Top 50 Documentaries

What About Documentaries?

While I love narrative films, documentaries have such a real effect because they are telling real stories often with footage of the events depicted. There’s also an unfortunate misconception that somehow documentaries are boring but truth is stranger than fiction. These documentaries are diverse in terms of subject, filmmaker and time period.


Top 50 Documentaries:

  1. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) Directors: Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper and Eleanor Coppola

  2. High School (1968) Director: Frederick Wiseman

  3. Night and Fog (1956) Director: Alain Resnais

  4. Bowling for Columbine (2002) Director: Michael Moore

  5. 13th (2016) Director: Ava DuVernay

  6. RBG (2018) Directors: Betsy West and Julie Cohen

  7. Woodstock (1970) Director: Michael Wadleigh

  8. The Act of Killing (2012) Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

  9. The Thin Blue Line (1988) Director: Errol Morris

  10. Grizzly Man (2005) Director: Werner Herzog

  11. 4 Little Girls (1997) Director: Spike Lee

  12. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018) Director: Morgan Neville

  13. Hoop Dreams (1994) Director: Steve James

  14. No Direction Home (2005) Director: Martin Scorsese

  15. Amy (2015) Director: Asif Kapadia

  16. American Factory (2019) Directors: Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert

  17. Burden of Dreams (1982) Director: Les Blank

  18. Citizenfour (2014) Director: Laura Poitras

  19. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) Director: Michael Moore

  20. Roger & Me (1989) Director: Michael Moore

  21. How to Survive a Plague (2012) Director: David France

  22. Hearts and Minds (1974) Director: Peter Davis

  23. The Last Blockbuster (2020) Director: Taylor Morden

  24. Life Itself (2014) Director: Steve James

  25. Chasing Ice (2012) Director: James Orlowski

  26. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018) Director: Morgan Neville

  27. My Octopus Teacher (2020) Directors: Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed

  28. Italianamerican (1974) Director: Martin Scorsese

  29. I am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco (2002) Director: Sam Jones

  30. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) Director: Rob Epstein

  31. Heroin(e) (2017) Director: Elain McMillion Sheldon

  32. Film Worker (2017) Director: Tony Zierra

  33. Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013) Director: Frank Pavich

  34. One Child Nation (2019) Directors: Nafu Wang and Jialang Zhang

  35. Where to Invade Next? (2015) Director: Michael Moore

  36. Super Size Me (2004) Director: Morgan Spurlock

  37. The Last Waltz (1978) Director: Martin Scorsese

  38. Free Solo (2018) Directors: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin

  39. Icarus (2017) Director: Bryan Fogel

  40. Nanook of the North (1922) Director: Robert Flaherty

  41. Pretend It’s A City (2020) Director: Martin Scorsese

  42. The Vietnam War (2017) Director: Ken Burns

  43. The Last Dance (2020) Director: Jason Hehir

  44. NYC Epicenters 9/11 to 2021½ (2021) Director: Spike Lee

  45. They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) Director: Peter Jackson

  46. Harlan County, USA (1976) Director: Barbara Kopple

  47. Crumb (1995) Director: Terry Zwigoff

  48. Val (2021) Directors: Leo Scott and Ting Poo

  49. Three Identical Strangers (2018) Director: Tim Wardle

  50. Apollo 11 (2019) Director: Todd Douglas Miller