There's a documentary feel to the current cinema release schedule, with the pick of the bunch being David Sington's wonderful memoir of the Apollo space programme, In the Shadow of the Moon. Anyone with fond memories of the BBC's coverage of the moonshots - complete with its Kubrick-inspired use of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and the enthusiastic insights of the peerless James Burke - will enjoy wallowing in this shamelessly awed tribute to the 24 men who travelled to the moon and the 12 who actually set foot upon it.

Some will doubtlessly highlight the fact that the Apollo project owed more to Cold War hubris than either scientific curiosity or the pioneering spirit and that it allowed Washington to cover the unrest sparked by the Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam with a patina of patriotism. But from the moment that John F.Kennedy promised to land a manned flight on the moon, NASA was committed to conquering the final frontier and it's clear from the recollections of the crews contained in this fascinating British account of the nine moon launches that this was a triumph of human ingenuity and courage that should never be belittled by conspiracy theorists who still insist that the entire adventure was played out on a top-secret soundstage.

Making shrewd use of previously unseen footage from the NASA archive, Sington not only captures the reckless romanticism of the expeditions, but also the quiet heroism of the astronauts, who possess the right stuff in abundance, but are far too modest to brag about it. Indeed, the reclusive Neil Armstrong chose not to appear, although his praises are sung by all, including his Apollo 11 comrades, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins. But what emerges most clearly from this extraordinary film is the fragility of the Earth and how its preservation should be the next 'giant step for mankind'.

Many would argue that the millions lavished on the space race could have been more effectively spent elsewhere. Michael Moore, for example, makes the case for a better health care system in Sicko. But the controversial documentarist finds himself the subject of scrutiny in Manufacturing Dissent, a treat for all those who've managed to resist the wit and charm demonstrated by Moore in such over-rated actualities as Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.

Following the director's every move, with the same dogged determination with which he pursued General Motors president Roger Smith in Roger & Me, Debbie Melnyk and co-director Rick Caine discover that their hero is not only prone to bouts of egotistical paranoia, but is also not averse to shaping situations to suit his own version of the truth. Gleefully parodying Moore's trademark style, Melnyk and Caine raise some important questions about the moral responsibility of documentarians in pondering whether it's better to have a flawed provocateur rattling the cage of the ultra-conservatives or whether a champion of the people has a duty to be straight with those he's seeking to persuade. A fascinating example of the biter being bit (with more ferocity than he realises), this is an unmissable insight into both the film-maker as showman and the corrupting nature of celebrity.

Lagerfeld Confidential makes a curious companion piece. Director-cinematographer Rodolphe Marconi supposedly amassed over 200 hours of digital and Super 8 footage over the two years he tailed uber-designer, Karl Lagerfeld. Yet he clearly couldn't summon the courage to ask him a meaningful or even a direct question and, consequently, this obsequious portrait allows us only to see what the Chanel supremo is willing to exhibit.

Whether fussing over rings in his apartment, sketching designs, supervising runway shows or photographing models or celebs like Nicole Kidman, Lagerfeld insists on being the centre of attention and Marconi is happy to indulge his self-obsession - which is a pity, as occasionally in the one-to-one interviews, Lagerfeld hints that he might have been more forthcoming on topics like his mother, his art and his sex life, if only he'd been pressed just a little bit harder.

Malcolm McDowell similarly flatters to reveal in Mike Kaplan's record of his one-man show, Never Apologize: A Personal Visit With Lindsay Anderson. One of the perils of filming live performance is the effect that audience reaction has on the screen viewer and this memoir of director Lindsay Anderson suffers from the fact that too many jokes fall flat, while some of the more poignant anecdotes and diary readings lose their intimacy in being declaimed to the back row of an audience that contained many Hollywood insiders.

There's plenty of fascinating material here, with McDowell's recollections of the making of If . . . (1968) and O Lucky Man (1972) being particularly valuable. But while the tangential nature of the text allows McDowell to pack in stories about Alan Bates, Rachel Roberts, Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, he never really nails either Anderson's iconoclastic personality or his testy artistic temperament, with the closing account of his encounter with a dying John Ford typifying the piece's self-congratulatory superficiality.