Unafraid of controversy, founder of Jigsaw Productions Alex Gibney has directed over 20 documentaries winning an Oscar, an Emmy and a number of awards at various film festivals. In 2010, Esquire attributed Gibney with becoming 'the most important documentarian of our time.'
This month Gibney is releasing another thought provoking documentary about the controversies surrounding Wikileaks, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, so let’s take a look at some of his best work to date.
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
Before its collapse, Enron was one of the United States’ top electricty and natural gas companies.
Following a handful of controversies and scandals within the company, Enron went bankrupt and some of the companies executives found themselves with criminal charges.
Gibney details the history of this company and the events that brought it down.
- Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
This academy award winning documentary delves into the killing of an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan, falsely accused and beaten to death by American soldiers.
Through this terrible event, Gibney spotlights the atrocities of tortures performed at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Bagram and the responsibility of the administration allowing it to happen.
- Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008)
Also the subject of two feature films, the life and career of Hunter S. Thompson is a bizarre tale of magnificent journalism, extreme drug use and unorthodoxy.
This documentary looking at the life and writings of Thompson directed by Gibney was nominated for the Grand Jury prize for documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers’ Guild of America in 2008.
- Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012)
Said to be his most powerful film since Taxi to the Dark Side, Mea Maxima Culpa details the first known protests against clerical sex abuse in the U.S.
Though there were some that accused Gibney of anti-Catholic indications in the film, but despite its sensitive subject matter, this documentary had extremely positive reviews.
- We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (2013)
Gibney strikes again with another in-depth look at the controversies of modern day society.
By spotlighting Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, Gibney explores the inner workings of the infamous organisation Wikileaks that brought us, among other important leaks, hundreds of thousands of documents of classified US military and State Department information.
We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks will be released in UK theatres on July 12th