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[subzero9285]

A top 25 from Paste magazine.

25. Food, Inc. (2009)
24. Dig! (2004)
23. Gleaners and I (2000)
22. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006)
21. No End In Sight (2007)
20. No Direction Home (2005)
19. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
18. Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)
17. The White Diamond (2004)
16. God Grew Tired of Us (2007)
15. Super Size Me (2004)
14. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
13. Jesus Camp (2006)
12. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
11. Born into Brothels (2004)
10. Waltz with Bashir (2008)
9. Murderball (2005)
8. Spellbound (2002)
7. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
6. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
5. Bowling For Columbine (2002)
4. The Fog of War (2003)
3. Grizzly Man (2005)
2. Iraq in Fragments (2007)
1. Man On Wire (2008)

Source


My personal top ten

Life Of Mammals

The Life of Mammals is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 20 November 2002.

A study of the evolution and habits of the various mammal species, it was the fourth of Attenborough's specialised surveys following his major trilogy that began with Life on Earth. Each of the ten episodes looks at one (or several closely related) mammal groups and discusses the different facets of their day-to-day existence. All the programmes are of 50 minutes' duration except the last, which extends to 59 minutes.

The mammals are such a widespread, varied and successful group of animals that Attenborough had previously devoted no fewer than five episodes of Life on Earth to them. Nevertheless, there was much that remained untold and behaviour that was hitherto unfilmed. The Life of Mammals was intended to be his definitive account of the subject.

Attenborough took on the series at the suggestion of the BBC Natural History Unit. The naturalist's wife, Jane, had died in 1997, midway through the making of The Life of Birds, which had caused its postponement. However, Attenborough had been grateful for the fact that there was still work to be done to ensure its completion. Similarly, he was glad of another opportunity to keep himself occupied.

Despite his age, Attenborough travelled just as extensively as in all his previous productions, with each episode leapfrogging to a multitude of locations around the world.

The filming, as ever, provided many challenges. To capture footage for the first time of skunks foraging in a cave of bats, extra protective measures had to be taken for the crew, as it was a very hostile environment. The air was full of ammonia, the main occupants urinated copiously from above, and other inhabitants included flesh-eating maggots and a rattlesnake.

For a sequence featuring grizzly bears at close quarters, the camera team were accompanied by Buck Wilde, an ursine specialist. When a bear was too inquisitive he was able to command it to turn away simply by raising his hands. However, a cameraman confessed that at the time, he was sure there would come a moment when the animal would just continue towards them regardless.

To get themselves up into the canopy of a tropical rainforest the crew used a catapult to fire a fishing line 100 metres into the uppermost branches. This was then attached to a rope and pulley counterbalance system. The difficulties involved were first actually finding an ideal tree, and then, having settled on one, watching out for passing snakes and primates en route to the top.

Big cats that hunt nocturnally, such as lions, leopards and tigers, had never been extensively filmed doing so before. But the latest infrared technology revealed behaviour that had previously been guessed at from evidence discovered the next day. The series was among the first to benefit from the features of digital television. After each episode's transmission on BBC One, terrestrial viewers were shown a ten-minute featurette on an aspect of its making. Those with digital equipment had the option of switching to an interactive quiz, hosted by Attenborough.

Blue Planet

The Blue Planet is a BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 12 September 2001.

Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world's oceans", each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of marine life. The underwater photography included creatures and behaviour that had previously never been filmed.

The series won multiple Emmy and BAFTA TV awards for its music and cinematography[3].

The series was produced in conjunction with the Discovery Channel. The executive producer was Alastair Fothergill and the music was composed by George Fenton.

The series took almost five years to make, involving nearly 200 filming locations. The fact that most of the ocean environment remains a mystery presented the production team with many challenges. Besides witnessing animal behaviour for the first time, the crew also observed some that were new to science. The producers were helped by marine scientists all over the world with state of the art equipment.

