Top 10 Greatest Documentaries of All Time

Directed by Laura Ricciardi and Monika Demos over a decade of filming, Making a Murderer chronicled the trials of Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, raising serious questions about police misconduct and coerced confessions. Released on Netflix in December 2015, all ten episodes were watched by an estimated 19.3 million US viewers within its first 35 days — an unprecedented figure for a documentary series at the time. The series triggered a White House petition with 128,000 signatures calling for a presidential pardon, and directly influenced legislative reforms around wrongful convictions in Wisconsin.

Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing asked the perpetrators of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 — men who murdered an estimated 500,000 to 1 million alleged communists — to dramatise and re-enact their own atrocities in whatever cinematic style they chose, resulting in a film unlike anything in the documentary canon. Screened at the Telluride, Toronto, and Berlin film festivals and shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, it prompted Indonesia's parliament to formally acknowledge the killings for the first time in 50 years. Critics including Werner Herzog, who served as executive producer, called it "unprecedented in the history of cinema."

Michael Moore's investigation into America's culture of gun violence — structured around the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — became the highest-grossing documentary film of all time at its release, earning $58 million against a $4 million budget. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2003, with Moore delivering a famously combative acceptance speech, and the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. The film's confrontational interview techniques, particularly Moore's visit to Kmart and K-Mart's subsequent removal of handgun ammunition from all US stores within days of the film's release, demonstrated documentary filmmaking as a direct instrument of policy change.

Luc Jacquet's 85-minute French documentary filmed entirely in Antarctica follows emperor penguins on their annual 70-mile inland march to breed through the Antarctic winter, where temperatures drop to -58°F and winds reach 100 mph. Narrated by Morgan Freeman for its US release, it grossed $77.4 million worldwide on a budget of approximately $8 million, making it the second-highest-grossing documentary of all time at that point. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2006 and was seen by an estimated 50 million people in its first year of international release, converting itself into an unexpected mainstream phenomenon.

Malik Bendjelloul's film follows two South African fans investigating the mystery of Rodriguez, a Detroit folk singer whose two 1970s albums were complete commercial failures in the US but had quietly become the soundtrack to a generation of anti-apartheid South Africans who believed he had died by suicide on stage. The film's revelation — that Rodriguez was alive and unaware of his South African fame — became one of documentary cinema's most emotionally overwhelming moments. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2013, the BAFTA Award, and 14 other major prizes. Rodriguez subsequently sold out arenas across South Africa and died in 2023 as a cult hero on two continents.

Raoul Peck's film draws on 30 pages of an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin to construct a meditation on race in America through the lives and murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. — three men Baldwin knew personally. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017, it earned $7.1 million at the box office — an exceptional figure for a documentary essay film — and holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 122 reviews. Time magazine named it one of the top ten films of 2016 and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2021.

Morgan Neville's portrait of Fred Rogers, the creator and host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968-2001), became the highest-grossing biographical documentary of all time upon its release, earning $22.7 million in the US against a $1 million budget. Holding a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it received the Peabody Award, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Documentary, and was nominated for multiple Critics' Circle prizes. The film arrives at an era of widespread political cruelty and deploys Rogers' radical gentleness as a counterargument, prompting thousands of viewers to report crying in cinemas and triggering a nationwide conversation about empathy as a public good.

Ava DuVernay's Netflix documentary argues that the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution — which abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime" — created a loophole that has been systematically exploited to criminalise and incarcerate Black Americans, producing a prison population that has grown from 357,000 in 1970 to over 2.3 million by 2016. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, it became the most-watched documentary on Netflix in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, and was screened by the United Nations in Geneva. It holds a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special in 2017.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's film documents Alex Honnold's June 2017 free solo ascent of El Capitan's 3,000-foot Freerider route in Yosemite National Park — the first free solo completion of the climb in history, accomplished without ropes or protective equipment in 3 hours 56 minutes. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019, the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, and was released to a Rotten Tomatoes score of 100% from its first 95 critical reviews. Screened in 44 countries and earning $29 million at the box office, the film is widely regarded as the finest sports documentary ever made and the most nail-biting 100 minutes in cinema history.

