The 45th Denver Film Festival (DFF) unspools across the Mile High City over the next two weekends. Sticking with the documentary theme, DFF offers quite a few worth your time, including Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter (Nov. 3 and 8).

A driven perfectionist and a kitchen tyrant, Trotter was known for putting Chicago on the fine dining map in the 1990s and for never serving the same dish twice—and that’s over 25 years of service, 10 courses a night. Trotter was among the first wave of celebrity chefs and gave vegetables their due on the dinner table. Both of which director Rebecca Halpern highlights in this fascinating and engaging doc that falters at the finish line by papering over one of Trotter’s demons.

That’s not the issue in All That Breathes (Nov. 9 and 10), Shaunak Sen’s documentary about two Muslim brothers rescuing and rehabilitating kite birds from New Delhi’s smog-choked skies, and Good Night Oppy (Nov. 3), Ryan White’s crowd-pleasing look at NASA’s Mars rover mission, Opportunity. All That Breathes is quiet and contemplative—like a chamber piece. Good Night Oppy is bombastic and direct and loaded with pop-fueled needle drops. Both are family friendly, and depending on what field of study your little ones are interested in, they’re sure they’ll find inspiration here.

The above article first appeared in the pages of Boulder Weekly Vol. 30, No. 12, “Reel to reel.”