102 Best Documentary
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- DirectorAuguste LumièreLouis LumièreStarsMadeleine KoehlerMarcel KoehlerMrs. Auguste LumiereA train arrives at La Ciotat station.The first 18 titles are the most important historical documentary films in establishing the genre, aesthetics, and issues of this genre.
- DirectorEdward S. CurtisStarsStanley HuntSarah Constance Smith HuntMrs. George WalkusCombining fact and fabrication, Edward S. Curtis' dramatization of the life of the Kwakiutl peoples of British Columbia revolves around a chief's son, who must contend with an evil sorcerer in order to win the hand of a beautiful maiden.
- DirectorRobert J. FlahertyStarsAllakariallakAlice NevalingaCunayouIn this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle.Early documentary film critic, 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. Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, though it presents philosophical questions about documentaries containing stagings and reenactments.
With Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced the artistic trends of romanticism (emotionalism, celebration of the traditional, human passions and shortcomings, etc.), Flaherty filmed a number of these documentary films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in Nanook of the North Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. - DirectorWalter RuttmannStarsPaul von HindenburgThis movie shows us one day in Berlin, the rhythm of that time, starting at the earliest morning and ends in the deepest night.The continental, or realist, tradition of documentary film focused on humans within more civilized urban environments, and included the so-called "city symphony" films such as Walter Ruttmann's Berlin, Symphony of a City. Early film critic Grierson stated that Berlin represented what a documentary should not be. These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde traditions of film-making.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsAbel JacquinAlexandre O'NeillA surrealist film, a pseudo-documentary portrait of Las Hurdes, a remote region of Spain where civilisation has barely developed, showing how the local peasants try to survive without even the most basic utilities and skills.
- DirectorPare LorentzStarsThomas ChalmersBam WhiteThis documentary is about what happened to the Great Plains of the United States when a combination of farming practices and environmental factors led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.Pare Lorentz's The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1938) and Willard Van Dyke's The City (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints.
- DirectorHarry WattBasil WrightStarsArthur ClarkJohn GriersonStuart LeggShows the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland overnight.In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement and blended propaganda, information, and education with a more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden, composers such as Benjamin Britten, and writers such as J. B. Priestley. Among the best known films of the movement are Night Mail and Coal Face.
- DirectorLeni RiefenstahlStarsAdolf HitlerHermann GöringMax AmannThe infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsMichel BouquetReinhard HeydrichHeinrich HimmlerThe history of Nazi Germany's death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.
- DirectorRobert DrewStarsRobert DrewHubert H. HumphreyMuriel Buck HumphreyCinéma vérité feature that follows presidential hopefuls John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey during the 1960 Wisconsin primary.Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema) was dependent on some technical advances in order to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité (Jean Rouch) and the North American "Direct Cinema." The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. The fundamentals of the style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film.
The films Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew) and Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple) are frequently deemed cinéma vérité films. - DirectorJohn PalmerAndy WarholStarsJonas MekasAndy WarholA single shot of the Empire State Building from early evening until nearly 3 am the next day.
- DirectorMarcel OphülsStarsHelmut TausendMarcel VerdierAlexis GraveAn in-depth exploration of the various reactions by the French people to the Vichy government's acceptance of the German invasion.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsDamouré ZikaLam Ibrahim DiaIllo GaoudelThe adventures of three young men who leave their homeland Savannah, Niger, and go looking for fortune in Ghana.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanDocumentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater where people stay trapped in their madness.
- DirectorOctavio GetinoFernando E. SolanasStarsMaría de la PazFernando E. SolanasEdgardo SuárezDivided into three segments, namely 1 Neocolonialism, 2 Act for liberation, 3 Violence and liberation, the documentary lasts more than 4 hours this deals with the defense of the revolution and the revolution of the third world such as the revolt of the students in the United States and Western Europe, Czech citizens protest against the Soviet Union's State bureaucracy and also the revolution that (probably) is unprecedented in Argentina.In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often conceived as a political weapon against neocolonialism and capitalism in general, especially in Latin America.
- DirectorBarbara KoppleStarsJohn L. LewisCarl HornNorman YarboroughA heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.
- DirectorErrol MorrisStarsRandall AdamsDavid HarrisGus RoseA film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.The style of documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the cinema verité style introduced in the 1960s in which the use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as The Civil War by Ken Burns, expressed not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris incorporated stylized re-enactments
- DirectorJayne LoaderKevin RaffertyPierce RaffertyStarsPaul TibbetsHarry S. TrumanW.H.P. BlandyDisturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.The remainder of this list are considered the best documentary films ever created.
- DirectorThomas BalmèsStarsBayarHattieMariA look at one year in the life of four babies from around the world, from Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo.
- DirectorMarc J. FrancisNick FrancisAn in-depth look at the world of coffee and global trade.
- DirectorZana BriskiRoss KauffmanStarsKochiAvijit HalderShanti DasTwo documentary filmmakers chronicle their time in Sonagchi, Calcutta and the relationships they developed with children of prostitutes who work the city's notorious red light district.
- DirectorMichael MooreStarsMichael MooreCharlton HestonMarilyn MansonFilmmaker Michael Moore explores the roots of America's predilection for gun violence.
- DirectorErrol MorrisStarsStephen HawkingIsobel HawkingJanet HumphreyA film about the life and work of the cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, who despite his near total paralysis, was one of the great minds of all time.
- DirectorVictoria MuddStarsMartin SheenBuffy Sainte-MarieBurgess MeredithDocumentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.