100 Greatest Documentary Films

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November 4, 2008

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

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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)

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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)

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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

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1. Victory at Sea - (1952, M. Clay Adams) (Naval combat
during World War Two)
(26 Episodes)

2. Civilisation - (1969, BBC) (Western civilization through

art & architecture by Kenneth Clark)
(14 Episodes)

3. Planet Earth - (2006, BBC) (The Earth narrated by

David Attenborough)
(11 Episodes)

4. The World at War - (1973-74, Jeremy Isaacs

producer) (WWII, narrated by Laurence Olivier)
(26 Episodes)

5. Cosmos - (1980, Adrian Malone) (Carl Sagan explains

theories of the Universe)
(13 Episodes)

6. The Great War - (1964, BBC) (First World War)

(26 Episodes)

7. The Civil War - (1990, Ken Burns) (American Civil

War)
(9 Episodes)

8. 63 Up - (2019, Michael Apted) (14 British childrens'

lives updated every 7 years)
(3 Episodes)

9. Baseball - (1994, Ken Burns) (Baseball history)

(11 Episodes)

10. The First World War: The Complete Series - (2003,

Marcus Kiggell) (WWI)
(10 Episodes)

Top Documentary Films of 2020

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 1. David Byrne's American Utopia - (Talking Heads
frontman informative musical)
2. The Dissident - (Finding clues to Jamal Khashoggi's
murder in Istanbul)
3. Gunda - (A mother pig, her piglets, chickens and
cows)
4. Time - (A wife working for the release of her husband
from prison)
5. Dick Johnson Is Dead - (A dying man is helped by
his daughter)
6. City Hall - (City government in Boston)
7. Crip Camp - (Summer camp for teens with
disabilities)
8. My Octopus Teacher - (Diver befriends an octopus,
off South Africa)
9. Kiss the Ground - (Saving the planet through
regenerative agriculture)
10. Totally Under Control - (The handling of COVID-19 in
the U.S.)

Top Documentary Films of 2019

1. For Sama - (A mother and daughter's survival in war-

torn Aleppo, Syria)
2. Apollo 11 - (In-depth events surrounding the Apollo
11 moon mission)
3. American Factory - (Culture clash in Chinese owned
factory in the U.S.)
4. Honeyland - (Saving bees in Macedonia to prevent
ecological disaster)
5. Cunningham - (Life of iconic dance innovator Merce
Cunningham)
6. One Child Nation - (History and effects of China's
one-child policy)
7. The Cave - (Female doctors working in secret
tunnels in war-torn Syria)
8. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin
Scorsese - (Bob Dylan and friends 1975 concert tour)
9. Midnight Family - (Family run ambulance service
operating in Mexico City)
10. Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice - (The
career of Linda Ronstadt)

Top Documentary Films of 2018

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 1. They Shall Not Grow Old - (Restored WWI film
footage)
2. RBG - (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg)
3. Won't You Be My Neighbor? - (Children's television
host, Fred Rogers)
4. Three Identical Strangers - (Strangers accidentally
discover they are identical triplets)
5. Minding the Gap - (Three young men escape
families in the American Rust-Belt.)
6. Hale County This Morning, This Evening - (The
Black community in Hale County, Alabama)
7. Bisbee '17 - (Recreations of an Arizona mining towns
past)
8. King in the Wilderness - (Final years of Martin Luther
King, Jr.)
9. On Her Shoulders - (Nadia Murad, survivor of the
2014 Yazidi genocide)
10. Mercury 13 - (Women training to be astronauts in
1961)

Top Documentary Films of 2017

1. City of Ghosts - (Raqqa Syria invaded by ISIS)

2. Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS -
(Syria in 2017)
3. Starless Dreams - (Iranian juvenile detention center
for girls)
4. Human Flow - (Worldwide migration from war,
famine, and climate change)
5. Strong Island - (1992 murder of William Ford Jr.)
6. Served Like a Girl - (Five women veterans help
homeless women veterans)
7. Icarus - (Doping in sports and a Russian scientist)
8. Long Strange Trip - (The rock band Grateful Dead)
9. Chasing Coral - (Vanashing coral reefs and the
causes)
10. Trophy - (Industries of big-game hunting)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2016

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 1. I Am Not Your Negro - (Race relations in America as
told by writer James Baldwin)
2. Tower - (University of Texas tower shooting that
killed 16 people)
3. O.J.: Made in America - (O.J. Simpson trial and
divided America)
4. 13th - (Racial inequality in the prison system)
5. California Typewriter - (People who still use
typewriters)
6. One More Time with Feeling - (Nick Cave and his the
creative process)
7. Houston, We Have a Problem! - (The myth of
America's '60s space program from Yugoslavia)
8. Born in China - (Baby animals in China. Panda,
Snow leopard, and monkey)
9. The Red Pill - (Men's Rights Movement)
10. Gleason - (Professional football player Steve
Gleason and his ALS)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2015

