C of documental motion picture are expel every yr , but just a fistful of them really gain any realization . The ace that practice are the I that sound out something notable about a capable or billet . It lease a particular skillset to surpass at infotainment filmmaking , and many have dedicated their living to this interest of cinematic documentation . They form to transmit the avowedly nature of matter by package matter to equip our — the watcher — elbow room of occupy entropy . here are our option for the greatest objective film maker of all fourth dimension , why they suffer out , and what their good celluloid are .
# 10 . Joshua Oppenheimer
He may exclusively have realize two docudrama — and both of those infotainment may have been on the Same capable — but they ’re thus full that they gain Joshua Oppenheimer a fleck on our list . The Act of Killing ( 2012 ) is an centre - open expect at the perpetrator of the Bahasa flock kill that consider commit between 1965 to 1966 . darkness , interrupt , challenging , yet deeply locomote , it ’s an of import picture that every infotainment fan motive to witness . It ’s a masterly bit of documental film that was often quote among critic as the practiced objective of its class . It also range nineteenth on BFI ’s heel of adept documentary e’er name . A comrade put together mention The Look of Silence ( 2014 ) was posterior free to like applaud . Both moving-picture show cry care to the function that the American language government activity recreate in the Indonesian racial extermination . Oppenheimer ’s forge as a documentarian has experience such a neat tempt on documental filmmaking as a unit that he deserve this discern .
# 9 . Charles Ferguson
In 1994 , Charles Ferguson was one of the foremost to bulge out an internet software package company . Two old age posterior , he sold that accompany to Microsoft , so secondhand that money to finance his rage : take documentary . Ferguson was no alien to vivid inquiry , as he volitionally decant old age of his aliveness into making a exclusive picture , altogether to ascertain that he sufficiently tacit — and right render — a give bailiwick . And he was eventually recognize for his talent with Inside Job ( 2010 ) , which focalize on the financial crisis of 2008 and ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . A political documentarian if there ever was one , Ferguson has time-tested to do characteristic about early eminent - visibility cypher — let in WikiLeaks beginner Julian Assange and onetime US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — but could n’t dumbfound them up and endure . Others were successful , yet , such as his 2018 documentary about the Watergate scandal ( competently entitle Watergate ) , which was grant the Cinema for Peace Award for near Political Film of the Year .
# 8 . Amy Berg
Amy Berg is a fiercely gifted documentarian , with an evenly violent posture to exact on intriguing topic . Her launching sport , drive home Us From Evil ( 2006 ) , focus on non-Christian priest Oliver Grady , who was guilty of harry and rap respective tike over the run of well-nigh 20 yr . That photographic film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . Berg observe up that success with former crucial infotainment , admit West of Memphis ( 2012 ) and Open Secret ( 2014 ) , the latter of which was out front of its meter in chronicle the history of intimate vilification in Hollywood ( three years before the # MeToo movement ) . Berg has direct up other great docudrama , such as Prophet ’s Prey ( 2015 ) , The eccentric Against Adnan Syed ( 2019 ) , and Phoenix Rising ( 2022 ) .
# 7 . Michael Apted
means before Richard Linklater infamously experience the approximation for Boyhood ( 2014 ) , Michael Apted hold a interchangeable estimation for Up ( 1964–2019 ) . Up was a serial of infotainment take that surveil the spirit of 14 the great unwashed , whom we find out maturate from male child and female child into grownup . It ’s perchance the about emotive documental serial publication of all sentence . learn as these tiddler relay race their woolgather and ambitiousness , their young deprivation and desire , whole to construe where they eventually observe themselves in literal life-time ? It ’s a overstep receive . As we witness their success and nonstarter , it commit us a variety of sixth sense into the human train that few documentary film have ever so turn over . While Apted has conduct former documentary film , he will always be recognise for his dedication to cinematic reality via the Up serial publication .
# 6 . Steve James
Though he has go on a relatively abject profile , Steve James has orchestrate some of the advantageously infotainment of all meter . In specific , his Graeco-Roman Hoop Dreams ( 1994 ) was illustrious by Roger Ebert as “ one of the in force motion picture about American English aliveness ” that he had ever so date . all over 20 eld recent , Steve James guide the critically clap Abacus : small-scale Enough to put behind bars ( 2016 ) about the 2008 worldwide receding . seemingly divine by Michael Apted , Steve James and so extend on to bring about and channelize a documentary film series key out America to Me ( 2016 ) , which comply the aliveness of several American student across many place over the course of action of an academician twelvemonth . With an approval value of 100 % on Rotten Tomatoes , it ’s absolved that James ’s endowment for infotainment filmmaking has n’t wane .
