Now in her nineties, Gloria Vanderbilt has undergone enough triumphs and tragedies for several lifetimes. Heiress to one of America’s great fortunes, she spent her girlhood caught in the middle of a nasty custody dispute and depicted in the press as the “poor little rich girl.” She remained in the public eye through her romances with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sidney Lumet, but she earned respect from her work as a fashion designer, writer and painter.

In this probing documentary, Vanderbilt reflects candidly on her life in conversations with her son, the CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus (Bobby Fischer Against the World, What Happened, Miss Simone?) taps into rare family archives to tell a dual biography of mother and son, two equally fascinating figures who felt loss at an early age and never grew complacent in a life of opulence, celebrity and privilege. After watching Nothing Left Unsaid, you may feel inspired to start your own family dialogue. – Thom Powers

Images courtesy of HBO

This film is also part of the Knight Documentary Achievement Award film series.