1. Cartel Land - (Citizen uprising against drug cartel in

Mexico)
2. Amy - (Story of Amy Winehouse)
3. Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom -
(Ukraine during 2013 and 2014)
4. Meru - (Climbing Himalayan Mount Meru)
5. Where to Invade Next - (Michael Moore compares
the US to other countries)
6. Human - (Stories about and images of the world)
7. (T)error - (FBI counterterrorism sting operation)
8. Best of Enemies - (Debates between Gore Vidal and
William F. Buckley)
9. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution -
(Rise and fall of the Black Panther Party)
10. Dreamcatcher - (Comforting sex workers in Chicago)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2014

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 1. Citizenfour - (Edward Snowden and government's
massive covert-surveillance programs)
2. Virunga - (Protecting endangered mountain gorillas)
3. Last Days in Vietnam - (Evacuating collaborators
from Saigon)
4. The Look of Silence - (1960s Indonesian genocide)
5. Fed Up - (The American food industry and illness)
6. The Overnighters - (Homeless oil field workers given
shelter in North Dakota)
7. The Salt of the Earth - (Career of photographer
Sebastião Salgado)
8. Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory - (Music
therapy for dementia patients)
9. Glen Campbell...I'll Be Me - (Glen Campbell farewell
tour and Alzheimer's)
10. Life Itself - (The life of film critic Roger Ebert)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2013

1. The Act of Killing - (Former Indonesian death squad

leaders reenact their real-life mass-killings)
2. Stories We Tell - (Contradictory answers to family
questions)
3. These Birds Walk - (A poor runaway boy and a
reluctant ambulance driver in Karachi)
4. The Gatekeepers - (Interviews with all surviving
former heads of Shin Bet)
5. Let The Fire Burn - (Sixty-one homes destroyed by
Philadelphia police in 1985)
6. Blackfish - (Consequences of killer whales in
captivity)
7. The Square - (Egypts Tahrir square in the days
leading up to the fall of Mubarak)
8. 20 Feet From Stardom - (Backup singers in the pop
music world)
9. Call Me Kuchu - (Homosexuality punishable by death
in Uganda)
10. Sound City - (David Grohl brings life back to the
fabled California recording studio)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2012

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 1. How to Survive a Plague - (Two coalitions improve
the plight of AIDS patients)
2. The Waiting Room - (Public hospital careing for a
community of largely uninsured patients)
3. West of Memphis - (Catastrophic failure of justice in
Arkansas)
4. The House I Live In - (America's criminal justice
system, and implications of U.S. drug policy)
5. The Central Park Five - (Rape in Central Park and
those wrongly accused)
6. Brooklyn Castle - (Struggling junior high school's
champion chess team)
7. Chasing Ice - (Climate change and melting glaciers
documented)
8. The Flat - (A documentarian learns of his immigrant
grandparents difficult past)
9. Hitler's Children - (The lives of the descendants of
the top Nazi officials)
10. The Revisionaries - (A re-write of evolution and
American history in textbooks)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2011

1. Undefeated - (3 underprivileged students from

Memphis and their coach)
2. Hell and Back Again - (The conflict in Afghanistan)
3. Zeitgeist: Moving Forward - (Money controls the
world)
4. Samsara - (Twenty-five countries on five continents)
5. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front -
(America's domestic terrorist threat)
6. Jiro Dreams of Sushi - (85-year-old sushi master Jiro
Ono)
7. Pina - (German choreographer, Pina Bausch)
8. Forks Over Knives - (Degenerative diseases and
meat consumption)
9. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory- (Case of the West
Memphis Three)
10. Bobby Fischer Against the World - (Chess master
Bobby Fischer)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2010

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 1. Restrepo - (One platoon in one valley for one year in
Afghanistan)
2. Inside Job - (A closer look at what brought about the
financial meltdown)
3. Waste Land - (What happens in the world's largest
trash city)
4. Exit through the Gift Shop - (The world's most
infamous graffiti artists at work)
5. Gasland - (Hydraulic drilling process called
"fracking")
6. Enemies of the People - (The Killing Fields of
Cambodia)
7. The Tillman Story - (Pat Tillman. Life, death,
coverup)
8. Waiting for 'Superman' - (The broken education
system)
9. Precious Life - (Israeli pediatrician and a Palestinian
mother)
10. The Elephant in the Living Room - (Dangerous
animals as household pets)

Top 10 Documentary Films of 2009

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)

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Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/vsvBqtg2RM0

For Sama - 2019

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