Documentaries rule the roost

Ladies and gentlemen, drumroll, please: “Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary,” “Amandla!,” “Lost in La Mancha,” “Rivers and Tides,” “Winged Migration,” “Spellbound,” “Step Into Liquid,” “OT: Our Town,” “The Weather Underground,” “Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator,” “Balseros,” “Bus 174,” “Etre et Avoir,” “Charlie: The Life and Art of Charlie Chaplin,” “Tupac: Resurrection,” “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” “The Fog of War.”

If there has been a stronger year across the board for the documentary genre since the Lumiere brothers filmed workers coming out of their factory in 1895, it does not come to mind. If 2003 was the year of anything, it was the year the documentary came into its own, and putting the best of the genre at the top of a 10-best list is the least thanks a grateful nation should give.

My list of successes (ordered by Los Angeles release date) casts an exceptionally wide net. It includes films from Europe and Latin America as well as the United States, films on sports and politics, music and art, history and the human condition. The documentary field was in fact so active the list doesn’t come close to including every noteworthy release. Also on screens was Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning 2002 “Bowling for Columbine,” the highest-grossing doc ever, as well as such unhappy items as “Capturing the Friedmans” and “The Stone Reader.”

So why is all this happening now? For one thing, the inexpensive nature of shooting with digital equipment has, not to sound too Marxist about it, placed the means of production firmly in the hands of the workers. Not only are documentaries getting easier to make, audiences are getting hungrier for what they provide. Now that the major studios have, with periodic exceptions, all but given up on making films with adults in mind, where can these viewers turn for involving plots, intriguing characters, real drama? Documentaries, because that’s where the stories are.

Dramatic films did manage to come up with enough good stories to fill out a 10-best list, (though fully half of those were adapted either from novels or nonfiction material, definitely not a good sign). The triumphs include:

2. “Mystic River.” An overpowering crime drama that investigates the most basic human emotions, faultlessly acted by an ideal ensemble and directed by Clint Eastwood in the best, most mature work of his career.

3. “House of Sand and Fog.” Staggering performances by Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly animate this deeply moving classic tragedy about two strangers on a terrible collision course. As with “Mystic,” restrained direction (by the debuting Vadim Perelman) is the key to success.

4. “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” The closing chapter of the cinematic epic of our time, a richly imagined story whose ability to make a made-up world completely real has us always in its grip.

5. “The Triplets of Belleville.” This French animated feature is a creation of such dazzling eccentricity and uninhibited imagination it reminds us that the movies can be wonderful fun, they really can.

6. “Lost in Translation.” Tart and sweet, unmistakably funny and exceptionally well-observed, this delicate and distinctive film did nothing but good for stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson and director Sofia Coppola.

7. “Sweet Sixteen” and “Dirty Pretty Things.” How good it is to see Ken Loach and Stephen Frears, two of Britain’s best-regarded directors, both coming out with gripping films dealing with social problems in the most dramatically involving way.

8. “The Station Agent” and “Shattered Glass.” One is a charming character riff about the need to connect, the other is a persuasive examination of a troubled personality. Together they are the kind of personal films that typify American independents at their best.

9. “Cold Mountain.” A satisfying Civil War saga convincingly acted by Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger and told by director Anthony Minghella with the kind of bravura visual scope and eye for romance with a capital R that brings to mind Minghella’s Oscar-winning “The English Patient.”

10. “Nowhere in Africa.” A major hit in Germany, a deserved Oscar winner here, this tale of Jewish refugees struggling in Africa is an intelligent epic told without special pleading and able to cut deep enough to reveal a keen specificity of experience.

If there were a runner-up slot, I would give it to the New Zealand independent film “Whale Rider” for its ability to slip the bonds of this world and take a leap of faith into an almost mythological dimension. Much more earthbound were films out of the studio system. Even if this list doubled in size, there wouldn’t be more than a film or two more from Hollywood worth putting on it. And where’s the seasonal joy in that?

Turan is a Times film critic.