Some stories get accessed and illuminated via documentaries that would otherwise remain untold. The subject of a documentary varies from an individual's life to a political event, so are their effect, some are uplifting, some are devastating.
However, there is one thing common in great documentaries, and that is, they are all centered around extensive research on the subject.
The 1985 legendary documentary on the Holocaust, Shoah, took 11 years to make, as the director didn't use any archival footage, rather originally recorded interviews.
With the existence of an endless & enormous selection, what are the must-watch documentaries that a person should watch?
Fortunately for you, we have made a list of 30 of the very greatest and most influential documentaries ever made.
List compiled by: Shoaib Rahman, Elizabeth Jackson, Abbey Bender, and Phil de Semlyen.
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30 of The Greatest Documentary Films of All Time
Shoah (1985)
- Director: Claude Lanzmann
- Runtime: 566 minutes
- Metascore: 99
Woodstock (1970)
- Director: Michael Wadleigh
- Runtime: 184 minutes
- Metascore: 95
Hoop Dreams (1994)
- Director: Steve James
- Runtime: 170 minutes
- Metascore: 98
Collective (2019)
- Director: Alexander Nanau
- Runtime: 109 minutes
- Metascore: 95
I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
- Director: Raoul Peck
- Runtime: 93 minutes
- Metascore: 95
Virunga (2014)
- Director: Orlando von Einsiedel
- Runtime: 100 minutes
- Metascore: 95
David Byrne's American Utopia (2020)
- Director: Spike Lee
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 105 minutes
The Look of Silence (2014)
- Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
- Metascore: 92
- Runtime: 103 minutes
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Metascore: 91
- Runtime: 99 minutes
One More Time with Feeling (2016)
- Director: Andrew Dominik
- Metascore: 92
- Runtime: 113 minutes
Stop Making Sense (1984)
- Director: Jonathan Demme
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 88 minutes
For Sama (2019)
- Directors: Waad Al-Kataeb, Edward Watts
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 100 minutes
Faces Places (2017)
- Directors: JR, Agnès Varda
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 94 minutes
We Were Here (2011)
- - Directors: David Weissman, Bill Weber
- - Stacker score: 93.0
- - Metascore: 94
- - IMDb user rating: 7.9
- - Runtime: 90 minutes
Sherpa (2015)
- Director: Jennifer Peedom
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 96 minutes
Crumb (1994)
- Director: Terry Zwigoff
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 119 minutes
The Act of Killing (2012)
- Directors: Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, and Anonymous
- Metascore: 91
- Runtime: 117 minutes
Tower (2016)
- Director: Keith Maitland
- Metascore: 92
- Runtime: 82 minutes
Waltz with Bashir (2008)
- Director: Ari Folman
- Metascore: 91
- Runtime: 90 minutes
My Voyage to Italy (1999)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 246 minutes
Minding the Gap (2018)
- Director: Bing Liu
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 93 minutes
Amazing Grace (2018)
- Directors: Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 89 minutes
No End in Sight (2007)
- Director: Charles Ferguson
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 102 minutes
Inside Job (2010)
- Director: Charles Ferguson
- Metascore: 88
- Runtime: 109 minutes
Apollo 11 (2019)
- Director: Todd Douglas Miller
- Metascore: 88
- Runtime: 93 minutes
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
- Director: Penelope Spheeris
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 100 minutes
The Last Waltz (1978)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 88
- Runtime: 117 minutes
The Gatekeepers (2012)
- Director: Dror Moreh
- Metascore: 91
- Runtime: 101 minutes
Brother's Keeper (1992)
- Directors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 104 minutes
Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
- Director: Morgan Neville
- Metascore: 85
- Runtime: 95 minutes
