Ten Favourite Documentary Films

TEN FAVOURITE DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Documentary film has existed since the very beginnings of Cinema. The Lumiere Brothers' Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory was the first motion picture and would make way for a host of actualities. The duo saw great opportunity in the exotic and thus travelled the world filming locations that much of the world, certainly the common people of Europe, had never seen. The documentary was as much of an attraction as Georges Melies fantasy pictures. 

Overtime documentaries grew to be greater than just travelogues. Robert J. Flaherty would find luck in romanticizing the past lives of indigenous peoples with Moana and Nanook of the North. City symphony pictures, which sought to capture the lives of people in major cities, would rise to popularity in the late 20's. 

The 30's-40's saw a great rise in propaganda pictures as country after country went to war with one another. Germany had Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, which was commissioned by the Nazi party on behalf of Adolf Hitler. The allies had John Ford and Frank Capra, among others, making pictures that would entice soldiers to join the war on the allied front. 

The documentary film has never gone away in popularity. There are still critically and commercially successful films that have made tremendous impact on the world around us. Al Gore's The Inconvenient Truth, for instance, has changed the way many think about the subject of Global Warming. I have seen and been changed by many documentaries, so much that I'd love to make a list of my ten favourite documentaries. These perhaps aren't necessarily the "best", but they are films I'd show to friends if they were dipping their toes into the genre.

10. Redemption of General Butt Naked (2011)

A warlord, known for killing his enemies while naked, seeks redemption after the war by finding God. Questions about the legitimacy of his newfound faith arise.

9. Grey Gardens (1976)

Cousins of JFK go slowly insane in a decaying mansion

8. Haxan (1922)

Shows the evolution of witchcraft in a hysterical Europe

7. A Poem is a Naked Person (1974)

A trippy hippy documentary about musician Leon Russel

6. Always for Pleasure (1978)

A look at the spirit of New Orleans in the 70's

5. F For Fake (1975)

A wicked film about art forgery

4. Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)

A love letter to garlic

3. Shoah (1985) 

A Ten Hour documentary about the Holocaust

 
2. A Brief History of Time (1991)

Time, space, and philosophical discussions with Stephen Hawking

1. The Man With a Movie Camera (1929)

Revolutionary film trickey in soviet Russia