The Bridge (Koch): One of the most controversial docs in years, this film about suicides on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge — which incorporates actual footage of jumpers — provoked critic Jonathan Rosenbaum to call it “a new form of obscenity that might be called suicide porn.” Others found it sadly beautiful and sympathetic to those caught in their final moments.
Days of Glory (Weinstein Co.): Don’t judge Glory for not winning the foreign-film Oscar this year. Up against the crowd-pleasing Pan’s Labyrinth and soul-stirring The Lives of Others, this tale of North-African soldiers who fought in the French army during WWII was bound not to get the attention it deserved.
Raining Stones (Koch): British filmmaker Ken Loach has never won an Oscar, either, but the critics’ darling has earned practically every other award in the world, including the Cannes jury prize he got for this 1993 story of an impoverished Englishman determined to buy his daughter a new dress for her first communion.
