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The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)

Director Rob Epstein’s powerful indictment of the California legal system won the Oscar for best documentary feature. The film explores the murder of the first openly gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, and how his killer, Dan White, got off lightly with two counts of manslaughter. White used a defense dubbed “the Twinkie Defense,” which is as illogical as it sounds. Passionately narrated by Broadway actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein, The Times of Harvey Milk is an important film about civil rights and the empowerment of gay people through the short political career of the fascinating personality of Milk. The film became the inspiration for Gus Van Sant’s recent bio-drama Milk.

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Before Michael Moore raised the documentary to unheard of levels of controversy, director Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line set the modern standard for controversial non-fictional film making. The film’s look at the mysterious 1976 killing of Dallas policeman Robert Wood and subsequent conviction of Randall Adams is skillfully recreated with stylish noir-like reenactments of the fatal crime. Morris meticulously interviewed witnesses and investigators, getting all the different views of the crime in a Rashomon-like investigation, which eventually led Morris to conclude young drifter David Harris was the real cop killer. The use of Philip Glass’s pulsating score, and the never ending search for the truth, made this one of the most talked about documentaries of the decade. Upon the film’s release, Dallas police reopened the case and Adams was released from his death row cell.

American Dream (1990)

This is the gripping look at the 1984 strike of Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota. While director Barbara Kopple clearly sides with the local union workers who were looking at a massive paycut, American Dream shows the sad realities of an era of anti-unionism and corporate manipulation of workers. The most compelling conflict depicted in the film occurs between local union president Jim Guyette, his slick strike consultant, Ray Rogers and national union negotiator Lewis Anderson. Kopple shows brother fighting brother, scabs families versus courageous hard core union families and the local and national union at horrible odds as the strikes continued for nearly a year over an incredibly cold Minnesota winter. This film also won the Oscar for best documentary.