Speak.

This is a shamelessly biased rating, but the high school team I teach speech and debate at features prominently in this documentary, so I feel obligated to give this five stars. Even if Esther wasn't a prominent part of this documentary, though, I think that's what I would give it anyway. So often, documentaries about speech and debate have a focus on the inaccessible parts of our community - Things that are easy to ridicule, like spreading or kritiks - So to see a documentary that focuses on the most easily understood speech event was incredible to see. It also made me surprisingly emotional! Seeing these students from extraordinarily different backgrounds all talk about how speech and debate had changed them reminded me a lot of myself as a kid, and how participating in original oratory changed my life. On lists: 2025 RANKED, Sundance 2025 Ranked