Since 1952, the British film magazine Sight & Sound has published a much-discussed once-a-decade survey of the greatest films of all time. This summer they limited the scope of their inquiry for the first time, asking critics, programmers and filmmakers to choose masterworks solely from the world of nonfiction. The results were announced a couple weeks ago in two Top 50 lists of The Greatest Documentaries of All Time, one for critics and one for filmmakers. Both lists crowned Dziga Vertov’s dazzling impression of city life in the early Soviet Union, Man with a Movie Camera, as the greatest documentary ever made.
This new canon, whatever its shortcomings, provides an excellent starting point for an education in nonfiction cinema. But focusing exclusively on the “Greatest Docs” lists misses most of the fun of this sort of exercise. The individual ballots, unranked lists of ten films submitted by each participate, allow you to consider which works resonate most profoundly with each individual, trace important influence and reference points for filmmakers and perhaps discover an overlooked masterpiece from another part of the globe.
Just a few days ago Sight & Sound shared all of the individual ballots on a nifty new interactive page, which offers multiple pathways to explore the poll and its films.
True/False programmers David Wilson and Chris Boeckmann were among those honored with invitations to participate. We reproduced Chris and David’s picks below, along with images from the works of nonfiction they consider the “greatest”. They only selected one film in common, the tragically under seen Disorder. Huang Weikai’s nightmarish epic of urban life in modern China screened at True/False in 2010.
Beneath Chris and David’s lists, we shared selections from many of the filmmakers surveyed whose work has screened at our festival. The ballots include comments offered by the participant, either about their lists as a whole or each individual film or both.
Chris Boeckmann, T/F Programmer
Film culture marginalises nonfiction cinema. I suspect one reason is that we feel more comfortable analysing and evaluating screenplays, sets and performances (work we attribute to conscientious artists) than unscripted developments, natural settings and fellow human beings. In the past year, I’ve noticed some signs, including this poll, that nonfiction cinema’s cachet is on the rise. I’m not sure why, but I hope I’m correct.
I spend most of my viewing time watching ‘documentary’ (I suppose I should note that several of the directors on my list don’t use this term, e.g. Allan King’s ‘actuality dramas’, Sergei Dvortsevoy’s ‘life cinema’). That’s not because of its educational value (I also read newspapers), but because I find it thrilling to watch gifted cinematographers and editors embrace spontaneity and wrestle with nature. I mean ‘nature’ in a very broad sense: plants, animals, buildings, weather, disease, time, other humans, ourselves.
Apologies to the many major filmmakers I’ve knowingly and unknowingly left off this rough list. If I revisited this prompt in the morning, the only film I’m certain would remain is Seventeen.
Seventeen (1984) Joel DeMott, Jeff Kreines
Belovy (1994, T/F 2012) Viktor Kossakovsky
Gimme Shelter (1970) David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
Farrebique (1946) Georges Rouquier
A Moment of Innocence (1995, T/F 2014) Mohsen Makhmalbaf
The Quince Tree Sun (1992) Víctor Erice
A Married Couple (1969) Allan King
Disorder (2009, T/F 2010) Huang Weikai
Diary 1973-83 (1988) David Perlov
Khlebny Dyen (1998) Sergey Dvortsevoy
David Wilson, T/F Programmer and Co-Conspirator
My list is in no particular order. Nor does it include many wonderful films. But I think it connects the dots of my personal film history, dwelling more on films that were made during my lifetime but acknowledging the great works that inspired those who inspired me. And if there are holes, well, it would be a shame to think that my education in nonfiction filmmaking was in any way complete.
I will almost always favour a film that moves me over one that doesn’t, but I strive to still appreciate and embrace the intellectual rigour of some of these films. Likewise, I remain a complete sucker for a beautiful image and a well-told story. I want a film that will scoop me up in its arms and carry me out along its path. The great ones never drop you.
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Dziga Vertov
My appreciation may be more intellectual than visceral, but here is the taproot of everything that was to come.
Disorder (2009, T/F 2010) Huang Weikai
An explosive mindfuck of a film. Modern China reflected in a puddle of oil and viscera.
Man on Wire (2007, T/F 2008) James Marsh
Of all these titles, this is one I will watch over and over again – smiling and crying each time.
Leviathan (2012, T/F 2013) Lucien Taylor, Véréna Paravel
Nothing less than a revolution in nonfiction cinema. Also the most ‘metal’ film on this list.
The Gleaners and I (2000) Agnès Varda
Vernon, Florida (1981) Errol Morris
Others will no doubt pick The Thin Blue Line. But there’s a good argument to be made that, formally, this film has influenced more young directors in the last 30 years than any of his other films.
Gaea Girls (2002, T/F 2009) Kim Longinotto, Jano Williams
Somewhere between Barthes and Von Trier lies this doc about women’s professional wrestling, made by the most empathetic doc director alive.
Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) Barbara Kopple
Not as funny as Roger & Me, but far more immediate in its class-based anger. And with better songs.
Grey Gardens (1975) David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer
Staked the claim for ‘non-political’ docs and their importance in the world.
Night Mail (1936, T/F 2007) Harry Watt, Basil Charles Wright
The creative treatment of actuality.
Ballots from some of the T/F Filmmakers Surveyed:
Clio Barnard, director of The Arbor (T/F 2012)
These are all films that have a significant meaning for me – films that were pivotal personally in wrestling with what documentary film is and what it can do. They are listed in no particular order…
Chronicle of a Summer (1961) Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin
Paris Is Burning (1990) Jennie Livingston
Dreams of a Life (2011) Carol Morley
Grey Gardens (1975) David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer
Housing Problems (1935) Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey
Louyre This Our Still Life (2011) Andrew Kötting
The Thin Blue Line (1989) Errol Morris
Tina Goes Shopping (1999) Penny Woolcock
The Battle of Orgreave (2002) Mike Figgis
The Last Bolshevik (1993) Chris Marker
Daniel Dencik, director of Expedition to the End of the World (T/F 2013)
What strikes me when putting together a list like this is not so much how dependent a film is upon a great director, but how crucial the main character is. For me the secret of a well-crafted documentary lies very much in the use and perspective of the first-person singular. When a documentary film really succeeds it is when the spectator is led into the captivating mind of a truly intriguing persona: as a spectator you get an idea of what it means to be that person, unfiltered and with a chilling honesty. Documentary are so great because they make you understand how another person’s mind works, what are that person’s dreams, struggles, demons, fears, idiosyncrasies. No other art form can step into the mind of another person in quite that way. So instead of comparing documentary filmmaking to fiction, one should perhaps rather compare the discipline to that of brain surgery or heart transplantation.
Grizzly Man (2005) Werner Herzog
The strange and unforgettable presence of Timothy Treadwell makes this film a terrifying fable about the longing of man to find his place in nature, and the impossibility that lies in the nature of this ambition.
Into the Abyss A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life (2011) Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog transforms the cruel reality of two death-row inmates into a staggering lesson in compassion and empathy.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) Werner Herzog
Dieter Dengler is one of those characters that has gone from total obscurity into the mythology of modern filmmaking, all because of Werner Herzog’s film.
Armadillo (2010, T/F 2011) Janus Metz
Armadillo is a gripping tale of the boyish will to live life to the fullest – in this case the inexplicable drive to sacrifice your life in a far-away war – cleverly told in a powerful and rough cinematic language by Janus Metz.
A Springday in Hell (1977) Jørgen Leth
This gritty film about the Paris-Roubaix race captured the inner feeling of the greatest of all sports, bicycle racing. Blood, mud, tears, sweat and glory all come together in this masterpiece of heartbreaking beauty.
When We Were Kings (1996) Leon J. Gast
With tremendously sexy footage from the 1974 heavyweight fight between Ali and Foreman, this sports doc is the one film to show the aliens when they arrive and ask what we humans are all about.
Metallica Some Kind of Monster (2004, T/F 2004) Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
An honest and at times painfully embarrassing look into the everyday life and struggles of arguably one of the greatest bands on Earth.
Senna (2010) Asif Kapadia
Whether you’re a petrolhead or not you become totally captivated by the Jesus-like presence of Ayrton Senna, and the film draws a precise portrait of the mind of a true legend.
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012) Sophie Huber
Dark and pessimistic, Harry Dean Stanton enters into your consciousness through this tender film and makes you fall helplessly in love with him.
Searching for Sugar Man (2012, T/F 2012) Malik Bendjelloul
A remarkable film about how one of the greatest talents of folk songwriting, Sixto Rodriguez, could disappear into obscurity before he even broke through – and then be rediscovered through the very making of this charming film.
Robert Greene, director of Kati with an I (T/F 2010), Fake it So Real (T/F 2011) and Actress (T/F 2014)
Edvard Munch (1976) Peter Watkins
Peter Watkins’ expressive biopic about the great Norwegian artist features real interviews, an elusive, mesmerizing structure and has the soul of great nonfiction.
The Store (1983) Frederick Wiseman
Frederick Wiseman is one of our greatest artists and his entire filmography is a singular, essential dissection of the very structure and concept of the American institution. The Store just happens to be his funniest, most revelatory film, and my favourite for the moment.
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) Kon Ichikawa
A completely perfect film, which observes the truths and illusions of the sporting human frame.
The Century of Self (2003) Adam Curtis
An essay film about identity and the creation of commodified individualism that’s as expressive and mysterious as it is illuminating.
News from Home (1976) Chantal Akerman
Less a documentary than a structuralist performance piece, masterful as an earthy, austere symphony of New York City, quietly devastating as a mediation on loneliness and alienation.
