A few weeks ago my wife and I finally screwed up our courage and watched An Inconvenient Truth. I had held off seeing it because I felt I already was the choir, and wasn’t looking to get more depressed about the state of our world. Needless to say, the film offered more than enough hope to offset the grim facts, and I was deeply grateful I’d seen it. It also reminded me that we have been in a great age of documentaries, at least since the incredible Hoop Dreams in 1994. All but four of the top 35 most successful documentaries have been produced in that time, so not only are truly memorable documentaries getting made, but people are seeing them.

Fahrenheit 911 (2004), March of the Penguins (2005), and Super Size Me (2004) are some of the hugely successful documentary films of recent years. I’ve reviewed other great documentaries of recent years, including Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), Spellbound (2002), and Rize (2005).

Here are a few that you, like me, may have missed in theaters, but should not pass up at home.

American Movie (1999)

When filmmaker Chris Smith stumbled upon another aspiring filmmaker outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he couldn’t have guessed what a marvel of a man he had discovered. Mark Borchardt, a single dad barely holding down a job at the local cemetery, had been making little films for years. Smith intended to follow the making of his latest effort, a black-and-white horror movie called Coven (in what is only the tip of Borchardt’s personality iceberg, he pronounces it “Coe-vin”). Soon Smith realized his real subject was Borchardt himself, and his sweet, drugged-out best friend, Mike Schank. As we follow their efforts to maintain relationships, get friends out of jail, and measure their own lives against their dreams, American Movie goes from hilarious to tragic to truly inspiring. It’s hard not to dismiss Borchardt and Schank as boondock losers early in American Movie. By the end it’s hard not to view them as figures worthy of Dickens. A very strange Midwest Dickens. I don’t know anyone who has seen this film and not fallen in love with it. An absolute must for other aspiring filmmakers.

Murderball (2005)

This may have been the best film of 2005. Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro chronicle a handful of the quadriplegic men who make up the 2004 U.S. wheelchair rugby team. As the team works toward the paralympics in Athens, Greece, the plot unfolds like a classic story. There’s the recently injured man trying to find a new life through the sport. There’s the tough-as-nails veteran who forms the heart and soul of the team. There’s even the disgruntled former coach who heads north to lead the Canadian team against his old team in the final game. The sport of Murderball itself is something to see—unflinchingly fast and brutal. But the real power of the movie is how it peels away our own prejudices and discomforts. These guys don’t ask for sympathy. And considering how relatively “normal” their lives are—beer and women are the main preoccupations of these athletes—why would we think to feel sorry them? This movie goes to some pretty emotional places, but it’s not nearly as harrowing as the subject matter might lead you to believe. Murderball is as thrilling as it is moving.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

OK, so it’s the third most successful documentary of all time, but I didn’t see it in the theater. Yes, there is a very straightforward science lesson presented here, but it is never less than compelling. Al Gore presents us with the same presentation he has been making for the past five years to schools, businesses, governments, and anyone else who will listen. Director Davis Guggenheim presents us with Gore, the man who may save the world. As an argument for the dangers of global warming, An Inconvenient Truth is hard to resist. While it doesn’t work too hard to present the counter point of view, one of the film’s main discoveries is that there really is no scientifically backed counter point of view. As a piece of self-promotion for Gore, the film is nothing short of revelatory. Most people who see the warm, funny Gore at work here say the same thing: where was this guy in 2000? Recognition of the seriousness of global warming is becoming more and more mainstream, and An Inconvenient Truth has played a small but meaningful role in that shift. It’s 90 percent dreary reality and 10 percent true hope for the future. It’s hard to imagine a film taking on bigger stakes and doing it more engagingly than An Inconvenient Truth.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, California, and works for the Cartoon Network. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard residents for many years.