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There is a tone shift midway through “The Alpinist,” subtle and unmistakable. Fellow mountain climbers have been singing the praises of Marc-André Leclerc throughout Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen’s riveting documentary. The 23-year-old Canadian was pulling off unheard of feats soloing peaks and older, wiser rock stars were taking notice, often with their proverbial jaws dropped. And then comes a faint downshift in the admiration to make room for concern. “I’m definitely concerned,” says one. “The place he’s in is such a special, finite place, such an incredibly risky place.”

For those of us who are even skittish on a stepladder, concern was there from the start of this portrait of an alpinist as a young man. The filmmakers come by their awe for Leclerc honestly. In addition to being climbers, they’ve documented a scraggly crew that, to the chagrin of the National Park Service, staked...

In 2017, mountaineer Chris Bombardier became the first person with hemophilia to scale Mount Everest. “Bombardier Blood,” bowing on demand Aug. 17, captures the remarkable journey in which he attempts to complete his goal of climbing the Seven Summits — the highest mountain on each continent — while raising awareness of the blood disorder.

The film’s shoestring budget of $200,000 meant the production couldn’t bankroll an entire team to make the climb to the top, so Rob Bradford and Joshua Sterling Bragg, the DPs for writer-director Patrick James Lynch’s documentary, knew they would need to entrust Bombardier, a novice with a lens, to handle the camera for the toughest part of the shoot.

Bragg compiled a “cinematography bible” that considered what kind of shots to use on which part of the mountain. He turned to the matter-of-fact style of Renan Ozturk, a climber and Dp on mountaineering films “Valley Uprising,” “Meru” and “Sherpa” for inspiration.