Blue whales — whose migration routes were previously unknown — were located by air, after some of the animals had been given temporary radio tags. The camera team spent three years on standby, using a microlight to land on the water nearby when they finally caught up with the creatures in the Gulf of California. The open ocean proved more difficult and over 400 days were invested in often unsuccessful filming trips. After six weeks, the crew chanced upon a school of spinner dolphins, which in turn led them to a shoal of tuna. Off Mexico, the behaviour of a flock of frigatebirds guided the cameramen to a group of sailfish and marlin: the fastest inhabitants of the sea. Near the coast of Natal in South Africa, the team spent two seasons attempting to film the annual sardine run, a huge congregation of predators such as sharks and dolphins that assembles to feast on the migrating fish by corralling them into 'bait balls'. Meanwhile, in Monterey Bay, orca were documented trapping grey whales and killing a calf. Filming in the deep ocean required the use of special submersibles. One of them enabled the crew to dive over a mile into the San Diego trench, where the carcass of a 40-ton grey whale had been placed to attract a large variety of scavengers.

Upon its first transmission on BBC One, over 12 million people watched the series and it regularly achieved an audience share of over 30%.

Planet Earth

Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Four years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition.The series was co-produced by the Discovery Channel and NHK in association with CBC, and was described by its makers as "the definitive look at the diversity of our planet".

Planet Earth was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One in March 2006, and premiered one year later in the USA on the Discovery Channel. By June 2007, it had been shown in 130 countries worldwide.The original BBC version was narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Alastair Fothergill. For Discovery, the executive producer was Maureen Lemire, with Sigourney Weaver's voiceover replacing Attenborough.

The series comprises eleven episodes, each of which features a global overview of a different habitat on Earth. At the end of each fifty-minute episode, a ten-minute featurette takes a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of filming the series.

Life In The Undergrowth

Life in the Undergrowth is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 23 November 2005.

A study of the evolution and habits of invertebrates, it was the fifth of Attenborough's specialised surveys following his major trilogy that began with Life on Earth. Each of the five 50-minute episodes looks at a group (or aspect) of the creatures using innovative photographic techniques.

The series was produced in conjunction with Animal Planet. The executive producer was Mike Gunton and the music was composed by Ben Salisbury and David Poore.

Invertebrates had been largely ignored by filmmakers in the past, due to the difficulties in filming them, but advances in lens and camera technology gave the makers an opportunity to film the creatures at their level. The series features a balance of everyday European invertebrates such as the wolf spider and housefly and more exotic varieties such as the redback spider of Australia and venomous centipedes of the Amazon. This was the first time that such animals had been photographed at such a high level of detail for television (some sequences were filmed in high definition format), and provided not only casual viewers but also scientists with a new understanding of certain species' behaviour.

Man On Wire

Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Philippe Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, recently released in paperback with the new title Man on Wire. The title of the movie is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance had lasted for almost one hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside reenactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants.

It competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Life In Cold Blood

Life in Cold Blood is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 4 February 2008 on BBC One.

A study of the evolution and habits of amphibians and reptiles, it is the sixth and last of Attenborough's specialised surveys following his major trilogy that began with Life on Earth.

The series comprises five 50-minute programmes, each one followed by Under the Skin, a 10-minute section that features Attenborough interviewing the scientists whose work has led to the sequences included in the main programme. It also examines the challenges faced by the crew and reveals some of the techniques used to film the series.

The series is a co-production between the BBC and Animal Planet. The executive producer is Sara Ford and the series producer is Miles Barton. The Under the Skin segments were produced by James Brickell in collaboration with the Open University The score for the main films was composed by David Poore and Ben Salisbury, whilst the music for Under the Skin was written and performed by Tony Briscoe.

The series won the 2009 BAFTA Television Award in the Specialist Factual category.Within David Attenborough's 'Life' series, it is preceded by Life in the Undergrowth (2005).

Root Of All Evil

The Root of All Evil? is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that humanity would be better off without religion or belief in God.

The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45-minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks), on Channel 4 in the UK.

Dawkins has said that the title The Root of All Evil? was not his preferred choice, but that Channel 4 had insisted on it to create controversy.The sole concession from the producers on the title was the addition of the question mark. Dawkins has stated that the notion of anything being the root of all evil is ridiculous.Dawkins's book The God Delusion (re-using the title for Part 1 of this documentary), released in September 2006, goes on to examine the topics raised in the documentary in greater detail.

