Australian media are in decline. The Fourth Estate reminds us why we need them
Watching the New York Times cover the Trump presidency invokes nostalgia and jealousy
Virtual truth: face to face with immersive documentaries
Experience life after a horrific accident, play a customs officer or swim with sea otters. A new breed of VR film-making is making viewers engage in a deeper way with the issues they confront
Wednesday’s best TV: Vive La Révolution!; Inside the SS
Joan Bakewell reminisces about the French revolution that nearly was in 1968, while a new series interviews members of Hitler’s notorious paramilitary group
The Fourth Estate review – revealing doc tracks an exhausting year of Trump
In a sharp documentary series premiering at Tribeca film festival, the team at the New York Times are faced with the task of keeping up with an unstoppable news cycle
Observational films are outshone by a blend of fact and fiction
Traditional dividing lines are being blurred, as progressive film-makers blend the truth with myth, fantasy and imagination
Thursday’s best TV – Urban Myths: Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder; Civilisations
James Purefoy and Gemma Arterton have a ball imagining the capers of the film-maker and his muse, while Simon Schama explores the historical use of colour in art
BBC film about IRA funeral murders to air in March
Exclusive: The Funeral Murders will focus on atrocity at Milltown cemetery and the revenge attack
The rising star to look out for at the Oscars? That’ll be Netflix…
The success of Mudbound and a string of fine documentaries must surely convince the Academy that the streaming giant deserves a little love
Saturday Night Fever: The Ultimate Disco Movie review – Bruno Tonioli hits the floor
The Strictly judge took a loving look behind the scenes of the film that made John Travolta an A-list star and made disco a global phenomenon
Revealed: sketches that show the inspiration for Banksy’s ‘alternativity’ in Bethlehem
Danny Boyle’s BBC Two documentary explores the problems he encountered directing the artist’s contemporary reworking of the Christmas story
‘Apu was a tool for kids to go after you’: why The Simpsons remains problematic
The standup comic Hari Kondabolu talks about his documentary The Problem with Apu, which uses the notorious Kwik-E-Mart clerk as a springboard to discuss issues of representation and minstrelsy in pop culture
Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare review – surprisingly delightful gore-fest doco
A documentary with heart and sincerity – all the more surprising given the grotesque content of the film it documents the making of
Christine Whittaker obituary
BBC film researcher who breathed new life into the making of historical documentaries for television
‘Deep down, I knew it didn’t happen’: The woman who imagined a murder
When two men disappeared in 1974, Erla Bolladottir’s testimony put her boyfriend and his friends in prison for murder. She tells us how the case made her the most notorious woman in Iceland – and why they may be innocent after all
Ken Burns returns to take on Vietnam – ‘a war we have consciously ignored’
Burns’s new 10-part, 18-hour epic film covers the conflict from all sides, and hopes to ‘shape more courageous conversations about what took place’