Janis Joplin: She was the Amy Winehouse of her day, except without all the vampiric media attention. Joplin was at least able to die of her substance abuse in peace. We’re used to thinking that women have it so much better today, but before Joplin died in 1970, the focus of press coverage surrounding her had at least been on her work, not her personal life, as this compassionate and intimate documentary about Joplin’s music shows. The singer’s friends and family open up for documentarian Amy Berg about how troubled she was, and how special she was, and how the first contributed to the second: “She couldn’t figure out how to make herself like everybody else, thank goodness” explains one childhood friend about how Joplin simply could not fit into their small Texas town. And so she fixed it in her head that she would become a great and famous singer who bared her soul and her pain in her music—which we get glorious samples of her. If you didn’t already know that Joplin was a force of nature, you will appreciate that at last. By MaryAnn Johanson