Himalaya With Michael Palin

Himalaya with Michael Palin was a 2004 BBC television series presented by comedian and travel presenter Michael Palin. It records his six-month trip around the Himalaya mountain range area. The trip covered only 3,000 miles (4,800 km) horizontally, but involved a lot of vertical traveling, including several treks up into the mountains. The highest point attained by Michael Palin was Everest Base Camp at 17,500 feet (5,300 meters).

A book by the same name written by Palin was published to accompany the series. This book contained both Palin's text and many pictures by Basil Pao, the stills photographer on the team. Basil Pao also produced a separate book of the photographs he took during the journey, Inside Himalaya, a large coffee-table style book printed on glossy paper.

Waltz With Bashir

Waltz with Bashir is a 2008 Israeli animated documentary film written and directed by Ari Folman. It depicts Folman in search of his lost memories from the 1982 Lebanon War.

This film and $9.99, also released in 2008, are the first Israeli animated feature-length films released in movie theaters since Alina and Yoram Gross's Ba'al Hahalomot (1962). Waltz with Bashir premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it entered the competition for the Palme d'Or, and since then has won and been nominated for many additional important awards while receiving wide acclaim from critics. It won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, an NSFC Award for Best Film, a César Award for Best Foreign Film and an IDA Award for Feature Documentary, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and an Annie Award for Best Animated Feature.

The Genius of Charles Darwin

The Genius of Charles Darwin is a three-part television documentary, written and presented by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

It was first shown in August 2008 on Channel 4. It won Best TV Documentary Series 2008 at the British Broadcast Awards in January 2009.

Honourable mentions;

• Tribe
• Galápagos
• Sahara With Michael Palin
• Cousins, by Charlotte Uhlenbroek
• Jungle, Charlotte Uhlenbroek
• James May on the Moon
• Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture
• Last Chance to See
• Congo
• The Lost Gods of Easter Island
• Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
• Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
• Walking with Beasts
• Walking with Monsters
• The Secret Life of Elephants
• The Universe
• The Cove
• The Staircase
• Dear Zachary
• In The Shadow Of The Moon
• Deadline
• Street Fight
• Murder on a Sunday Morning
• Louis Theroux's various series, including The Most Hated Family in America

And "Life" brings the decade to a wonderful end.

 

[Barrage]

My vote would go to The Devil And Daniel Johnson.

 

[JoeBoy101]

Was wondering why One Day in September was not included, but saw it got released in Oct 1999 in the US. Nonetheless:

The 1972 Munich Olympics were interrupted by Palestinian terrorists taking Israeli athletes hostage. Besides footage taken at the time, we see interviews with the surviving terrorist, Jamal Al Gashey, and various officials detailing exactly how the police, lacking an anti-terrorist squad and turning down help from the Israelis, botched the operation.

Narrated by Michael Douglas, this video is shocking with how inept the Germans were to handle the situation.

 

[soyboy]

Fog of War is probably my favorite documentary of the past ten years.

 

[StuBurns]

I loved The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

 

[Applesauce]

I have "The Union: The Business of Getting High" coming to me from Netflix later this week, I've heard nothing but good things about it - anyone ever seen it?

 

[Spider from Mars]

Man on Wire is the best, good job list!

 

[Blader]

Man on Wire

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

 

[C4Lukins]

I have "The Union: The Business of Getting High" coming to me from Netflix later this week, I've heard nothing but good things about it - anyone ever seen it?

It is decent. Very unfocused but at least interesting.

Fog of War would be my top doc of the decade. I still need to see half of the movies on that list.

 

[DrForester]

 

[Ondore]

Disappointed that "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" didn't make the list.

 

[Tim the Wiz]

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear - Adam Curtis, BBC. (2004)

 

[eggandI]

I thought Grizzly Man was hilarious

 

[Zozz]

They forgot Loose Change.

 

[Salazar]

'The Staircase', the 2004 documentary series about the Michael Peterson murder trial.

 

[bucknuticus]

Grizzly Man was really really good, I caught it on Discovery channel on its initial showing, and went out and bought it afterwards.

 

[ToxicAdam]

Capturing the Freidman's is overrated. Interesting, but not really poignant or moving.

