25 best documentaries of all time
Great documentaries often give access and illumination to stories that would otherwise go untold. The subject of a great documentary can be anything from a single individual's life to a broader political event, and the effect of the films can be anything from uplifting to devastating.
To celebrate the genre, Stacker created a ranking of the top 25 documentaries of all time by leveraging data on all documentary movies to create a Stacker score that serves as a weighted index split evenly between IMDb and Metacritic scores. To qualify, the film had to be listed as a documentary on IMDb, have a Metascore, and have at least 1,000 IMDb user votes. Ties were broken by Metascore and further ties were broken by votes. Documentary TV series were not included.
All great documentaries center around extensive research. The director of the legendary nine-hour documentary "Shoah," which focused on the Holocaust, refused to use any archival footage and only used his own original interviews, which partly explains why the film took 11 years to make.
Some of the films expose stories that have put their filmmakers at risk. "The Act of Killing," which details mass executions that took place in Indonesia in the 1960s, features stories that have been actively covered up by Indonesian government officials. One of the documentary's filmmakers remained anonymous out of fear of reprisals from the government. In another case, an Iranian filmmaker's fear of the government was so intense that he smuggled his documentary to the Cannes Film Festival on a flash drive baked into a birthday cake.
Other documentaries that appear on our list are uplifting and tell stories of some of humanity's greatest achievements, like "Apollo 11," which features footage from the famous space mission that was the first to land humans on the moon.
Keep reading to discover the 25 best documentary films of all time.
#25. The Last Waltz (1978)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Stacker score: 91.4
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 117 minutes
"The Last Waltz" looks at the legendary rock group The Band and their farewell concert. The film has been called one of the greatest concert films ever made, but others have critiqued it for largely giving the short shrift to band member Robbie Robertson.
#24. Apollo 11 (2019)
- Director: Todd Douglas Miller
- Stacker score: 91.4
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 93 minutes
"Apollo 11" takes documentary footage—much of it previously unreleased—from the famous space mission to tell its story. However, not all critics were impressed, with Richard Brody from The New Yorker marveling at how the film manages to be dull given its exciting subject material.
#23. Inside Job (2010)
- Director: Charles Ferguson
- Stacker score: 91.4
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 109 minutes
"Inside Job" looks at the factors that contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008 that catalyzed the Great Recession. The New York Times' A.O. Scott praised the film for having “the scourging moral force of a pulpit-shaking sermon” delivered with “rigor, restraint and good humor.”
#22. Sherpa (2015)
- Director: Jennifer Peedom
- Stacker score: 91.4
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Runtime: 96 minutes
"Sherpa" tells the story of a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest through the perspectives of sherpas who were on the mountain that day. The 2014 Mount Everest avalanche was one of the deadliest Everest disasters.
#21. No End in Sight (2007)
- Director: Charles Ferguson
- Stacker score: 91.9
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 102 minutes
"No End in Sight" looks at the two years following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. The New York Times' A.O. Scott praised the film for being an "enraging" look at what it calls the incompetence of the Bush administration in running and perpetuating the war.
#20. Minding the Gap (2018)
- Director: Bing Liu
- Stacker score: 91.9
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Runtime: 93 minutes
"Minding the Gap" focuses on three young men who escape the harsh realities of their lives in a declining Rust Belt town through skateboarding. The film received rave reviews for managing to blend commentary on race, class, and politics with a narrative on skate culture.
#19. Waltz with Bashir (2008)
- Director: Ari Folman
- Stacker score: 91.9
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Runtime: 90 minutes
This animated Israeli war documentary features interviews with fellow veterans as filmmaker Ari Folman tries to recall memories of his time in service during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. “Waltz with Bashir” was the first animated film nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
#18. My Voyage to Italy (1999)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Stacker score: 92.5
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 246 minutes
"My Voyage to Italy" is a heavily autobiographical documentary about filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s childhood on the Lower East Side and his major cinematic influences. The films of Roberto Rossellini loom particularly large.
#17. Tower (2016)
- Director: Keith Maitland
- Stacker score: 92.5
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Runtime: 82 minutes
"Tower" is about a sniper that held the University of Texas hostage from a clock tower in 1966. The documentary can be seen as a memorial of events that happened 50 years before its release and featured interviews with survivors.
#16. The Act of Killing (2012)
- Directors: Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn
- Stacker score: 93.0
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 117 minutes
"The Act of Killing" exposed the mass executions of exposed communists in Indonesia. Befitting its subversive nature, one of the co-directors is an anonymous Indonesian.
