A Secret Love The couple met in 1947 at a hockey rink. Terry Donahue had recently moved to the U.S. to play baseball — in a skirt — for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Pat Henschel was a farm kid from a turbulent home. They fell in love, their swoony adoration immortalized in clandestine letters to one another with the signatures torn from the bottom of the pages so no one could later identify the authors. They were both women. Netflix’s heartfelt documentary not only chronicles the 62 wonderful and heartbreaking years the pair lived as spouses while remaining closeted, but also centers their experience within queer North American history. Director: Chris Bolan Vanilla Road trips are a comedic narrative staple that are as reliable as they are formulaic. That’s why you’ll find this film enjoyable, even as you’re all too aware of its narrative gears moving too heavily. Despite its familiar aspects, Vanilla chugs along nicely thanks to frequently witty dialogue and the terrifically charming and funny performance by its leading lady Kelsea Bauman-Murphy. Dennis, who wrote and directed, also plays the lead role of Elliot, a struggling tech designer. In need of money after failing in his attempts to peddle an ice cream delivery app to skeptical show owners, he’s looking to sell his van in which he spent many happy hours with his ex Trisha (Taylor Hess). Director: Will Dennis Murder to Mercy In 2004, when she was 16, Cyntoia Brown shot and killed a man she alleges had picked her up hours earlier in a Nashville parking lot intending to pay for sex. Despite claiming self-defense, Brown Long, who has since changed her surname to reflect her marriage, was tried as an adult and convicted of murder in the first degree, and eventually sentenced to 51 years in prison. Over a decade later, however, thanks to the cultural shifts of #MeToo, changes in Tennessee’s legal code and greater awareness of human trafficking, Brown Long is now more widely viewed as a victim of childhood sexual abuse. Director: Daniel H. Birman | 