Top 10 Most Influential Documentaries of All Time

Al Gore's 2006 slideshow-turned-film directed by Davis Guggenheim won two Academy Awards and is widely credited with bringing climate change to mainstream public consciousness. It grossed over $24 million worldwide against a $1 million budget and directly contributed to the global political momentum that led to the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit. Fourteen years on, its core scientific projections have been validated in alarming detail.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite's 2013 investigation into the captivity of killer whales at SeaWorld devastated the company's share price, triggered congressional hearings, and ultimately led SeaWorld to end its orca breeding programme entirely. The film had a theatrical gross of just $2.1 million but its streaming impact on Netflix was seismic -- a textbook case of documentary filmmaking forcing direct corporate and legislative accountability.

Joshua Oppenheimer's 2012 documentary about the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 asked perpetrators to re-enact their atrocities in the genre styles of their choosing -- gangster film, musical, western. The resulting film is one of the most disturbing and formally daring documentaries ever made, winning a BAFTA for Best Documentary and prompting the Indonesian government to officially acknowledge the massacres for the first time.

David Gelb's 2011 portrait of 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono -- whose ten-seat basement restaurant in Tokyo holds three Michelin stars -- is a meditation on mastery, dedication, and the Japanese philosophy of shokunin. The film ignited global interest in omakase dining and is credited with contributing to the surge of Japanese cuisine's international prestige during the 2010s. It remains the most-watched culinary documentary on streaming platforms.

Morgan Spurlock's 2004 self-experiment -- eating nothing but McDonald's for 30 days -- cost $65,000 to make and earned $22 million at the box office, triggering a global debate about fast food, corporate responsibility, and the obesity epidemic. McDonald's eliminated its super-size menu option within weeks of the film's Sundance premiere, though the company denied any connection. Few films have achieved so direct and measurable a corporate response.

Ava DuVernay's 2016 Netflix documentary traces the history of racial inequality in the United States through the 13th Amendment's slavery exception clause, arguing that mass incarceration is a continuation of slavery by other means. It received an Oscar nomination -- the first documentary to open the New York Film Festival -- and became a touchstone of the Black Lives Matter movement, accumulating over 50 million views in its first year on Netflix.

Laura Poitras was already filming when Edward Snowden contacted her in 2013, making Citizenfour the only documentary to capture a mass surveillance leak in real time. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2015 and fundamentally changed public understanding of state surveillance, contributing directly to legislative reforms in multiple countries. The film itself was created under surveillance -- a meta-layer that amplifies its already extraordinary tension.

Luc Jacquet's 2005 French nature documentary about emperor penguin breeding in Antarctica earned $127 million worldwide -- an almost unimaginable figure for a nature documentary -- and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Narrated by Morgan Freeman in the English version, it brought the plight of polar ecosystems to tens of millions of viewers years before climate change became a mainstream political issue, helping establish the template for emotionally resonant wildlife storytelling.

Banksy's 2010 exploration of street art and the art market -- whether documentary or elaborate hoax -- became the highest-grossing street art documentary ever made and earned an Academy Award nomination. By placing the hapless Thierry Guetta ("Mr. Brainwash") at its centre, the film simultaneously celebrates and savagely satirises the mechanisms by which the art world assigns value, asking questions about authenticity that remain unresolved and deliberately so.

Al Gore's 2006 slideshow-turned-film directed by Davis Guggenheim won two Academy Awards and is widely credited with bringing climate change to mainstream public consciousness. It grossed over $24 million worldwide against a $1 million budget and directly contributed to the global political momentum that led to the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit. Fourteen years on, its core scientific projections have been validated in alarming detail.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite's 2013 investigation into the captivity of killer whales at SeaWorld devastated the company's share price, triggered congressional hearings, and ultimately led SeaWorld to end its orca breeding programme entirely. The film had a theatrical gross of just $2.1 million but its streaming impact on Netflix was seismic -- a textbook case of documentary filmmaking forcing direct corporate and legislative accountability.

Joshua Oppenheimer's 2012 documentary about the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66 asked perpetrators to re-enact their atrocities in the genre styles of their choosing -- gangster film, musical, western. The resulting film is one of the most disturbing and formally daring documentaries ever made, winning a BAFTA for Best Documentary and prompting the Indonesian government to officially acknowledge the massacres for the first time.

David Gelb's 2011 portrait of 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono -- whose ten-seat basement restaurant in Tokyo holds three Michelin stars -- is a meditation on mastery, dedication, and the Japanese philosophy of shokunin. The film ignited global interest in omakase dining and is credited with contributing to the surge of Japanese cuisine's international prestige during the 2010s. It remains the most-watched culinary documentary on streaming platforms.

Morgan Spurlock's 2004 self-experiment -- eating nothing but McDonald's for 30 days -- cost $65,000 to make and earned $22 million at the box office, triggering a global debate about fast food, corporate responsibility, and the obesity epidemic. McDonald's eliminated its super-size menu option within weeks of the film's Sundance premiere, though the company denied any connection. Few films have achieved so direct and measurable a corporate response.

Ava DuVernay's 2016 Netflix documentary traces the history of racial inequality in the United States through the 13th Amendment's slavery exception clause, arguing that mass incarceration is a continuation of slavery by other means. It received an Oscar nomination -- the first documentary to open the New York Film Festival -- and became a touchstone of the Black Lives Matter movement, accumulating over 50 million views in its first year on Netflix.

Laura Poitras was already filming when Edward Snowden contacted her in 2013, making Citizenfour the only documentary to capture a mass surveillance leak in real time. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2015 and fundamentally changed public understanding of state surveillance, contributing directly to legislative reforms in multiple countries. The film itself was created under surveillance -- a meta-layer that amplifies its already extraordinary tension.

Luc Jacquet's 2005 French nature documentary about emperor penguin breeding in Antarctica earned $127 million worldwide -- an almost unimaginable figure for a nature documentary -- and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Narrated by Morgan Freeman in the English version, it brought the plight of polar ecosystems to tens of millions of viewers years before climate change became a mainstream political issue, helping establish the template for emotionally resonant wildlife storytelling.

Banksy's 2010 exploration of street art and the art market -- whether documentary or elaborate hoax -- became the highest-grossing street art documentary ever made and earned an Academy Award nomination. By placing the hapless Thierry Guetta ("Mr. Brainwash") at its centre, the film simultaneously celebrates and savagely satirises the mechanisms by which the art world assigns value, asking questions about authenticity that remain unresolved and deliberately so.