'The Librarians' Review: An Essential Watch About the Written Word

One of the most important docs you'll see in 2025

Before I entered into the entertainment journalism sphere I wanted to be a librarian. The library has always been a special place for me, a place where I can read countless stories (for free!). It’s a place where, as a disabled child, I felt I belonged. As I became a teenager, I butted up against others who thought it was strange how much I loved the library. What was so great about reading? This no doubt contributes to why I loved Kim A. Snyder’s latest documentary, premiering at Sundance this weekend, The Librarians.

“We’re stewards of the space. Stewards of the people,” says an anonymous librarian in Kim A. Snyder’s latest documentary, The Librarians. As Snyder’s camera weaves its way through bookshelves full of books it’s easy to understand why these are safe places for all manner of people and why someone would be hellbent on corrupting them. The various subjects Snyder talks to all express surprise at what is currently happening in today’s school libraries: books banned and burned, particularly for having LGBTQIA+ content, and librarians under fire, accused of grooming young children. “I didn’t think most school districts would entertain this,” librarian Nancy Jo Lambert says.

And yet many are. Snyder starts in Granbury, an affluent, white, conservative suburb in Texas and the aftermath of a bill passed by lawmaker Matt Krause to ban 850 books deemed “pornographic” to young children. The domino effect soon takes place, with numerous schools following suit and, as Snyder lays out in the documentary, all of it part of a coordinated, highly funded campaign. “If you can control the library, you can control the community,” the anonymous librarian says, and Snyder more than shows that. School board meetings, many of them led by members of various conservative groups funded by high priced donors, become places of hostility with people screaming about pedophilia and filth in seemingly innocuous books.

The Librarians put a face on the librarians who have fought, and those who have lost, for the ability to let children read and learn. Suzette Brooks defends her decision to keep Ta-Naheisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me and Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist on the shelves of her library. Though the decision lost her her job it’s amazing that Brooks is able to still beam with pride at showing that the books are still in the library, yet no one is aware of it.

Snyder also puts a face on the youth desperate to keep their libraries open. Kennedy Tackett is one such student who runs a banned book club in Granbury. All of these different voices seek to illustrate one thing: that those who prize the written word won’t be silenced. As one librarian says, “They’re not banning just any books. They’re banning the best books.” And it’s true. The works of Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, etc. are some of the most seminal pieces of literature and the viewer is left to wonder what do they all have in common that makes them so dangerous? As one of the students points out at a school board meeting: most of the 850 books on Krause’s list deal with queer themes and gender identity, issues most children can’t talk to their parents about.

The most evocative images within The Librarians comes in the moments where the two differing ideologies in the doc collide. A subplot involving Weston Brown, whose mother Monica is part of the book banning crusade, is documented. The sensitive young man who admits his mother disowned him when he came out as gay and who found identity and understanding through literature. At one point Snyder’s camera watches him as he gives a speech to the Granbury school board while his mother sits behind him, recording him as if he’s a stranger to her. As Weston explains, his mother seems to truly believe what she says, and that appears to be true.

In the countless faces Snyder witnesses standing at podiums screaming about protecting children, they truly do believe they’re doing the right thing. As the history is laid out, so often the true believers end up being hopelessly wrong. The documentary and those involved all agree: we’ve seen this before and yet we haven’t learned anything.

There’s never been a movie more vital this year than The Librarians. If you prize literature, intelligence, independent thought, safe spaces for children, it’s a necessary watch. Kim A. Snyder pours so much heart and respect for her subjects here. It’s a documentary that will make you angry, sad, and galvanized to do something. If anything, it will make you want to pick up a book and read.

Grade: A