 

[xbhaskarx]

No Dear Zachary?

These are my favorite documentaries of the decade from that list, not in order:

24. Dig! (2004)
12. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
9. Murderball (2005)
8. Spellbound (2002)
6. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
4. The Fog of War (2003)
3. Grizzly Man (2005)

 

[Mission]

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
Long Way Round
Long Way Down

 

[Dan]

How do you make a list like this and include shit like Michael Moore's sensationalistic/manipulative crap and the like (see: Super Size Me) and not something like The Cove?

 

[Spire]

Decent list, although it's missing

 

[xbhaskarx]

How do you make a list like this and include shit like Michael Moore's sensationalistic/manipulative crap and the like (see: Super Size Me) and not something like The Cove?

I couldn't agree more.

 

[way more]

The Great Happiness Space.

As good as anything Erol Morris has done. It's about shallow, husks of humanity. Eaters of human progress and growth and yet it the film never judges. That is the mark of a proper documentary.

A docu that made me feel for the people despite complete indifference and even scorn for it's followers is Beyond the Mat. I never thought of wrestling fans as people before I watched it.



Also, it's kinda weird you put nature documentaries in your list. Am I right? Or wrong?

 

[Jackson50]

Grizzly Man
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Jesus Camp

Although there were other excellent documentaries produced during this decade, those three are my top three of the decade,

 

[maliedoo]

Epic win.

 

[eggandI]

Fog of War
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire

Would be my picks for best of the decade. I love ancient history docs, but it's very hard to find ones that aren't crap about ancient aliens, 2012, atlantis, ancient astronauts, etc. Pisses me off. I've only recently started with PBS's Empires, first being Japan as I listed. I'll have to check out the others soon but if they are as good as the Japan one, they'll surely be on my list.

 

[DieH@rd]

Man on Wire is indeed full of awesome.

 

[joshcryer]

Awesome post. I've seen at least half of these (big doco freak). Props for mentioning The Cove, I read the whole post and was frustrated it wasn't mentioned, but it was there at the end, so good stuff.

I'd also nominate Manufactured Landscapes and Home, too.

Also, I would add that while In The Shadow of the Moon is an epic and awesome journey, a better documentary series on the same topic would have to be When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions. It completely obliterates the former, perhaps solely because there is just more time to tell the story (it's a 6 part series).

I also saw Big River Man recently, and while it is low caliber (editing wise) it does tell a good story of a very strange man with amazing strength and willpower. And check out Mine Your Own Business, which puts a different take on what people in poor countries think about big multi-nationals.

Ahah, another edit, another left out in this is Nanking (2007).

 

[Extollere]

I really loved the Genius of Darwin. First episode wasn't so great, but the other two were amazing. Dawkins reading the hate mail was good too. My wife and I always jokingly call people "you blasphemy!" behind their backs now.

 

[Extollere]

I wanted to add this:

http://www.home-2009.com/us/index.html

Home is a 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is almost entirely composed of aerial shots of various places on Earth. It shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet. The movie was released simultaneously on June 5, 2009 in cinemas across the globe, on DVD, Blu-ray, television, and on YouTube. Opening in 181 countries, the film broke the world record for the largest film release in history.

Especially since it can be seen for free on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

 

[Corky]

omg thank you soo much for this thread !<3

 

[Enosh]

no Metal: A Headbanger's Journey or Global Metal

 

[NZer]

Capturing the Freidman's is overrated. Interesting, but not really poignant or moving.

I really don't understand how you can feel that way

 

[EatChildren]

Metalocalypse.

 

[rudii]

wait... Grizzly Man was a legitimate documentary?? i seriously thought it was a mockumentary. i thought it was hilarious.

also the narrators voice always makes me think of that really bad actor from 'the room'

 

[firehawk12]

Wow, I watched everything on the top ten. I'm genuinely surprised, since I'm pretty much out of touch. :lol

I can understand the love for Man on Wire though. It's just a great story.

