It's the stuff of cliche, that the truth is often stranger than fiction, but that doesn't make it wrong. When documentaries are bad, they feel like formulaic PSAs, or dry-as-dust college essays with a single point to drive into your brain one dull interview at a time. But when they're good they ask you to consider the world from perspectives—plural—that you haven't had access to before. A good documentary can be just as rich in character as the best narrative feature, can be just as complex and persuasive as the most necessary criticism. Like all great art, it changes you.
The documentaries here are intended to cover the history of the form, as well as discuss as many subjects as possible. Think of it as a primer before you pursue the other work of the directors mentioned, or other films dealing in the same subject. These are the 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die.
Style Wars (1983)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Paris is Burning (1990)
Sherman's March (1986)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Bill Cunningham New York (2010)
Gates of Heaven (1978)
Woodstock (1970)
The Last Waltz (1978)
Hearts and Minds (1974)
West of Memphis (2012)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
The Imposter (2012)
Burden of Dreams (1982)
Grey Gardens (1975)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Best Worst Movie (2009)
Don't Look Back (1967)
American Movie (1999)
Spellbound (2002)
Food, Inc. (2008)
Super Size Me (2004)
Inside Job (2010)
Murderball (2005)
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008)
Cropsey (2009)
This Is Not a Film (2011)
When We Were Kings (1996)
4 Little Girls (1997)
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
Shoah (1985)
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)
Harlan County, USA (1976)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
Director: Kirby Dick
Like a most ornery Michael Moore, Kirby Dick is pissed at the inequalities of the Hollywood rating system and the conservative moralizing of the MPAA—and he's going to do something about it. In This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Dick interviews directors who have had their films savaged by the MPAA to discuss what this shadowy board finds unacceptable. The answer isn't surprisng: sex. But especially gay sex.
More than just providing a lesson about Hollywood (and America's) weird prudishness—you can savagely kill a character and get an R rating, but show any thrusting and you have an NC-17 on your hands—Dick tries to expose the members of the MPAA (they're sworn to secrecy). The result is an upsetting and strange detective story about film. —RS