By Jason Osiason

Once Upon a Time in Harlem is a deeply engrossing documentary that basically locks some of an era’s smartest, most creative and yes crankiest voices in a room and just lets them go at each other. High IQ bickering, arguing, correcting one another, patronizing each other, fighting over memories and interpretations of history. And somehow it’s all completely fascinating and madly entertaining to watch. The movie understands that these people are not polished talking heads. They are complicated, opinionated figures carrying entire cultural legacies on their backs and they treat those legacies with the kind of passion that spills into every conversation.

What makes the film special is how alive those memories feel. The storytelling is constantly shifting through archival material, stylized visual effects, and editing that almost turns recollection itself into the narrative engine. The past doesn’t feel distant or academic here. It feels volatile and alive, like the room itself is filled with ghosts of the people and movements they’re remembering. The editing is genuinely genius in how it lets conversations bounce off each other across time, turning arguments and stories into something that feels almost like a living debate with history itself. And visually the film looks gorgeous. Seeing this kind of archival material presented on such a rich print gives the whole experience a sense of weight.

But the real joy of the film is the personalities inside it. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a documentary where I walked away with a favorite character the same way I would from a narrative movie. For me it was the widow. Every time she appeared the energy shifted. Sharp, funny, a little intimidating, completely unwilling to let anyone else rewrite the story she lived through. She becomes the emotional anchor of the whole film.

Honestly it almost feels unfair to the rest of the slate but this might be the best thing I’ve seen at the festival so far. [A]