Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, October 31 is Bill Morrison's Dawson City: Frozen Time, a meditation on cinema's past that pieces together the bizarre true history of a long-lost collection of 533 nitrate film prints from the early 1900s. Variety writes, "The true magic that Dawson City captures is, simply, the mystery of film itself: a medium that turned people into shadows that burned brighter than life."
Newly streaming at Netflix is Griffin Dunne's Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold, in which the literary icon (and aunt of the director) reflects on her remarkable career and personal struggles. The New Yorker calls the film "intimate" and "affectionate."
Currently streaming at Fandor is Ada Ushpiz's Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt, which offers an intimate portrait of the subversive German-Jewish philosopher. The New York Times called the film "vigorous and thoughtful."
New on FRONTLINE is Putin's Revenge, the inside story of Vladimir Putin's conflict with the United States. Part 1 aired on October 25 (and is currently streaming), and Part 2 premieres on Wednesday, November 1.