The 50 best documentaries of all time

Get back to reality with our ranked list of nonfiction triumphs.

By David Fear, Joshua Rothkopf and Keith Uhlich Thu Nov 18 2010

Best documentaries: Click to the next image to see our 50 best documentaries of all time
Best documentaries: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Best documentaries: The Last Waltz (1978)
Best documentaries: An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Best documentaries: When We Were Kings (1996)
Best documentaries: A Grin Without a Cat (1977)
Best documentaries: Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007)
Best documentaries: F for Fake (1973)
Best documentaries: The Battle of Chile (1975–79)
Best documentaries: Monterey Pop (1968)
Best documentaries: Man on Wire (2008)

Best documentaries: Click to the next image to see our 50 best documentaries of all time

As long as there is fantasy and wish fulfillment onscreen, audiences will also yearn for the truth—or something close to it. In arriving at TONY's favorite documentaries (from all eras and countries), we bumped up against some thorny questions: What makes a documentary essential? Is it the political or social import? Its popularity? Can we allow for staged scenes? Or must we insist on pure vérité? How "real" is reality? We invite your own thoughts in response to our ranked list.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

America braced itself for Michael Moore's rage—during a presidential election year, no less. But no one expected the emotional gut punch of interviewee Lila Lipscomb, a patriotic army mother turned disbeliever. Moore's defiant success (it's still the highest-grossing doc of all time) had a massive impact, if not quite the intended result.—Joshua Rothkopf

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The Last Waltz (1978)

Grabbing the brass ring of technical wizardry, Martin Scorsese took the Band's final concert, an intimate San Francisco event tinged with bitterness, and turned it into myth. In many ways, the musicians come off like downbeat characters in a Scorsese picture, one as potent as Taxi Driver.—Joshua Rothkopf

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An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

A politician using facts instead of fabrications—imagine that! Former Vice President Al Gore (working with director Davis Guggenheim) lays out the causes, effects and potential solutions to global warming in an entertainingly persuasive doc that made PowerPoint presentations exciting and spoke strongly to environmentalists.—Keith Uhlich

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When We Were Kings (1996)

Leon Gast's definitive look at the Ali-Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" is more than just a great-moments-in-sports doc. It's an insightful portrait of Ali as a 20th-century icon transformed into a symbol of tenacity for a beleaguered continent—and proof that the charismatic champ was indeed "the greatest."—David Fear

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A Grin Without a Cat (1977)

A towering, decade-spanning political chronicle summing up nothing less than an international spirit of change, Chris Marker's epic journey takes on Che and Fidel, Vietnam and Chile, Parisian riots and California flower children. The result, beautifully resigned, is a difficult but essential work.—Joshua Rothkopf

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Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007)

Stones do the speaking in John Gianvito's stirring experimental doc, composed entirely of images of marked and unmarked grave sites across the United States. Tracing a quietly bracing history of the American Left (we visit the resting places of, among others, Eugene V. Debs and Elizabeth Cady Stanton), the film is an ode to the power of protest.—Keith Uhlich

F for Fake (1973)

Here's yet more evidence that Orson Welles didn't just disappoint after Citizen Kane. Toward the end of his working career, the feisty director mounted this sly, quietly groundbreaking study of the art of lying, one that flits from hoaxer Clifford Irving to Welles's own fake alien invasion, The War of the Worlds.—Joshua Rothkopf

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The Battle of Chile (1975–79)

Patricio Guzmn's three-part doc offers a comprehensive, 360-degree view of Augusto Pinochet's rise to power, as seen through the eyes of everybody from Marxist peasants to the military brass who staged the coup. The combination of big-picture history lessons and newsreel immediacy continues to inspire lefty documentarians and frontline filmmakers.—David Fear

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Monterey Pop (1968)

The first major rock festival of the '60s gave birth to the first major concert film of the era, with D.A Pennebaker paying as much attention to a burgeoning sense of a counterculture as he does to the music itself (though the footage of the Who, Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, to name three, is epochal). Something was indeed brewing; Pennebaker lets us see the pot being stirred.—David Fear

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Man on Wire (2008)

On an early, gray morning in August 1974, tightrope-walker Philippe Petit stepped out into an impossible void, the space between the Twin Towers, and danced for an hour. No other film, fictional or otherwise, more fully restores—poetically, with antic humor—our city's loss as does James Marsh's stunner.—Joshua Rothkopf

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(6 ratings)

Who am i kidding. Of course number 1 would be regarding the holocaust.

Hamsom Sun Sep 23 2012
Rated as: 5/5
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I recommend to you to come for a site on which there are many articles onh this question. <a href="http://www.hpixel.com/">hpixel</a>

icon design Sat Sep 22 2012
Rated as: 5/5
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Two doc that are not on your list with a similar theme "Fourteen Days in May" and "Paradise Lost", both haunting and it follows events as they unfold.

Chip Fri Sep 14 2012
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Remarkably, your surname seems to coincide with your unusual top 5?

Jim Fri Sep 7 2012
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Ummm...has anyone here heard of a guy by the name of KEN BURNS! I think he is probably the best documentarian on the face of the is planet and not ONE of his films even made the list. Someone needs to do their research a little better.

Jojo Tue Sep 4 2012
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It's difficult to put together a list of the best documentaries - it means so many different things to different people. I thought that having two holocaust documentaries in the top 3 was too many - and I personally think of Nanking as being more horrific and more noteworthy ... but vocal minorities carry a lot of influence. If you want to capture the positive side of humanity (something that's largely missing from this list) try "The Ascent of Man" (By Bronowski) or "Cosmos" (by Carl Sagan) - two both very stimulating docos.

Jack Crumb Thu Aug 9 2012
Rated as: 3/5
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Your list is WEAK! Thanks for nothing. A lot of biased liberal conspiracy theory junk while not including some great documentaries.

suckah pleez Thu Aug 9 2012
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Just over one year after "Planet Earth" premiered on the BBC it had been shown in more than 130 countries worldwide according to the wikipedia page. You've got to give that some thought.

Jonnyrodger1 Sun Aug 5 2012
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I am shocked beyond all belief that not one of Sir David Attenborough's landmark and awe-inspiring natural history documentaries is included. The reasoning behind not including at least one of the ten installments of his "Life" series, "The Blue Planet", "Planet Earth" or "Frozen Planet" is mind-boggling. The series are hugely popular in the United Kingdom and I believe throughout Australia, New Zealand and maybe the USA, "Planet Earth" was certainly aired on the Discover Channel with a few tweaks and Sigourney Weaver as narrator. They captured animal behaviour never before seen as it happens and are unquestionably politically relevant due to the impact these series have had on environmentalism. The sheer quality of the cinematography in the later series merits them a place on this list. I recommend that TONY seriously considers the call for "Planet Earth" or "The Blue Planet" to be included, I expected one of them to be in the top 5 but to have none in the entire list is bizarre. It is a disgrace. I suggest you reconsider!

Jonnyrodger1 Sun Aug 5 2012
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As soon as I saw Farenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth listed, I stopped scanning the list. There's a difference between propaganda and a documentary. And if you're going to throw the Oscar and Nobel Peace Prize arguement. Spare me. Where's FarenHYPE 9/11 ? Nice try, though.

Frank Tue Jul 31 2012
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