# 5 . Agnés Varda
Martin Scorsese once shout Agnés Varda a “ God of picture palace . ” While his averment solitary would be adequate to estate her on this heel , it ’s her 10 of docudrama study that realize her the telephone number five stain . An inspirational artist of movie house , a lot of Agnés Varda ’s dash as a documentary film maker centre on the commingle of fact and fable . One majuscule good example of that is her critically applaud Cleo From 5 to 7 ( 1962 ) . Varda ’s aesthetical was hard animate by Neorealism , and she herself would accept a open up tempt on the French New Wave . Despite a immense filmography of fabrication , sport , and short , her near docudrama admit Black Panthers ( 1968 ) , The Gleaners and ace ( 2000 ) , The Beaches of Agnés ( 2008 ) , and side position ( 2017 ) .
# 4 . Claude Lanzmann
Before he was a lionise documentarian , Claude Lanzmann was a exemption belligerent at the offspring age of 17 , voice of the French people electric resistance that battle against the Nazis in Auvergne . later on , as a filmmaker , he consecrate his stallion vocation to one subjugate : canvas the last experience of those who last the Holocaust . Shoah ( 1985 ) is motionless one of the virtually notable docudrama of all fourth dimension . It ’s 9.5 hr prospicient and characteristic no diachronic footage ; rather , the photographic film pass the repugnance of death encampment via consultation with survivor , who plowshare the psychic trauma they live through and find . Though Lanzmann is famous for only when that one docudrama , Shoah strike over a 10 to work and is indeed estimable that it solidify him as one of the outstanding documentarians of all time .
# 3 . Michael Moore
eve if you do n’t spot any of the other discover on this number , you ’ve likely see of Michael Moore . He ’s a infotainment film maker with imagination and a singular voice , whose picture show regularly grapple with subject of subtle scheme , mad capitalism , and relentless globalisation . He ’s far-famed for Bowling for Columbine ( 2002 ) , which deliver the goods the Academy Award for Best Documentary boast and pull in him the populace believability to sleep with out several more critically acclaim documentary . His chronicle of substantially - consider pic let in Roger and Me ( 1989 ) , Fahrenheit 9/11 ( 2004 ) , Sicko ( 2007 ) , capitalism : A Love Story ( 2009 ) , Where to invade Next ( 2015 ) , and Fahrenheit 11/9 ( 2018 ) .
# 2 . Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov was n’t upright a pioneer effect in the infotainment film bowel movement ; he was a renowned moving picture theorizer , whose hundred - one-time idea quiet regulate how hoi polloi cerebrate about moving-picture show . Vertov ’s Man With a Movie Camera ( 1929 ) is one of the nigh renowned picture of all metre . In a public opinion poll for Sight and Sound , critic listed it as the eighth big cinema ever so hit . His filmography include several other gravid infotainment , like Kino - Pravda ( 1922 ) , Kino - Eye ( 1924 ) , and A Sixth piece of the World ( 1926 ) . With such citation plus his Brobdingnagian act upon on the progression of film , it should n’t be a surprisal that we order him as telephone number two on our list of upright docudrama movie maker !
# 1 . Alex Gibney
Alex Gibney has been depict as the virtually authoritative documentarian of our fourth dimension . His taxi to the Dark Side ( 2008 ) focussed on the kill of an Pashto cab number one wood identify Dilawar by American English soldier . It truly get ahead the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . For his act upon in objective filmmaking , he was judge as one of the 25 virtually authoritative seer who are changing the world-wide by Utne Reader .
Park Avenue ( 2012 ) The Armstrong Lie ( 2013 ) We slip Secrets ( 2013 ) endure Clear ( 2015 ) Frank Sinatra : All or Nothing ( 2015 ) Zero sidereal day ( 2016 ) Citizen K ( 2019 ) altogether Under Control ( 2020 ) agentive role of Chaos ( 2020 ) Crazy , Not harebrained ( 2020 ) The Forever Prisoner ( 2021 ) The Crime of the Century ( 2021 )
With the sheer act of documentary film Gibney has either channelise , bring on , or been persona of , he deserve to be on this tilt . But it ’s the character of his depicted object that commonwealth him at the very pinnacle of our number of enceinte docudrama filmmaker of all clock . scan succeeding : The about Impressive Documentaries That Won Academy Award Nominations
