100 Greatest Documentary Films

Criteria: - These are the Greatest Documentary Films chosen for their
influence, impact, historical importance, cinematography, direction, and popularity.
Title - (Year, Director) (Subject)

Edited By: Lew
List Begun: 11-04-08

Link: http://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/movie-pages/movie_documentary.html

1. Nanook of the North - (1922, Robert J. Flaherty) (Inuit family in the Canadian arctic)
2. Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker - (1938, Leni Riefenstahl) (1936 Olympics in Berlin)
3. Man With a Movie Camera - (1929, Dziga Vertov) (Soviet city life under Stalin)
4. The Sorrow and the Pity - (1971, Marcel Ophuls) (French collaboration with Nazi Germany)
5. The City - (1939, Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke) (Industrialization of American Cities)
6. Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life - (1925, Merian C. Cooper) (Journey of Bakhtiari tribe in Iran)
7. The Silent World - (1956, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Louis Malle) (Underwater world)
8. Woodstock - (1970, Michael Wadleigh) (Woodstock music festival 1969)
9. Nuit et brouillard (aka "Night and Fog") - (1955, Alain Resnais) (Nazi Concentration Camps)
10. Fahrenheit 9/11 - (2004, Michael Moore) (George W. Bush, and the War on Terrorism)
11. Triumph of the Will - (1934, Leni Riefenstahl) (Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg)
12. Anne Frank Remembered - (1995, Jon Blair) (Anne Frank, diary)
13. The Thin Blue Line - (1988, Errol Morris) (Corrupt justice system, wrongly convicted man)
14. Shoah - (1985, Claude Lanzmann) (Death-camp survivors of the Holocaust)
15. Hearts and Minds - (1974, Peter Davis) (U.S. involvement in Vietnam War)
16. The Plow That Broke the Plains - (1936, Pare Lorentz) (The Dust Bowl)
17. The River - (1938, Pare Lorentz) (Mississippi River)
18. Hoop Dreams - (1994, Steve James) (Basketball)
19. Kon-Tiki - (1950, Thor Heyerdahl) (Six men on a raft cross the Pacific)
20. Harlan County, USA - (1976, Barbara Kopple) (Coal miners on strike in Kentucky - 1973)
21. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan - (2005, Martin Scorsese) (Bob Dylan, 1961-1966)
22. Chernobyl Heart - (2003, Maryann DeLeo) (Ill children born after the Chernobyl disaster)
23. Taxi to the Dark Side - (2007, Alex Gibney) (Taxi driver in Afghanistan tortured & killed in '02)
24. March of the Penguins - (2005, Luc Jacquet) (Annual journey of Emperor penguins)
25. When We Were Kings - (1996, Leon Gast) (Foreman/Ali, 1974 boxing championship in Zaire)
26. The Times of Harvey Milk - (1984, Rob Epstein) (San Francisco's first elected gay councillor)
27. Bowling for Columbine - (2002, Michael Moore) (Violence and guns)
28. American Dream - (1990, Barbara Kopple) (Labor strike by blue-collar workers in 80's America)
29. The Eleanor Roosevelt Story - (1965,Richard Kaplan ) (Biography of Eleanor Roosevelt)
30. An Inconvenient Truth - (2006, Davis Guggenheim) (Global warming)
31. The Endless Summer - (1966, Bruce Brown) (Surfing around the world)
32. Promises - (2001, Carlos Bolado) (Jewish and Palestinian children together)
33. Down and Out in America - (1986, Lee Grant) (Poverty in the USA under Ronald Reagan)
34. Man of Aran - (1934, Robert J. Flaherty) (Life of people on Island of Aran)
35. Gimme Shelter - (1970, Albert and David Maysles) (Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour)
36. The Atomic Cafe - (1982, Jayne Loader) (Government issued propaganda about atomic bomb)
37. Spellbound - (2002, Jeffrey Blitz) (Eight teenagers out to win the 1999 National Spelling Bee)
38. The True Glory - (1945, Garson Kanin) (Allied invasion of Europe during World War II)
39. Let There Be Light - (1945, John Huston) (Shell-shocked soldiers)
40. Salesman - (1968, Albert Maysles) (Four door-to-door salesmen sell Bibles to the poor)
41. Crumb - (1994, Terry Zwigoff) (Comic artist Robert Crumb)
42. Winter Soldier - (1972, Winterfilm Collective) (US soldiers relate Vietnam war experiences)
43. Scared Straight! - (1980, Arnold Shapi) (Convicts tell troubled kids about horrors of prison)
44. Don't Look Back - (1967, D.A. Pennebaker) (Bob Dylan's '65 concert tour of United Kingdom)
45. The Memphis Belle - (1944, William Wyler) (Actual Bombing Mission Over Germany, WWII)
46. Titicut Follies - (1967, Frederick Wiseman) (Prison hospital for the criminally insane)
