves," she recalls. "That’s where…

Imagine someone in the news business, a television producer, who wasn't concerned about truth. That apparent anomaly describes Roger Ailes, the late Fox News chief, according to filmmaker Alexis Bloom. "He never said truth was important to him, in terms of Fox News. It was all about entertainment and messaging," Bloom…

A pair of documentaries in the Emmy race reveal how the notorious Fyre Festival went from a "you don't want to miss it" music event to a "get me out of here" catastrophe in the Caribbean. Hulu's Fyre Fraud earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program. The Netflix documentary Fyre: The Grea…

The director of the Emmy-nominated documentary Love, Gilda says a previously unknown film script written by the late Gilda Radner could soon make the rounds in Hollywood. "She left behind a screenplay which I have that nobody seems to have even known about," filmmaker Lisa D'Apolito tells Deadline exclusively. "I’m…

For Tim Wardle, director of the documentary Three Identical Strangers, the last 18 months have been head-spinning. "To be honest," he tells Deadline, "from Sundance onwards, life has been a bit of a blur." That's what happens when you make one of the most acclaimed nonfiction films of recent years—a hit not only with…

Michael Moore interrupted hosting duties at his 15th annual Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan to make a bold suggestion about the 2020 presidential race: He urged former first lady Michelle Obama to jump into the ring and predicted that if she did, she would trounce Donald Trump. "She would beat him. She would…

Traditional circuses still crisscross the country, but on a much-reduced scale from when they ruled America as the undisputed "greatest show on earth." Sharon Grimberg's two-part documentary The Circus rewinds to that era of big tops and big crowds that exploded more than 100 years ago. The circus helped knit together…

The song "My Bathroom" from 1969 never made it onto the Billboard charts. But that doesn't mean this ode to the commode—with lyrics like "My bathroom, my bathroom, is my very special room, where I primp and fuss and groom"—isn't worthy of deeper appreciation. That's the guiding spirit of Bathtubs Over Broadway, the…

Susan Lacy's HBO documentary on Jane Fonda opens with a White House recording from 1971 in which then-President Nixon disparages the actress-turned-activist. "What in the world is the matter with Jane Fonda?" Nixon asks. "I feel so sorry for Henry Fonda." The excerpt suggests how much the Hollywood star, who had…