Director Werner Herzog captures the lives of deaf-blind people in a touching documentary that follows Fini Straubinger—who became deaf-blind in early life and dedicated herself to helping others like her—as she meets and connects with her community.

Made up of 14 individual works, this sprawling graphic novel revolves around a Chicago apartment building and its residents. They include the elderly landlady and a couple on the rocks, but the majority centers on a woman who had part of her leg amputated. The focus is on her interior world rather than her disability, as the astonishing comic follows her from trying to establish herself as an artist in her 20s up to her sometimes uncomfortably suburban life as a mother.

Nominated for six Oscars (it won two), Sound of Metal stars Riz Ahmed as a heavy metal drummer whose world is turned upside down when he loses his hearing. After he reluctantly agrees to join a nurturing shelter for deaf recovering addicts, he tries to adjust to a new way of life.

The UK’s Disability Discrimination Act started as a love story. This BBC television show tells the true story of cabaret performers Barbara Lisicki and Alan Holdsworth, who fell for one another at a gig, then later joined forces to stage protests against ableist mistreatment, ultimately leading to the 1995 act.

Months before he died in 1994, pioneering artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman unveiled a film set against a static shot of unchanging Yves Klein blue. In the voiceover, Jarman documents his battle with AIDS, which had caused him to become partially blind, able only to see in shades of blue. Meshing dreamlike reveries with narration about his day-to-day life in the ’90s and the struggles of his losing battle, it is the most extraordinary swan song.

A one-of-a-kind documentary on a one-of-a-kind artist: Daniel Johnston (at left, with director Jeff Feuerzeig), whose unusual lo-fi music drew a cult following, and influenced acts like David Bowie, Sonic Youth, and Kurt Cobain. Cobbled together using Johnston’s own self-documentation (an area in which he was as prolific as he was in music), home videos, and current footage, it’s a glimpse into his awe-inspiringly creative but oft-troubled mind, as he reckons with the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that led him in and out of mental institutions.

A touching Brazilian romantic drama that centers on Leonardo, a blind teenager coming of age and beginning to seek his independence. When a new boy joins his school, sparks fly, but his best friend feels threatened. A tender bildungsroman that captures the gorgeously messy awkwardness of adolescence.

Samantha Irby’s funny and perceptive essays tackle a kaleidoscope of subjects. They include weird sexual encounters, her difficult childhood, and the chronic illnesses she lives with—Crohn’s disease and peripheral arthritis—all handled with her trademark humor.

Adapted from his memoir of the same name, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who became paralyzed after a stroke, only retaining the ability to move his left eyelid. Tracing his escape into imagination and memory, and efforts to adjust to his new life, the film was nominated for four Oscars.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Chloé Cooper Jones beautifully recounts her experiences of living with sacral agenesis, a rare condition that affects her shape and stature. Documenting her chronic pain, she explains it is both physical and emotional: yes there is acute discomfort, but also the hurt caused by pity or dismissal from others. After she unexpectedly becomes a mother, she travels the world to reclaim spaces she has been denied, and explores concepts of beauty.

In this film that earned Jamie Foxx the Academy Award for Best Actor, the titular Ray is the legendary Ray Charles, who went blind at the age of seven after the trauma of witnessing his brother’s accidental death. His gift for playing the piano gives him new focus, and the film follows his meteoric but troubled rise from humble beginnings to global superstar.

A Sundance favourite, Hear and Now sees a filmmaker turn her lens on her parents, both Deaf since birth, as they undergo cochlear implant surgery at age 65. In the touching documentary, she captures all that they stand to gain – and lose – as they experience sound for the first time.

With a cast of all-Deaf actors, The Tribe is the first feature completely in sign language. Its own spin on a silent film, with no subtitles, non-USL-signing (Ukranian Sign Language) audience members are invited to follow the plot using universal forms of communication: facial expressions and body language. Set in a boarding school for Deaf teenagers, in the haunting film, a young man gets swept up into its dog-eat-dog criminal underworld.

Based on his memoir, comedian Ryan O’Connell stars in semi-autobiographical Netflix series Special, about a man with cerebral palsy who uses a car accident to mask his from-birth disability as he begins his dream writing internship and dives into LA’s gay dating scene. In the laugh-out-loud funny 15-minute episodes, he is forced to challenge his internalised ableism and learn self-acceptance.

This unique Critics Choice Award-nominated documentary centers on the remarkable true story of Darius McCollum, an autistic man who, at the time of filming, had been jailed 32 times for impersonating New York City subway and bus drivers. Exploring his passion for the city transit system, the film probes his disproportionate punishments—and whether the consequences would have been the same if he were neurotypical and white.

A movie about movies, Chained for Life explores the need for and limits of representation. Two actors star in a trope-filled film about a blind woman who falls in love with a man with a deformity. Out of character, however, the actress is not blind, and the man, played by the effervescent Adam Pearson, is the opposite of the pitiful figure he is cast as. Aaron Schimberg’s next film, A Different Man, will also star Pearson, this time opposite co-stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve in a film plot that involves facial reconstructive surgery.

The winner of three Academy Awards including best picture, CODA follows Ruby, a Child of Deaf Adults. The lone hearing member of her family, she helps her parents with their struggling fishing business, but seeks to pursue her dream of becoming a singer. A remake of the French La Famille Bélier, it made the crucial rectification of casting deaf actors in the family. Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur co-star as Ruby’s parents, and Kotsur became the first deaf actor to win an acting Oscar.

Katherine May writes about her journey—quite literally—of coming to terms with her autism diagnosis ahead of her 38th birthday, as she sets out to walk the 630 miles of England’s South West Coast Path. She contemplates her years spent struggling to fit in and find her place in the world before a voice on the radio sparked her realization.

David Lynch’s second feature stands out in his filmography for its departure from surrealism in favor of a more straight-shooting, heartfelt work. Inspired by the true story of Joseph Merrick, the film explores the hypocrisies of ableism, and how exploitation can often come disguised as kindness.

This thrilling Oscar-nominated documentary from 2004 follows the US quad rugby team as they play their way to the Paralympic Games that year. The team of paraplegic men play full-contact rugby in wheelchairs, discussing their hopes, worries, and the sport itself as they compete.

A young adult graphic novel that reimagines the origin story of Barbara Gordon (better known as Batgirl), who becomes Oracle when the Joker shoots her and she is paralyzed from the waist down. The Oracle Code follows Gordon’s life just after, in the Arkham Center for Independence, a rehab facility for Gotham’s youth. When she gets the creeping sensation something is amiss, she seeks to solve the mystery unfolding around her.