The five best documentaries

The documentary boom widened and deepened this year, so much so that putting a token one or two on a 10-best list seems a cheat to both filmmakers and audiences. Here are five that took us places fiction didn't dare.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

It's an Al Gore Powerpoint presentation and at times as stiff as that sounds -- and it's possibly the only truly necessary film of the year. Don't believe me? Really? Have you looked out the window lately?

THE GROUND TRUTH

Of the many Iraq documentaries, this is the one that literally hits home: wrenching stories of our men and women, over there and back here. As a gesture of understanding those who fight our wars for us, it beats a magnetic ribbon on the family car.

51 BIRCH STREET

In the wake of his mother's death, Doug Block puzzles over a suburban life that suddenly looks rich, angry, and three-dimensional. A film to make us question the boxes we put our own parents in, and why.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

A horrifying confrontation with the banalities of evil: Father Oliver O'Grady, smiling molester of dozens of California children, and the church hierarchy that protected him.

SO MUCH SO FAST

A local story with universal meaning. The late Stephen Heywood's life, as commemorated here, wasn't about fighting debilitating disease but living fully in spite of it.

TY BURR