The Greatest Documentaries of All Time (Vol. 5 )
This video is part five of what I consider as a list of the greatest documentaries of all time. Each documentary is a film that I'm recommending because, for some reason, the documentary format feels like the black sheep of the film world with many more watching fictional films than films that are actually about something in real-life.
Why is this? Are they not as entertaining? Do we prefer escaping into another world?
Hopefully, the films on this list prove that this doesn't have to be the case and that importantly, show how documentaries can actually be just as entertaining if not more. Because as the old adage goes, sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction.
This is my video explaining why.
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Full List (in video order) - some films are available for free online:
Encounters at The End of the World (2007) dir. Werner Herzog – Trailer Below • Video
Blackfish (2013) dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite – Trailer Below
• Blackfish Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Doc...
Dear Zachary (2008) dir. Kurt Kuenne – Trailer Below
• Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His ...
Waiting for Superman (2010) dir. Davis Guggenheim – Trailer Below • Waiting for "Superman" - Trailer
The Corporation (2003) dir. Mark Achar & Jennifer Abbott – Full Film Below • Video
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) dir. Alex Gibney – Trailer Below • Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005...
Roger & Me (1989) dir. Michael Moore – Trailer Below
• Roger & Me (1989) Official Trailer - Micha...
The Act of Killing (2012) dir. Joshua Oppenheimer – Trailer Below
• The Act of Killing - Official Trailer (HD)
The Look of Silence (2014) dir. Joshua Oppenheimer – Trailer Below
• The Look of Silence Official Trailer 1 (20...
9-11 (2002) dir. Jules and Thomas Naudet – Full Film Below
• Video
F for Fake (1973) dir. Orson Welles – Trailer Below
• "F for Fake" original trailer by Orson Wel...
What is a documentary?
A documentary film is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record" - compare documentary theatre. Bill Nichols has characterised the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". Documentary films, originally called "actuality films", lasted one minute, or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories; some examples being: educational, observational, and docufiction.
Documentaries are meant to be informative works, and are often used within schools, as a resource to teach various principles. Social-media platforms (such as YouTube) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary-film genre. These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility; thereby enhancing the ability to educate a larger volume of viewers, and broadening the reach of persons who receive that information. Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski was among those who identified the mode of documentary film.
He wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema Une nouvelle source de l'histoire (eng. A New Source of History) and La photographie animée (eng. Animated photography). Both were published in 1898 in French and among the early written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film.
Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose the creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. In popular myth, the word "documentary" was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana (1926), published in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson).
Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article.
And if you’re still reading this – hello.
This video is made through Fair Use under copyright law for the purposes of education in criticism or review; as well as parody or satire.
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92c https://www.copyright.org.au/ACC_Prod