Ukraine's Frontline, US Prison Abuses & an Infamous War Photo
Five stand-out documentary films
I’m on the train to Sheffield for DocFest 2026, the latest edition of the city’s world-renowned documentary film festival. So what better time to revisit five of the standout films I saw at last year's festival.
DocFest 2025 was one of the strongest documentary programmes I’ve seen in a decade of annual pilgrimages to Sheffield.
For me, the festival was defined by three films about the Ukraine war, one about the brutality of the US prison system, and an investigation into the disputed authorship of one of the world’s most famous wartime images.
1. A Simple Soldier
A Simple Soldier, by directors Artem Ryzhykov and Juan Camilo Cruz, tells Artem’s own story of how a filmmaker with a determination to play his part in defending his country ended up on the frontlines of Ukraine’s war with Russia.
Artem is told if he wants to film on the frontline he has to enlist for three years of active service - and he has five minutes to decide. Despite knowing he’s far from a natural soldier, his immediate instinct is to say yes.
2. 2000 Meters to Andriivka
2000 Meters to Andriivka is the sensational follow-up to the Bafta- and Oscar-winning 20 days in Mariupol from Mstyslav Chernov.
Combining Chernov’s own footage with that shot from soldiers’ bodycams, the film gives us a first-hand experience of a Ukrainian platoon’s mission to liberate a strategic village from Russian forces.
The intimacy of the footage as we meet soldiers under fire as they navigate a narrow strip of heavily protected forest - to ultimately take back a bleak and decimated Ukrainian village - is mind-blowing.
Here’s where to watch 2000 Meters to Andriivka
3. Mr Nobody Against Putin
Oscar-winning Mr Nobody Against Putin tells the story of Pavel Talankin, a schoolteacher and videographer who witnesses the propaganda campaign the Russian state is waging on its own children and decides he cannot idly stand by.
Talankin begins to covertly film the state’s indoctrination practices as they become more and more extreme. Children are forced to march in school corridors, tested on their knowledge of the history of Russian claims to Crimea, and given scripted answers to teachers’ questions - which Talankin must film.
Talankin is unable to resist other small acts of subversion - at one point replacing the daily national anthem with Lady Gaga’s Star Spangled Banner. His opposition to the war makes him guilty of treason, and ultimately Talankin must flee the country.
Here’s where to watch Mr Nobody Against Putin
4. The Alabama Solution
The Alabama Solution is a horrifying exposé about the sometimes fatal abuses perpetrated by prison guards in the state prison system in Alabama.
The Oscar-nominated film follows inmates at Easterling Correctional Facility in Clio, Alabama, as they use contraband mobile phones to document abuses perpetrated in the prison and make efforts to organise in support of fellow inmates’ basic human rights.
Among the tragic cases delved into over the course of a six-year investigation is that of Steven Davis, who was beaten to death by prison guards. The inmates who sought to organise protests over prison conditions and mistreatment have themselves been brutally punished.
Here’s where you can watch The Alabama Solution
5. The Stringer
The Stringer follows war photographer Gary Knight as he investigates the origin of one of the most impactful wartime photographs ever taken.
The 1972 photograph, commonly referred to as Napalm girl, captured a girl fleeing an attack by US-allied South Vietnamese air forces on the town of Trảng Bàng during the Vietnam War. The Pulitzer Prize-winning image is widely credited with galvanising US public opinion against the war.
The Stringer combines field research, key witness interviews, and forensic evidence assembled by Paris-based investigative NGO Index, to cast doubt on the attribution of the photo to a Vietnamese-American Associated Press photographer - instead identifying the local stringer who almost certainly captured the image.
Here’s where you can watch The Stringer
Together, these five films offer a powerful reminder of documentary cinema's ability to place audiences at the heart of conflicts, injustices and contested truths that might otherwise remain unexplored.
I’m hoping for more of the same at this year’s festival - and I’ll be sure to report back.