 

[eggandI]

wait... Grizzly Man was a legitimate documentary?? i seriously thought it was a mockumentary. i thought it was hilarious.

also the narrators voice always makes me think of that really bad actor from 'the room'

Yeah I don't get it. It's supposed to be a full on dramatic documentary now? That sheriff that found his head or whatever basically said he was a retard. Dude was fucking batshit.. who the hell talks to grizzly bears like they're talking to dogs?

 

[clockpunk]

Eben the non-gamers I have shown King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters to have loved it - the psychology behind such competition, mostly, and the seemn bias tactics of Twin Galaxy. Infotainment how it should be.

I still hope that we see moe footage of a similar ilk from Seth Gordon - after all, he was following more than just Steve Wiebe for his documentary, but his story just shot into glory with the events as they unfolded. I'd like to now more abut the others.

 

[itsinmyveins]

How do you make a list like this and include shit like Michael Moore's sensationalistic/manipulative crap and the like (see: Super Size Me) and not something like The Cove?

I dunno man, I think Bowling for Columbine is pretty damn good.

 

[Flek]

everything from Louis Theroux

 

[Salazar]

I couldn't watch Murderball the whole way through. That coach who switched from the US to Canada was just such a domineering jackass.

 

[DieH@rd]

no Metal: A Headbanger's Journey or Global Metal

I watched the first, and it was great.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Anvil!!!

 

[subzero9285]

The Great Happiness Space.

As good as anything Erol Morris has done. It's about shallow, husks of humanity. Eaters of human progress and growth and yet it the film never judges. That is the mark of a proper documentary.

A docu that made me feel for the people despite complete indifference and even scorn for it's followers is Beyond the Mat. I never thought of wrestling fans as people before I watched it.



Also, it's kinda weird you put nature documentaries in your list. Am I right? Or wrong?

What can I say, I'm a naturalist at heart.

 

[Suzaku]

Fog of War is probably my favorite documentary of the past ten years.

I second "Fog of War". It's my favorite too, but I have not seen the top 3 on this list.

 

[Flek]

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvrB9SnhbAg

its so awesome i watched it in one go :lol

 

[GroteSmurf]

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

/thread

 

[subzero9285]

A pretty thorough round-up of the best documentaries of the decade.

The 2000s were a great decade for documentaries, both artistically and commercially. Four films (Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins and this year's Earth and This Is It) grossed more than $100 million worldwide, with two of them even topping the $200 million mark. Meanwhile, plenty of other films, whether due to their politics or their humorous entertainment value, broke through with mainstream audiences, primarily in the arthouse circuit but also on home video. And speaking of home viewing, thanks to Netflix and free online streaming sites like SnagFilms, more and more people have access to more and more non-fiction films than ever before.

So obviously it's a tough task to narrow down all these docs for a list of the best in the last ten years. In order to spotlight some particularly deserving films (25 of them), I've decided to follow the lead of William Goss' action flick list and break these up into separate categories (15 of them). In a perfect world all these types of documentary would be respected as their own genre, like fiction is with comedy, action, science fiction, etc. And with the amount of non-fiction films produced these days it wouldn't be difficult to list ten favorites for each style and subject sort. Certainly I've had to leave out a lot of favorites, both mine and yours (doing a list like this really makes you realize the films you've not yet seen), so let's keep the discussion going in the comments section.

Best Expository Doc: Documentaries comprised primarily of talking heads and archive footage are so conventional, common and, yes, oftentimes boring that it's a shame most people associate them with non-fiction cinema as a whole. Occasionally, though, the stringing together of facts and expert testimony can be stimulating as well as educational, such as in the case of Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight (2005), a film that says and asks so much about the questionable direction of the U.S. military in the past 50 years and the complicated origins of our current conflicts in part by referencing, with the intention of contrast, Frank Capra's far more clear-cut expository Why We Fight films from WWII. Everything within the actual film simply and straightforwardly illustrates history and the filmmaker's stance on it, which is all you really need from a doc. Honorable Mention: One of the great things about Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight (2007) is how much information it will feed you about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in so little time. We should only be so lucky to have such quick, comprehensive detail communicated to us about every topic.