#15. Crumb (1994)
- Director: Terry Zwigoff
- Stacker score: 93.0
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Runtime: 119 minutes
"Crumb" is a portrayal of the famous cartoonist Robert Crumb by one of his long-time best friends; director Terry Zwigoff reportedly spent nine years creating the documentary. Critic Roger Ebert said the film was "unusual in having access to the key players and biographical artifacts of Crumb's entire life."
#14. We Were Here (2011)
- Directors: David Weissman, Bill Weber
- Stacker score: 93.0
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Runtime: 90 minutes
"We Were Here" memorializes the gay men and women who lost their lives in the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. The filmmaker has deep roots in the community, having first moved to the city in the 1970s when Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (making him the first openly gay elected official in California history).
#13. Faces Places (2017)
- Directors: JR, Agnès Varda
- Stacker score: 93.0
- Metascore: 94
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Runtime: 94 minutes
"Faces Places" is a collaboration by directors JR and Agnès Varda as they travel through rural France and explore their unlikely friendship. The film was beloved by critics, including Amy Taubin, who called it “an exploration of the arts in the face of mortality.” It was Varda’s last film.
#12. For Sama (2019)
- Directors: Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
- Stacker score: 93.5
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Runtime: 100 minutes
"For Sama" is a look at the experience of war through female eyes, with a focus on the Syrian Civil War. The film made history when it was nominated for four BAFTAs—a first for a documentary.
#11. They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Stacker score: 93.5
- Metascore: 91
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Runtime: 99 minutes
Using state-of-the-art technology, "They Shall Not Grow Old" tells the story of World War I through the men who fought in it. The documentary uses archival footage from the Imperial War Museum's archives, which was over 100 years old upon the film's release.
#10. I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
- Director: Raoul Peck
- Stacker score: 93.5
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Runtime: 93 minutes
"I Am Not Your Negro" is an imagined version of a book James Baldwin never finished. It was lauded for its imagination combined with Baldwin’s voice recordings and notes on his unfinished work.
#9. Stop Making Sense (1984)
- Director: Jonathan Demme
- Stacker score: 94.1
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.6
- Runtime: 88 minutes
"Stop Making Sense" is a concert documentary about the Talking Heads. The film received a very positive critical reception, with particular praise coming from its focus on frontman David Byrne, who provides much of the film’s energy.
#8. One More Time with Feeling (2016)
- Director: Andrew Dominik
- Stacker score: 94.1
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Runtime: 113 minutes
"One More Time with Feeling" chronicles Nick Cave’s recording of an album following the death of his 15-year-old son. As befits the raw, urgent nature of the material, the entire film was shot over seven days with a crew of only seven people.
#7. The Look of Silence (2014)
- Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
- Stacker score: 94.1
- Metascore: 92
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Runtime: 103 minutes
“The Look of Silence” focuses on the intersection of an optometrist's life and the Indonesian mass killings of the 1960s. It is a companion film to the earlier documentary, “The Act of Killing,” which also focuses on the executions.
#6. David Byrne's American Utopia (2020)
- Director: Spike Lee
- Stacker score: 94.6
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Runtime: 105 minutes
Based on Talking Heads frontman David Byrne's 2019 Broadway show, "American Utopia" started out as a solo album by Byrne and grew. The show is set to return to Broadway for another run in September 2021.
#5. Virunga (2014)
- Director: Orlando von Einsiedel
- Stacker score: 95.2
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 100 minutes
"Virunga" is about a team of people working to protect endangered gorillas in a Congolese national park. Two days before the film’s release, unidentified gunmen shot the chief ranger of that park. He survived and championed the film and its release.
#4. Woodstock (1970)
- Director: Michael Wadleigh
- Stacker score: 95.2
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Runtime: 184 minutes
This portrait of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s has reached cult classic status. It captured the epic three-day rock and roll concert that featured diverse performers including folk singing legend Joan Baez, British rock band The Who, and guitar god Jimi Hendrix.
#3. Collective (2019)
- Director: Alexander Nanau
- Stacker score: 96.2
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Runtime: 109 minutes
The film follows investigative journalists as they expose the political corruption and scandal behind seemingly unrelated events around a nightclub fire in Bucharest. It made the 2021 Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Feature.
#2. Hoop Dreams (1994)
- Director: Steve James
- Stacker score: 97.3
- Metascore: 98
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Runtime: 170 minutes
“Hoop Dreams” was shot over five years and showcased two inner-city boys who bused into a predominantly white high school that excelled in basketball. This acclaimed documentary was originally only intended to be a 30-minute television series.
#1. Shoah (1985)
- Director: Claude Lanzmann
- Stacker score: 100.0
- Metascore: 99
- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- Runtime: 566 minutes
Director Claude Lanzmann spent 11 years making "Shoah," using his own interviews and refusing to use any archival material. Lanzmann has said his filmmaking is motivated by an effort to prove and record the history of the Holocaust against any denials it happened.