Directed by Laura Ricciardi and Monika Demos over a decade of filming, Making a Murderer chronicled the trials of Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, raising serious questions about police misconduct and coerced confessions. Released on Netflix in December 2015, all ten episodes were watched by an estimated 19.3 million US viewers within its first 35 days — an unprecedented figure for a documentary series at the time. The series triggered a White House petition with 128,000 signatures calling for a presidential pardon, and directly influenced legislative reforms around wrongful convictions in Wisconsin.

Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing asked the perpetrators of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 — men who murdered an estimated 500,000 to 1 million alleged communists — to dramatise and re-enact their own atrocities in whatever cinematic style they chose, resulting in a film unlike anything in the documentary canon. Screened at the Telluride, Toronto, and Berlin film festivals and shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, it prompted Indonesia's parliament to formally acknowledge the killings for the first time in 50 years. Critics including Werner Herzog, who served as executive producer, called it "unprecedented in the history of cinema."

Michael Moore's investigation into America's culture of gun violence — structured around the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — became the highest-grossing documentary film of all time at its release, earning $58 million against a $4 million budget. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2003, with Moore delivering a famously combative acceptance speech, and the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. The film's confrontational interview techniques, particularly Moore's visit to Kmart and K-Mart's subsequent removal of handgun ammunition from all US stores within days of the film's release, demonstrated documentary filmmaking as a direct instrument of policy change.

Luc Jacquet's 85-minute French documentary filmed entirely in Antarctica follows emperor penguins on their annual 70-mile inland march to breed through the Antarctic winter, where temperatures drop to -58°F and winds reach 100 mph. Narrated by Morgan Freeman for its US release, it grossed $77.4 million worldwide on a budget of approximately $8 million, making it the second-highest-grossing documentary of all time at that point. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2006 and was seen by an estimated 50 million people in its first year of international release, converting itself into an unexpected mainstream phenomenon.

Malik Bendjelloul's film follows two South African fans investigating the mystery of Rodriguez, a Detroit folk singer whose two 1970s albums were complete commercial failures in the US but had quietly become the soundtrack to a generation of anti-apartheid South Africans who believed he had died by suicide on stage. The film's revelation — that Rodriguez was alive and unaware of his South African fame — became one of documentary cinema's most emotionally overwhelming moments. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2013, the BAFTA Award, and 14 other major prizes. Rodriguez subsequently sold out arenas across South Africa and died in 2023 as a cult hero on two continents.

Raoul Peck's film draws on 30 pages of an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin to construct a meditation on race in America through the lives and murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. — three men Baldwin knew personally. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017, it earned $7.1 million at the box office — an exceptional figure for a documentary essay film — and holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 122 reviews. Time magazine named it one of the top ten films of 2016 and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2021.

Morgan Neville's portrait of Fred Rogers, the creator and host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968-2001), became the highest-grossing biographical documentary of all time upon its release, earning $22.7 million in the US against a $1 million budget. Holding a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it received the Peabody Award, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Documentary, and was nominated for multiple Critics' Circle prizes. The film arrives at an era of widespread political cruelty and deploys Rogers' radical gentleness as a counterargument, prompting thousands of viewers to report crying in cinemas and triggering a nationwide conversation about empathy as a public good.

Ava DuVernay's Netflix documentary argues that the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution — which abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime" — created a loophole that has been systematically exploited to criminalise and incarcerate Black Americans, producing a prison population that has grown from 357,000 in 1970 to over 2.3 million by 2016. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, it became the most-watched documentary on Netflix in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, and was screened by the United Nations in Geneva. It holds a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special in 2017.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's film documents Alex Honnold's June 2017 free solo ascent of El Capitan's 3,000-foot Freerider route in Yosemite National Park — the first free solo completion of the climb in history, accomplished without ropes or protective equipment in 3 hours 56 minutes. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019, the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, and was released to a Rotten Tomatoes score of 100% from its first 95 critical reviews. Screened in 44 countries and earning $29 million at the box office, the film is widely regarded as the finest sports documentary ever made and the most nail-biting 100 minutes in cinema history.