20 Feet From Stardom
By 
In the midst of what is something of a golden age for documentary films, 20 Feet From Stardom stands out as a truly extraordinary work. The film documents the careers of Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Tata Vega, Claudia Lennear, and Judith Hill, among others. All these women have spent most of their lives in the music industry as backup singers. Almost all of them remain completely unknown to the average music fan (This being the internet someone is going to post that they have every single recording on which Darlene Love has ever appeared, which is fine, but the film is called 20 Feet From Stardom for a reason).
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about music, but this film literally changed the way I hear a lot records. Here’s a clip:
Mick Jagger’s expression at 2:34 says it all.
The film is also a fascinating glimpse into the largely invisible collaboration that is behind a lot of art, the randomness of fame, and the arbitrary nature of what has been called in another context the politics of glory.
. . . along similar lines, a reader recommends this, which took eight years to make, and another seven to raise enough money (apparently a kickstarter campaign played a key role) to pay for the licensing rights that allowed it to be generally released earlier this year.
. . . this also looks pretty great.