A movie is a story, and if it's a true story, it's called a documentary. Documentaries were mostly an artistic, niche genre until Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2003. Now there are plenty of big-budget Hollywood documentaries along with the independent productions, and HBO Max has an impressive library with a bit of everything.
Documentaries about people are their genre, and the lives of rich, famous, or influential people are always interesting. For those that need to narrow the selection down somewhat, HBO Max has plenty of documentaries about interesting people and their real-life adventures.
7 Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021)
Anthony Bourdain didn't start as a media star. His humble beginnings were in the rough and stressful world of kitchen work, and his travels around the world didn't start until later in his career. Unlike other traveling foodies that explore popular or glamorous locales, Bourdain went to the places where people feared to go and ate the stuff that they were afraid to eat, and this is the story of his career on the road.
Anthony didn't just talk about food, but culture, family, economics, and politics, all the stuff that comes up around dinner tables all over the world. It wasn't glamorous or fluffy but spicy and raw, as his television shows, and No Reservations are also currently available on HBO Max.
6 George Carlin's American Dream (2022)
This is a documentary in two parts, and each part of long enough to be its movie. The first is about Carlin's rise to stardom in the 1960s and 1970s, the second is about how he reinvented his career for a whole new generation. His comedy is still just as relevant today and that's the main theme of this documentary.
Anyone who enjoys the stand-up comedy of today owes something to George Carlin and the comedians that inspired him along with his fight for his own identity. The whole concept of the uncensored stand-up show on a private cable network started with his shows and a very early incarnation of Home Box Office.
5 Grace Jones: Bloodlight And Bami (2017)
Grace Jones was one of the most recognizable faces of the 1980s. Her style was in everything from Bond movies to Caribbean music, and she and Dolph Lundgren were one of the decade's most beautiful power couples. She made it cool for women to be action heroes and have muscles, and she was a designer and singer in addition to being an actor.
The title is a reference to the red light that often floods a recording studio while an artist is performing and "bami" is a type of Jamaican flatbread. The movie has some biographical information about her life and work, but the real focus is on a visit she makes to her family while touring internationally and recording her latest album, Hurricane.
4 Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018)
The title is a reference to a bit that Williams had made in an early improvised comedy bit, which he referenced again in an interview decades later. The details are included in this documentary about his life and career, and of course, it wouldn't be complete without some of his most memorable comedy clips, so prepare to laugh.
It's not all fun and games, but there's a serious theme behind the jokes and antics about how the human mind works and how we connect with other people. His close friends Eric Idle and Billy Crystal share their memories as part of the story and there are tears as well as laughter.
3 Tina (2021)
A movie about the life and times of Tina Turner, who started her career as a rocking musician in the 1970s and became a superstar in both movies and music in the 1980s. Turner has said that the film is intended to be parallel to her memoir, Happiness Becomes You.
The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival to rave reviews, with critics praising the film for its honesty in depicting both the glory and pain of Tina's life and rise to stardom. It was also nominated for a few Primetime Emmy Awards.
2 The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Not to be confused with the dramatization starring Sean Penn in 2008 that was simply entitled Milk, this is a documentary that dates from the 1980s. It traces the real, documented beginnings of Harvey Milk from a local activist to a national symbol of gay rights.
The movie doesn't just examine Milk's life as San Francisco's first openly gay city supervisor, but also his untimely death. That means the investigation into his murder along with the trial of Dan White and how things changed afterward.
1 Wishful Drinking (2010)
This started as a one-woman stage show, then a book, even a song, before it finally became a documentary on HBO Max. The image on the promotional poster cleverly tells the most pertinent details with some familiar details.
Yes, those are the iconic buns of Princess Leia, and she's holding an empty martini glass nest to some colorful pills. Carrie Fisher does' mince words when she talks about her troubled past, including an unusual childhood in Hollywood and struggles with substance abuse.