47. Sicko - (2007, Michael Moore) (American health care industry)
48. Journey Into Self - (1968, Tom Skinner) (Group therapy session)
49. The Long Way Home - (1997, Mark Jonathan Harris) (Establishment of modern state of Israel)
50. Moscow Strikes Back - (1942, Ilya Kopalin) (Soviet war documentary about Battle of Moscow)
51. The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison - (1998, Liz Garbus) (Life in Louisianas' Angola Prison)
52. Fires Were Started - (1943, Humphrey Jennings) (British firemen in the Blitz of World War II)
53. Grey Gardens - (1975, Ellen Hovde) (Reclusive mother and daughter live in a crumbling mansion)
54. One Day in September - (1999, Kevin Macdonald) (Israeli athletes killed at 1972 Olympics)
55. A Brief History of Time - (1991, Errol Morris) (Physicist Stephen Hawking)
56. American Zeitgeist - (2006, Rob McGann) (War on Terror)
57. Khaneh siah ast (aka "The House Is Black") - (1963, Forugh Farrokhzad) (Life in a leper colony)
58. The Conquest of Everest - (1953, George Lowe) (Mount Everest)
59. Obyknovennyy fashizm (aka "Triumph Over Violence") - (1965, Mikhail Romm) (German nazism)
60. My Flesh and Blood - (2003, Jonathan Karsh) (11 adopted special needs children)
61. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara - (2003, Errol Morris)
62. Koyaanisqatsi - (1982, Godfrey Reggio) (Natural environments to manmade environments)
63. Grizzly Man - (2005, Werner Herzog) (Timothy Treadwell interacts with grizzly bears)
64. Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of World War II - (2007, Robert Child)
65. Monterey Pop - (1968, D.A. Pennebaker) (Monterey International Pop Festival)
66. Dark Days (2000, Marc Singer) - (Homeless life near Penn Station)
67. Microcosmos: Le peuple de l'herb - (1996, Claude Nuridsany) (A documentary of insect life)
68. Lessons of Darkness - (1992, Werner Herzog) (Kuwait oil fields in flames)
69. The Decline of Western Civilization - (1981, Penelope Spheeris) (Los Angeles punk rock scene)
70. The Corporation - (2003, Mark Achbar) (Corporations and their present-day dominance)
71. The Animal World - (1956, Irwin Allen) (Animals and dinosaurs)
72. Roger & Me - (1989, Michael Moore) (GM CEO Roger Smith/downsizing)
73. Moana - (1926, Robert J. Flaherty) (Customs of Polynesian natives)
74. Apur Sansar (aka The World of Apu) - (1959, Satyajit Ray) (jobless ex-student in India)
75. The Last Waltz - (1978, Martin Scorsese) (Final concert of The Band)
76. Buena Vista Social Club - (1998, Wim Wenders) (Cuban musicians spotlighted by Ry Cooder)
77. The U.S. vs. John Lennon - (2006, David Leaf) (John Lennon, musician/antiwar activist)
78. American Hardcore - (2006, Paul Rachman) (Hardcore punk music)
79. World Without Sun - (1964, Jacques-Yves Cousteau) (Underwater world)
80. Super Size Me - (2004, Morgan Spurlock) (Fast food and obesity in America)
81. Lake of Fire - (2006, Tony Kaye) (The abortion debate)
82. Paragraph 175 - (2000, Rob Epstein) (Nazi persecution of homosexuals)
83. Il Mio viaggio in Italia (aka "My Voyage to Italy") - (1999, Martin Scorsese) (Italian cinema)
84. The Hellstrom Chronicle - (1971, Walon Green) (The insect world could take over the world)
85. In the Realms of the Unreal - (2004, Jessica Yu) (Henry Darger, visionary artist and novelist)
86. Land Without Bread - (1933, Luis Bunuel) (Spanish peasants)
87. Chronicle of a Summer - (1961, Edgar Morin) (French society in the summer of 1960)
88. Heima - (2007, Dean DeBlois) (Sigur Rós Iceland concerts, 2006)
89. Sir! No Sir! - (2005, David Zeiger) (Vietnam anti-war soldiers)
90. That's Entertainment! - (1974, Jack Haley Jr.) (MGM stars from the studio's 50 year history)
91. Encounters at the End of the World - (2007, Werner Herzog) (Antarctica)
92. Atomic Ed and the Black Hole - (2002, Ellen Spiro) (Ed Grothus, junk collector)
93. For All Mankind - (1989, Al Reinert) (the Apollo missions to the Moon)
94. The Hour of the Furnaces - (1968, Octavio Getino) (Neo-Colonisation of South America)
95. Blue Planet - (1990, Ben Burtt) (Earth from Space Shuttle)
96. Broken Rainbow - (1985, Victoria Mudd) (Government relocation of Navajo Indians in Arizona)
97. The Celluloid Closet - (1995, Rob Epstein) (Homosexuals in Hollywood films)
98. Jesus Camp - (2006, Heidi Ewing) (Christian summer camp for kids)
99. Faces of Death - (1978, Conan Le Cilaire) (Explicit scenes of Death)
100. Pumping Iron - (1977, Robert Fiore, George Butler) (Bodybuilding)

