Taxi to the Darkside (15)

(getty images)

The stuff of nightmares. Alex Gibney's documentary examines the case of an Afghan cab driver named Dilawar, falsely imprisoned on a terrorism charge, as a way to launch a devastating broadside on the Bush administration and its conduct of the so-called War on Terror.

Dilawar died in custody at Bagram prison in 2002, a story first picked up by The New York Times. Gibney interviews other detainees and the US servicemen who witnessed or practised torture, and establishes how such abuse was sanctioned right the way up the chain of command.

The photographs from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo shock in spite of their familiarity, and when accompanied by Gibney's patient, unhectoring investigation, the spectre of something horribly sinister and dark emerges: not just the corruption of a democratic government but the erosion of human decency.