Belovy (1994, T/F 2012) Viktor Kossakovsky
Kossakovsky’s observational camera finds truth, mystery, sadness, desperation and uproarious life in rural Russia.
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) Jonas Mekas
Impossibly personal while profoundly universal, the great Jonas Mekas gives a glorious, emotional, living cinema romp through his own life and our collective consciousness.
The Battle of Chile (1975) Patricio Guzmán
A devastating, present-tense political portrait of a society on the brink, still relevant as an invaluable historical document as it is an immersive, eternal cinematic experience.
A Married Couple (1969) Allan King
Essential direct cinema genius Allan King creates an intimate, hilarious, troubling portrait of a failing marriage that simultaneously heralded the new documentary intimacy, foregrounded the role of performance in nonfiction and laid down the template for reality TV.
Salesman (1968) Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
The film that started it all for nonfiction storytelling and started it all for my personal understanding of the power of reality cinema. The camera is always in the right place.
Viktor Kossakovsky, recipient of the True Vision Award at T/F 2012, director of Belovy, Vivan Las Antipodas! (T/F 2012) and Demonstration (T/F 2014)
The film that started it all for nonfiction storytelling and started it all for my personal understanding of the power of reality cinema. The camera is always in the right place.
This is a list I made for screening at IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) in 2012, here in order of importance to me.
They’re films that challenged me both when I first saw them and again when I revisited them. Instead of trying to tell you something, they try to show you something.
If you were to add up all the new elements these films have added to the language of cinema, you would have the perfect documentary alphabet.
Ten Minutes Older (1978) Herz Frank
Man of Aran (1934) Robert Flaherty
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Dziga Vertov
Spiritual Voices (1996) Aleksandr Sokurov
Workingman’s Death (2005) Michael Glawogger
Seasons (1975) Artavasd Peleschjan
Position among the Stars (2010) Leonard Retel Helmrich
Look at his Face (1966) Pavel Kogan
Our Mother is a Hero (1979) Nikolai Obukhovich
A Tram Runs through the City (1973) Ludmila Stanukinas
Kevin MacDonald, director of Touching the Void (T/F 2004) and Life in a Day (T/F 2011)
Gimme Shelter (1970) David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
I love the fact that the editor, Charlotte Zwerin, gets a directing credit on this. So often in documentaries the editor is at least as important to the finished film as the director. I think this is the best film ever made about performance – but it also manages to say so much about the hippy dream turning sour and the power of the image.
Nespatrene (1997) Miroslav Janek
The Unseen is generally unseen but is a film that had an enormous impact on me when I saw it at the inaugural It’s All True doc festival in Brazil. It tells the story of blind children who become obsessed with taking photographs.
Now (1965) Santiago Álvarez
The most potent campaigning film ever made. Only five minutes long it is raw, technically innovative and angry. The Lena Horne song that it is based around is forever stuck in my head.
Listen to Britain (1942) Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister
Humphrey Jennings was a genius at yanking together unexpected images – the John Donne of cinema. This film is pure poetry and makes patriotism seem not just acceptable but admirable.
The Thin Blue Line (1989) Errol Morris
I love its intelligence, its coolness and its humour. It influenced every film I have ever made.
When We Were Kings (1996) Leon J. Gast
The most exciting and uplifting non-fiction experience I have had in a cinema
Darwin’s Nightmare (2004) Hubert Sauper
An imaginative, fiendishly gothic tale about the the survival of the fittest and the Nile Perch.
Roger & Me (1989) Michael Moore
Michael Moore brought entertainment back into documentary films – and made it the strange bedfellow of anger.
Hotel Terminus (Klaus Barbie, His Life and Times) (1988) Marcel Ophüls
Ophüls is a genius and I could just have easily chosen Sorrow and The Pity for this list.
Waltz with Bashir (2008, T/F 2009) Ari Fulman
Because it did something new.
James Marsh, recipient of the True Vision Award at T/F 2011, director of Man on Wire (T/F 2008), Wisconsin Death Trip, The Burger and the King and Project Nim (T/F 2011).
Each of these films seems to me to enlarge on the possibilities of the medium and each of the filmmakers (with the exception of Ari Folman) has a whole body of work that I revere and admire. The other characteristic they all share is a commitment to the poetry and power of the visual image, both discovered and created. They are all truly cinematic films in every respect.
If there is one filmmaker on this list who stands above the others as a documentarian, for me, it would be Frederick Wiseman. As soon as a Wiseman film starts you know you are with the perfect guide – his editing rhythms are poised and hypnotic, and his attention to detail and to the primacy of the potent, revelatory image is constant and surprising. Above all, it his generosity and respect towards his characters that distinguishes his work. Interestingly, for a filmmaker who has no use for the adornments of score or created imagery, he describes his works as ‘reality fictions’. I can’t think of a better description of the documentary medium or indeed a better alibi for us all.