Best Observational Doc: Forget the currently revered Food, Inc. and the humorous Super Size-Me, the most revealing and effecting doc about food in the last ten years is Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Our Daily Bread (2005), a mostly word-free film that simply observes the goings on inside slaughterhouses and factories and out in the crop fields. More abstract than could qualify it as the direct cinema style usually associated with observational documentary, the beautifully shot yet gruesome film is nonetheless as objective as any other fly on the wall film.

Best Participatory Doc: It's hard to call Jorgen Leth and Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions (2003) a first-person film since there are two of them guiding us through their experiment, but it fits nicely and freshly within the doc genre known mostly for autobiographical works and subjectively political films (a la Michael Moore). As one filmmaker instructs another to remake his own art film (1967's The Perfect Human) five different ways, this doc is pretty self-indulgent, but it's also an amusingly fascinating look at artistic restraint. Makes me with Von Trier made more non-fiction films. Honorable Mention: An ethical dilemma with participatory documentary is displayed quite tragically in Nick Broomfield's Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003), a sequel to his 1992 first-person doc Aileen: The Selling of a Serial Killer, in which he deals with the problem of getting too close to his subject. It's no wonder he's now concentrating on making dramatization films.

Best Music Doc: Few non-fiction fans can argue for a better music-based documentary than Ondi Timoner's Dig! (2004), which tracks the successes, failures, friendships and rivalries between two bands, The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre, over the course of many years. For awhile, I thought I was just being subjective in my appreciation for the film because The Dandies are my favorite band, but the more I watch the film I realize how intensely comprehensive it is. Rarely does a documentarian have as much coverage as Timoner achieves here. Honorable Mention: Surely not the best concert doc of the past ten years, U2 3D (2007) is still seminal for helping to usher in this new format for the genre, which is soon to be all over 3D screens with films featuring all kinds of artists. The Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana 3D film may have come first, but U2 3D gave the otherwise gimmicky format more credibility. And unlike with Dig!, I don't even like the band starring in this one.

Best Nature Doc: Another genre with an easy pick, the most laudable nature doc in more than a decade is Jacques Perrin's Winged Migration (2001). Bird watching has never been so entrancing as in this gorgeous film following the migrations of several species. Definitely one of the many docs that must be seen on the big screen rather than on a TV or computer screen. The fact that it's so controversial, due to the fact that it's hardly observing real nature since many of the birds were raised by the filmmakers and trained to fly with them and their equipment, and many scenes were apparently staged, makes the film even more interesting to the topic of documentary. In some ways, it's no worse than Nanook of the North, right? Honorable Mention: Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) is less definitively classified as a nature doc, because it primarily focuses on the life and death of a man living in the wild among grizzly bears. But again, it's docs like this, which challenge conventions, that are always going to excite me more.

Best Political Doc: Of the many, many, many political documentaries made in this decade of tremendous contention, Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus' Al Franken: God Spoke (2006) is most representative of the circus American politics has become. Specifically it personifies the problem of the Democratic presidential campaign of 2004 to depend on clowns rather than a ringmaster by following a political humorist (Franken) in place of a political strategist (such as James Carville in Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker's The War Room) during the election year. But it's also telling in general of how people now pay more attention to performers in the media than the actual politicians (of course, now Franken is the latter, too).

Best Iraq War Doc: A significant genre for this decade only, the Iraq War documentary includes many examples of films featuring shocking and awe-inducing first-hand footage from the actual conflict and plenty others that reflectively discuss the war in great detail (see No End in Sight, above), but the film I found most interesting is one of the numerous titles focused on the homecoming. Patricia Foulkrod's The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends (2006) does more than just follow vets around, the film examines their corrupted psychology by presenting the way troops are recruited and trained, as well as showing the kind of combat most are exposed to, before familiarizing us with the damaged individuals. Honorable Mention: Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss' Full Battle Rattle (2008) also exposes part of the training process, specifically an Iraq War simulation exercise conducted in the Mojave Desert. Though it doesn't depict real combat, the film is still tragic in a foreboding sort of way.

