The Hunger Games

Panahi was banned by the Iranian government from making films, so he drives a Tehran cab with a camera on the dashboard and lets the passengers talk. A vendor of pirated DVDs, a lawyer, a woman with a bouquet and his own young niece all climb in, and some of it is staged. It is funny, quick and quietly defiant.

Why it’s here: The film is a ban turned into a form: a director who can't work in a studio makes a film in a cab. What's punk is the refusal to stop. What's pedagogical is that it asks what's real in a documentary, and who decides. A close relative of It Was Just an Accident, already in the catalog, with the same director. Panahi was imprisoned over his work and the film is part of why.

Associated Press journalists Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko were the last international reporters in Mariupol when Russia besieged the city in 2022. Their footage of a maternity hospital bombing, mass graves and doctors working by flashlight is edited into a day-by-day record of the siege. The film won the 2024 Oscar for best documentary.

Why it’s here: The film is what witness looks like when somebody refuses to look away. What's punk is that the reporters kept filming while Russian propaganda called their footage staged. What's pedagogical is how clearly it shows the work of journalism, and the cost. Pairs with Winter on Fire, This Is Not Propaganda and the Fascism bundle. Note: graphic scenes including dead children; for older teens and adults.