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Dziga Vertov
Le Sang des bêtes (1948) Georges Franju
The War Game (1985) Peter Watkins, Peter Watkins
Salesman (1968) Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
Hospital (1970) Frederick Wiseman
Fata Morgana (1971) Werner Herzog
The Battle of Chile (1975) Patricio Guzmán
The Thin Blue Line (1989) Errol Morris
My Winnipeg (2007) Guy Maddin
Waltz with Bashir (2008, T/F 2009) Ari Fulman
Michal Marczak, director of At the Edge of Russia (T/F 2011)
The Five Obstructions (2003) Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier, Jørgen Leth
Close-up (1989, T/F 2014) Abbas Kiarostami
Moi, un Noir (1959) Jean Rouch
Sympathy for the Devil (1968) Jean-Luc Godard
Jak Zyc (1977) Marcel Lozinski
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) Werner Herzog
Khlebny Dyen (1998) Sergey Dvortsevoy
Gimme Shelter (1970) David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
Ya tebya lyublyu (2011) Pavel Kostomarov, Alexander Rastorguev
Faits Divers (1983) Raymond Depardon
Jesse Moss, director of Speedo (T/F 2004) and The Overnighters (T/F 2014)
Salesman (1968) Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) Barbara Kopple
The Thin Blue Line (1989) Errol Morris
Bowling for Columbine (2002) Michael Moore
Woodstock 3 Days of Peace & Music (1970) Michael Wadleigh
Dont Look Back (1967) D.A. Pennebaker
Crumb (1994) Terry Zwigoff
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Dziga Vertov
The Cause (1990) Ken Burns
Burden of Dreams (1982) Les Blank
Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing (T/F 2013)
My list of 10 arbitrarily excludes these films:
Jean Rouch’s Jaguar (1967)
Patricio Guzmán’s The Battle of Chile (1975)
Jon Bang Carlsen’s Hotel of the Stars (1981)
Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA (1976)
Imamura Shohei’s History of Postwar Japan Told by a Bar Hostess (1970) and A Man Vanishes (1967)
Marcel Ophüls’s The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)
Rithy Panh’s S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003)
The Maysles brothers’ Grey Gardens (1975)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon (2000)
Hara Kazuo’s The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)
Ira Wohl’s Best Boy (1979)
Ulrich Seidl’s Losses to Be Expected (1992)
Harmony Korine’s Gummo (1997)
Sergei Dvortsevoy’s Bread Day (1998)
Dusan Makavejev’s Innocence Unprotected (1968)
Whenever we film anybody, they stage themselves, acting out fantasies – half-remembered, second-hand, third-rate – that they wished they fulfilled. The films I’ve chosen teach us that the ‘state of nature’ for nonfiction film is to reveal, prism-like, how fiction always constitutes our ‘facts’. These filmmakers deploy their camera not to record, but to provoke, and in the process have the courage to immerse themselves in the manic, delirious and tragic play of fantasies that make us what we are – inevitably and assuredly staggering out of the darkness into blinding truths.
Titicut Follies (1967) Frederick Wiseman
Close-up (1989) Abbas Kiarostami
Shoah (1985) Claude Lanzmann
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) Werner Herzog
W.R. – Mysteries of the Organism (1971) Dusan Makavejev
Animal Love (1996) Ulrich Seidl
Gates of Heaven (1978) Errol Morris
The Apple (1997) Samira Makhmalbaf
The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) Fernando Solanas
The Perfumed Nightmare (1976) Kidlat Tahimik
Jessica Oreck, director of The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga (T/F 2014)
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) Kon Ichikawa
Tokyo-Ga (1985) Wim Wenders
Vive le Tour (1962) Jacques Ertaud, Louis Malle
The House Is Black (1962) Forough Farokhzad
Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1988) Harun Farocki
Love Life of the Octopus (1965) Jean Painlevé, Geneviève Hamon
The Voice of the Water (1966) Bert Haanstra
Herman Slobbe – Blind Kind II (1966) Johan van der Keuken
Microcosmos (1996) Claude Nuridsany, Marie Pérennou
Burden of Dreams (1982) Les Blank
Anders Ostergaard, director of Burma VJ (T/F 2008)
The Fog of War Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003, T/F 2004) Errol Morris
Night Mail (1936) Harry Watt, Basil Charles Wright
Être et Avoir (2002) Nicolas Philibert
Startup.Com (2001) Jehane Noujaim, Chris Hegedus
Last Train Home (2009, T/F 2010) Lixin Fan
Waltz with Bashir (2008, T/F 2009) Ari Fulman
Man on Wire (2007, T/F 2008) James Marsh
Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance (1983) Godfrey Reggio
Bowling for Columbine (2002) Michael Moore
Olympia (1938) Leni Riefenstahl