Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman • 1989 • United States

A tremendous, handmade monument to lives lost to AIDS, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt demonstrated that grief and activism together could forge a powerful symbol of resilience. Winner of the Academy Award for best documentary feature, this moving film—buoyed by an original all-vocal score by Bobby McFerrin—explores the human stories obscured by statistics, examining the cross section of identities affected by HIV/AIDS, as well as efforts to combat the stigma, misinformation, and political obstruction that deepened the crisis.