Alan Ball continues to amaze with his explorations of the human condition, not just for gay Americans but for anyone who has ever had a secret, felt at war with himself or seeks to better his or her situation. The writer of “American Beauty” and creator of the HBO series “Six Feet Under” has written and directed a new film, “Uncle Frank,” that explores many of the themes common to all of Ball’s work, and does so in a thoroughly compelling

Han Van Meegeren was such a cunning, apt artist that he convinced the world his own paintings were actually painted centuries earlier by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. In fact, such a believer in his own talent was Van Meegeren that during World War II, he sold one of his phony Vermeers to Hermann Göring himself.

The postwar aftermath of this incredibly unlikely but true tale forms

Like nearly all film festivals in 2020, DOC NYC has switched to a virtual paradigm this year, but the quality of nonfiction films coming out of this celebration of the factual is still wondrous. The festival kicks off Wednesday and goes on until the 19th. There are so many great offerings this year, and it’s nearly impossible to catch them all, but here are some quality entrants to keep on your radar.

Stephen and Alexa Kinigopoulos wanted to make a movie where they came from. The siblings, who co-directed the new psychological thriller “Fishbowl,” grew up near Baltimore, and so when they were seeking a setting for their film, they simply cast their gaze out the window.

“When you’re surrounded by those locations every day, you maybe see them differently. And it’s always great to shoot in places that helped make you who you are,”

Who knew we needed Borat as much as we apparently did? Well, welcome once again to 2020, a year that continues to surprise and anger in so many multitudinous ways that counting the reasons why has long since stopped being either fun or funny. But there’s probably no better time to laugh at how ridiculous everything is than now, and for that we can “thank” Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen has resurrected Borat

It has been two years since Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and was never seen again. The royal family at first claimed Khashoggi had left the consulate on his own, but then changed their story to say a fight had broken out. But the full truth, later confirmed by the CIA, was far worse: He was murdered inside the consulate by a hit squad sent by the frequent target of Khashoggi’s critiques, Crown Prince Mohammed

Nick Quested believes the War on Drugs cannot be properly understood without examining the social, economic and political situation of our neighbors to the south. The documentarian says that Americans all too often view the import of drugs as Mexico’s problem rather than one of interconnectedness between our two nations.

“What Americans should understand is that this is a problem of economics