The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be hosting Telluride’s Mountainfilm for the fifth consecutive year in a weekend (November 21-23 click here for tickets) filled with documentaries about nature, the environment and the culture of the great outdoors. Two of the films they will be presenting, are not only great entries into the nature documentary genre, they’re flat out two of the best films shown at the Film Society this year.

Valley Uprising opens with the very important question of “why do people climb walls?” As you scratch your head coming up with a decent response, narrator Peter Sarsgaard continues, “[rock] climbing doesn’t pretend to be something useful” and yet, as directors Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen will prove during the following 90 minutes, there are few sports as exhilarating and addictive as climbing. Ignoring the fact that the very question at the beginning poses the whole reason of why sports themselves are a fascinating human construct (why put balls in rings? Why wear helmets and fight armoured men to retrieve an oval ball?), and highlighting the film’s ability to ask complex questions, while remaining devilishly entertaining, the filmmakers craft a delicious chronicle of mountain climbing at Yosemite National Park.

The film is divided into chapters that expand on climbing culture as seen through different decades, it goes from the “beatnik bacchanal” prehistory of the late 1950’s to B.A.S.E jumping, in which climbers, who by then have exhausted all means of exploring the vertical world of the mountain, choose to jump from them instead. Valley Uprising is as informative as it is fun to watch, it’s edited with zany energy that’s perhaps too caffeined up, but never scatterbrained, the focus of the filmmakers being to evoke the thrills famous mountain climbers have felt throughout the ages. Leaving the theater inspired after watching this film, you might even look at the Empire State’s height as something quite inviting.

In Queens & Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo, director Matt Livadary takes us into the little seen world of gay rodeo, to tell a compelling story that includes a Hispanic lesbian bull rider, a courageous cowgirl diagnosed with cancer, a 20-something Oklahoman gay male who learned “to fight dirty”, and a descendant of Wyatt Earp trying to win the All Around Cowboy award. Livadary approaches this quirky collection of characters with humanity and healthy curiosity, the camera sneaking its way into the oddest places imaginable, or at least unknown to those who know little about rodeo. Spending a whole year with his subjects allowed him to highlight what it is that makes them special beyond the realm of rodeo festivities, we come to understand how they are all survivors, who have battled endless prejudice to be part of a world that on many occasion has refused them entrance. Livadary is too smart a filmmaker to turn the film into reproach of the system that keeps denying the gay rodeo its rightful place in the world, instead he points out the ridiculousness of this decaying way of thinking, by showcasing his subjects’ expertise in their respective fields. Best in show is the competitive relationship the film establishes between the more average Wade Earp and rodeo god Dave Grenier, a handsome, arrogant contestant who declares “I hate to lose more than I like to win”. Watching their story unfold makes us realize that the Western genre is in need of yet another revision, one which opens its doors to gay men and women, who may have none of John Wayne’s macho views, but will most definitely have all of his cojones.