DOCUMENTARY FILMS


Examples


Documentary Films
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Examples


Selection of Greatest Documentary Films:


Greatest Documentary Films:
Nanook of the North (1922)
Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925)
Moana (1926)
Berlin: Symphony of a Big City (1927, Ger.)
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927)
October (Oktyabr)/10 Days That Shook the World (1928, USSR)
Drifters (1929, UK)
Finnis Terrae (1929, Fr.)
The Man with a Movie Camera (1929, USSR)
Las Hurdes (aka Land Without Bread) (1932, Sp.)
Man of Aran (1934)
Triumph of the Will (1935, Ger.)
The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)
The River (1937)
The Spanish Earth (1937)
Olympia (1938, Ger.)
City (1939)
Prelude to War (1942)
Desert Victory (1943, US/UK)
The Memphis Belle (1944)
Louisiana Story (1948)
The Living Desert (1953)
Night and Fog (1955, Fr.)
The Silent World (aka Le Monde du Silence) (1956, Fr/It.)
Recent Documentary Films:
Chronicle of a Summer (1961, Fr.) (aka Chronique d'un été (Paris 1960))
Four Days in November (1964)
The Up Series (1964-2019) (TV)
The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965)
The Endless Summer (1966)
Don't Look Back (1967)
Titicut Follies (1967)
High School (1968)
Monterey Pop (1968)
Vietnam: In the Year of the Pig (1968)
Why Man Creates (1968)
Salesman (1969)
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (1970)
The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)
Minamata: The Victims and Their World (1971, Jp.)
Hearts and Minds (1974)
That's Entertainment! (1974) (and sequels in 1976 and 1994)
Brother Can You Spare a Dime? (1975)
The California Reich (1975)
Grey Gardens (1975)
Harlan County, USA (1976)
The Song Remains the Same (1976)
The Children of Theatre Street (1977)
Gates of Heaven (1978)
The Last Waltz (1978)
Scared Straight! (1978) (and TV movie sequels 1980, 1987, 1999)
From Mao to Mozart - Isaac Stern in China (1979)
Say Amen, Somebody (1980)
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) (and sequels in 1988 and 1998)
Vernon, Florida (1981)
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
Burden of Dreams (1982)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Streetwise (1984)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Shoah (1985)
Sherman's March (1986)
Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988)
Let's Get Lost (1988)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Comic Book Confidential (1989)
Roger & Me (1989)
American Dream (1990)
The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns (1990) (TV)
Close-Up (1990, Iran)
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
Paris is Burning (1991)
Black Harvest (1992, Aust.)
A Brief History of Time (1992)
Brother's Keeper (1992)
Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992)
It's All True (1993)
Time Indefinite (1993)
Twist (1993)
Crumb (1994)
Hoop Dreams (1994)
The Celluloid Closet (1995)
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
When We Were Kings (1996)
The Big One (1997)
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)
4 Little Girls (1997)
Hands on a Hard Body (1997)
Riding the Rails (1997)
Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
Six O'Clock News (1997)
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997)
Wild Man Blues (1997)
Buena Vista Social Club (1998)
The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison (1998)
American Movie (1999)
Grass (1999)
The Last Cigarette (1999)
Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition (2000, UK/US)
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (2000)
Fidel: The Untold Story (2001)
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Capturing the Friedmans (2002)
The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)
The Fog of War (2003)
Winged Migration (2003)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Super Size Me (2004)
Grizzly Man (2005)
March of the Penguins (2005)
No Direction Home (2005)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Sicko (2007)

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
Man on Wire (2008)
Religulous (2008)
Earth (2009)
Babies (2010)
Oceans (2010)
Waiting for 'Superman' (2010)
African Cats (2011)

The Act of Killing (2012, UK)
Chimpanzee (2012)
Blackfish (2013)
Citizenfour (2014)
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
13th (2016)
RBG (2018)
Whitney (2018)
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018)




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