MUSIC DOCS OF THE YEAR

From a candid look at Whitney to Aretha’s long-lost concert movie

Amazing Grace

It took 46 years to come out, but this legendary film of Aretha Franklin’s two-night stand at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in L.A. — the same 1972 shows that made up her incredible live album — was worth the wait. One of the best concert movies of all time.

Whitney

She had a voice that moved millions — and as Kevin Macdonald’s portrait of Whitney Houston reveals, there was a lifetime of pain behind the music. The doc made headlines for its revelations that Houston was abused as a girl by a family member, but everything from her sexuality to drugs to her music-biz mentor Clive Davis gets the no-holds-barred treatment.

Public Image Is Rotten

Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon’s even more radical second band, Public Image Ltd., gets a welldeserved documentary; it’s a war zone of bad decisions, burned bridges and burnt-out musicians. It’s also an insightful look at one of punk rock’s defining figures, a spike-haired provocateur with a surprising soft side.

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.

Filmmaker Stephen Loveridge assembles a mix-and-match look of his old art-school friend Maya Arulpragasam, better known as pop rebel M.I.A., from decades of home-movie footage, behind-thescenes snippets and video diaries made by the artist herself. It’s raw, rough, all over the place and completely uncensored — in other words, a perfect image of the restlessly innovative singer.