

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Justin Campbell on Unsplash
McSweeney's and Broadway Video present the official nearly-600-page comprehensive companion book to IFC's Documentary Now!, including new writing by Seth Meyers, a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Matt Zoller Seitz, the complete sheet music for Co-Op: The Musical, and much more.
Hitchcock/Truffaut, Cahiers du Cinéma, Documentary Now! The best film texts touch our lives and leave an indelible imprint on our shared cultural experience, deepening and enriching our relationships with this most universal of modern artistic mediums.
In this new fully revised and expanded edition of Documentary Now!’s seminal 1975 text, the curators behind the beloved long-running Documentary Now! program invite us to celebrate the craft, legacy, and minutiae of some of the most brilliant works of nonfiction ever put to celluloid. This remarkable book presents unique access to stills, posters, scores, archival materials from some of the most celebrated documentaries in film history; alongside essays from some of the greatest cultural luminaries of the last fifty years, including a new foreword by critic Matt Zoller Seitz, and the classic introduction by original host Burt Lancaster.
From the medium’s beginnings in Kunuk the Hunter to its all time masterpieces Sandy Passage and Original Cast Album: Co-op, this book seeks to shine a spotlight onto documentary’s past, revel in its present, and look for signposts guiding toward its future.
REVIEWS
“When I started directing documentaries, one of my dreams was that I would one day have a film featured on Documentary Now! While I wait, I’ll think about how great the series is, and how great everything associated with it is, including this new edition of its excellent literary companion.” ―Questlove
“I don’t think I would be the filmmaker I am without this book. I found my first copy in a used bookstore in college, and it opened the window to what was possible in nonfiction film. It’s the documentary Bible."―Morgan Neville, academy award-winning director of 20 feet from Stardom
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Seth Meyers is an Emmy Award-winning writer and host of Late Night with Seth Meyers. Meyers hosted the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2014 and was Emmy nominated in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. In 2018 he hosted the 75th Golden Globe Awards, which was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Variety Special. In 2019, he released his debut standup special, Lobby Baby, on Netflix, which was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. In 2021, he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series for his weekly YouTube Late Night series, CORRECTIONS, which debuted in the same year. Late Night won back-to-back Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Talk Show in 2020 and 2021. In addition, Meyers was named one of the 2014 TIME 100, Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.
Matt Zoller Seitz (Introduction) is the editor-at-large of RogerEbert.com, where he has been an editor and film critic since 2013. He has been a TV critic at New York Magazine, and before that, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, where he and his beat partner Alan Sepinwall were the first daily newspaper critics to appreciate the uniqueness of The Sopranos, which was shot on location throughout the state. Seitz's writing on film, television and popular culture has appeared in The New York Times, Sight and Sound, Salon (where he wrote the popular weekly slide-show feature "Friday Night Seitz"), and New York Press. He is the author of 13 books on film and television, including The Wes Anderson Collection, which became an ongoing series; Mad Men Carousel; The Sopranos Sessions and TV: The Book (with Alan Sepinwall). He was a pioneer in the video essay format, and has been making them since 2007.
All copies are SIGNED by Matt Zoller Seitz!
MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and Directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.
Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."
In Honor of the greatest auteur of our time, Judith is using one of her favorite quotes by him.
"Every day, once a day, give yourself a present"
David Lynch (January 20, 1946-January 15, 2025)
Matt Zoller Seitz
Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.
Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.
Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch and the new The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. In October 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre, considered the biggest film event of Dallas in 2024 by Dallas Observer!
Judith Carter was in the Upscale and Luxury Hospitality Industry for most of her life. In 2004 she had a beautiful baby boy with Special Needs and put the pause on her career until 2017 to dedicate herself to him and then others, assisting and volunteering as a legal advocate ensuring the best medical care, evaluations and educations for Special Needs children and their families.
Matt and Judith were family friends for over 20 years. She was there with her family in support when his wife Jen passed away suddenly in 2006. Then just 6 weeks later while Matt was in Dallas; he and his Father, Dave, and Step-Mother, Genie, were there as support, when Judith was alone and her son received the first of many diagnoses that changed the trajectory of their lives. So it made sense in the turbulent year of 2020, Matt asked Judith to take over running the online store that has become MZS.press. The rest as they say is, "Their"-story.