Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Michael Moore's documentary attacking the Bush administration's response to 9/11 and the Iraq War became the highest-grossing documentary of all time at $222 million. Disney refused to distribute it. Conservative groups organised boycotts. The film's release during an election year made it a political weapon — praised by the left as courageous journalism and condemned by the right as propaganda. It demonstrated that documentaries could be blockbuster political events, paving the way for the partisan documentary era.