Documentary Series
1. Victory at Sea - (1952, M. Clay Adams) (Naval combat during World War Two)
2. Civilisation - (1969, BBC) (Western civilization through art & architecture by Kenneth Clark)
3. Planet Earth - (2006, BBC) (The Earth narrated by David Attenborough)
4. The World at War - (1974, Jeremy Isaacs producer) (WWII, narrated by Laurence Olivier)
5. Cosmos - (1980, Adrian Malone) (Carl Sagan explains theories of the Universe)
6. The Great War - (1964, BBC) (First World War)
7. The Civil War - (1990, Ken Burns) (American Civil War)
8. The Up Series - (1964-1998, Michael Apted) (14 British childrens' lives updated every 7 years)
9. Baseball - (1994, Ken Burns) (Baseball history)
10. The First World War: The Complete Series - (2003, Marcus Kiggell) (WWI)

Best 2009 Documentaries
1. The Cove - (Louie Psihoyos) (Dolphin abuse in a cove near Taiji, Japan)
2. Puskás Hungary - (Tamás Almási) (Hungarian football hero of the 1950s)
3. Crude - (Joe Berlinger) (Ecuadorans against Chevron for contamination of the Amazon)
4. My Neighbor, My Killer - (Anne Aghion) (The people of Rwanda attempt to reconcile)
5. Iron Maiden: Flight 666 - (Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen) (Iron Maiden's 2008 world tour)
6. Home - (Yann Arthus-Bertrand) (Aerial footage of Earth's problems)
7. Food, Inc. - (Robert Kenner) (Inside America's corporate controlled food industry)
8. Anvil - The Story of Anvil - (Sacha Gervasi) (Canadian metal band Anvil)
9. Unmistaken Child - (Nati Baratz) (A Tibetan monk's search for the reincarnation of his teacher)
10. Capitalism: A Love Story - (Michael Moore) (Corporate dominance on our everyday lives)

Nice list, Lew. I figured Shoah and Hoop Dreams might be a little higher, though. Also, I'd probably add Man on Wire somewhere.

Gates of Heaven should probably be here somewhere, probably moreso than something like "Faces of Death".

Dear Zachary should definitely have a spot on here, and probably very high. It has insane amount of acclaim.

The Bridge?

American Movie is another film that should be somewhere on this list. Quite a few films should be a little higher and there's at least a few that shouldn't really be here at all in the expense of other, more acclaimed documentaries.

Why is Olympia above Triumph of the Will? If anything, I'd think Triumph would be an easy #1. And if anything, there's no way Fahrenheit 9/11 is a better documentary than it.

Also, The Bridge should be high on the list. As should Man on Wire, considering its unanimous critical acclaim (100% with over a hundred reviews on RT) and style.

I just posted in the 'underrated film' section about these as well. Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger's Paradise Lost: The Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills is not just the greatest documentary ever made imo, it's also one of my top 3 favorite films. I saw this years ago and I have seen it at least 10 times. It's hypnotic and engaging narrative is unmatched in a dramatic sense. It also, you know, just recently got the 3 subjects of the film freed from prison, so it's made an impact. Their other film, Brother's Keeper is another flawless and completely unique work.

I don't know many of the doucmentaries on this list, but I find it strange not to find Paul Strand's masterpiece Native Land on here. Also I was expecting to find Robert Flaherty's Louisiana Story, Peter Watkins' Edvard Munch and Culloden and definitely Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse.

Oh and Fahrenheit 9/11 in Top 10? no way...


Is there place on this list or another list for faux-documentaries, pseudo-documentaries and mockumentaries?