Best Biographical Doc: I have a preference for autobiographies over biographies in book form, so it makes sense that with documentaries I'm a big fan of the first-person (participatory) genre as well as those biographical films dictated or narrated primarily by their subjects. For The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003), Errol Morris managed to get an astonishing amount of footage of his man, the titular former U.S. Secretary of Defense, talking about his life and career, especially since McNamara had initially only agreed to a one-hour interview. This is partly due to Morris' use of his invention, the Interrotron, which encourages extra long monologue storytelling straight into the camera, almost making the film a first-person narrative. Honorable Mention: James Toback's Tyson (2008) has a similar autobiographical nature to it with a surprisingly candid and intelligent monologue interview with boxer Mike Tyson.

Best Sports Doc: I've never been a sports fan, so a sports documentary has to be especially entertaining to interest me. Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro's Murderball (2005), about wheelchair rugby and the paraplegics who play it, is just that captivating. Part of the crossover accessibility is its novelty, of course, yet it's also the good fortune of the filmmakers that they found such magnetic subjects, like Mark Zupan.

Best Non-Sporting Competition Doc: Part of me really wanted to hate on the sometimes seeming exploitation of nerds in Jeffrey Blitz's spelling bee doc Spellbound (2002), but the suspense of the competition overcame my subjective judgments. It takes a great film to make audiences sit on the edge of their seat for such a pedantic event. Honorable Mention: No screenwriter could have possibly invented a villain as odd and despicable as the one in Seth Gordon's video game doc The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007), another terrific crossover film that proves truth is stranger (and more entertaining) than fiction.

Best Foreign Language Doc: Jose Padilha's Bus 174 (2002) documents a bus hijacking incident in Rio de Janeiro primarily through the employment of live television footage from the time, all of which displays a surprising level of access and coverage maintained by the Brazilian media. The film contains interviews, both first-hand and reflective accounts, but it's the editing of the news footage that makes the doc often seem like a dramatization, or even a fictional action thriller. Honorable Mention: Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (2008) may not have been the first animated feature documentary, as it claimed to be, but it nevertheless presented a fresh style for non-fiction cinema to depict memories in lieu of actual footage (in a way it blurs the line between fiction and documentary by being somewhat less direct in its telling of events than the 2007 animated feature Chicago 10).

Best Doc Miniseries: Jean-Xavier de Lestrade followed up his terrific Oscar-winning courtroom documentary Murder on a Sunday Morning with the six-hour masterpiece The Staircase (2004), which follows the murder trial of Michael Peterson from his indictment to his ... The story is so full of twists and surprises, usually timed in the editing to be made cliff hangers, that no Hollywood scripted legal thriller could ever compete with it. And the length of the film allows for more intimacy and investment by the viewer than does a feature-length doc. I can't imagine watching it non-successively on television, as it's the cinematic equivalent of a page-turner.

Best Discovery Doc: No, I don't mean docs on the Discovery Channel. Sometimes a documentarian can get lucky with twists or discoveries occurring during the filming process, though it's what the filmmaker does with these new directions and revelations that make for a great doc. For Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Andrew Jarecki benefited by finding a better story within his initial plans to follow birthday clowns, and then he was also fortunate that his new subjects had so much home video footage to offer. But it's how he crafted the film, particularly his decision to let the footage speak for itself and keep the things ambiguous, that result in such an engaging portrait of a family torn by allegations of child molestation. Honorable Mention: Darius Marder's Loot (2008) could have been a simple film about treasure hunters, but certain happenstance and things being uncovered during the production allowed Marder to turn his doc into a deeper work about digging up the past.

Best Doc That Transcends Genre: How to classify James Marsh's Man on Wire (2008), my favorite doc of the decade? It's been described as a heist film, and it's been criticized for being too much of a dramatization, but it's also a dreamy biographical doc, a history of and touching tribute to the World Trade Center and, most importantly, an implicit treatise on how different the world is since 9/11. Plus, it stars one of the most enjoyable characters in cinema ever, let alone the last ten years. Honorable Mention: Blurring the lines of fiction and non-fiction even more is Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom's The Road to Guantanamo (2006), a docudrama combining interviews with dramatization to depict the story of three men detained in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. In its dependence on reenactment and its limitted perspective, the film reflexively says a lot about the idea of truth in non-fiction cinema.

Source

 

[Blackhead]

 

[Cr0wn0]

I didn't read anything about Dear Zachary before watching it. I don't think I have ever had such a range of emotions come out over such a small amount of time.