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While there hasn’t been an explosion of documentaries made about the great underground filmmakers, the fact that any have been made about these groundbreaking, but still mostly obscure to the general public, directors seems like a great accomplishment.

Plus, these seven documentaries listed below are all available for easy viewing on DVD or VOD, which is more than can be said for many of the subjects’ actual movies.

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, dir. Mary Jordan. (Amazon | Netflix) Jack Smith is one of the most complicated figures in underground film history, but Jordan’s documentary provides an in-depth portrait of this reclusive artist who ended up alienating his closest friends and ardent supporters. Turning his back on the film world after directing one of the most notorious movies ever made, Flaming Creatures, Smith would go on to be an admired performance artist who would act sporadically in others’ art films.

"All [Jack] Smith ever wanted was to create a new world for himself, separate from the mundane, ugly and unjust world he saw around him, and if we know his name today, it's because he largely succeeded," writes Michael Atkinson. "Mary Jordan's documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007) is, for a new generation with heretofore unprecedented access (on DVD) to the entire legacy of experimental film, a smashing introduction into the world of mid-century, iconic Diy rooftop moviemaking, where penniless idiosyncrats could become world famous with a borrowed camera, some thrift-store accoutrements and the will to transgress."

Also reviewed is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, "one of the great masterpieces of American television, a waist-high autumnal idyll like no other, and as evocative of a preteen universe - a place where Halloween has epochal significances, if it's always difficult to figure out exactly what they are -...

By Michael Atkinson

"Our starved instincts have been clamoring for centuries for more and more substitutes," Henry Miller once wrote, "and as a substitute for living the cinema is ideal." There may not be a single filmmaker that Miller's cynical observation describes better, sans the cynicism, than Jack Smith, famed New York avant-gardist, gay downtown gadfly, rebel performer and temperamental film artist. All Smith ever wanted was to create a new world for himself, separate from the mundane, ugly and unjust world he saw around him, and if we know his name today, it's because he largely succeeded. Mary Jordan's documentary "Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis" (2007) is, for a new generation with heretofore unprecedented access (on DVD) to the entire legacy of experimental film, a smashing introduction into the world of mid-century, iconic D.I.Y. rooftop moviemaking, where penniless idiosyncrats could become world famous with a borrowed camera,...