Top Documentary Movies


The Top Documentary Movies List is calculated by overall movie ratings and members' "Top Documentary List". Lists are calculated daily.

21. Standing in the Shadows of Motown

Year of Release: 2002
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Paul Justman
Actors: Bootsy Collins, Chaka Khan, Joan Osborne, Ben Harper, Eddie Willis, Andre Braugher

22. The Cove

Year of Release: 2009
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Louie Psihoyos
Actors: Richard O'Barry, Hayden Panettiere, Isabel Lucas, Louie Psihoyos, Charles Hambleton, Dave Rastovich
Plot: A group of activists infiltrates the waters off Taijii, Japan to expose the slaughter of thousands of bottlenose dolphins by local fishermen.

23. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Year of Release: 2008
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Kurt Kuenne
Actors: Kurt Kuenne, Zachary Andrew, David Bagby, Dr. Andrew Bagby, Kathleen Bagby
Plot: Being released theatrically in a limited market tomorrow, will open to more theaters soon.

24. The Fog of War

Year of Release: 2003
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Errol Morris
Actors: Robert McNamara

25. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

Year of Release: 1996
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary/Crime
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
Actors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky, Jessie Miskelly, Jason Baldwin, Damien Wayne Echols, Christopher Byers
Plot: When a triple murder rocks the community of West Memphis, Arkansas, three boys with ties to Satanism are charged with the crime. Seen as guilty by man before the trail began, Paradise Lost takes a look at every angle and how justice can easily be clouded.

26. Man on Wire

Year of Release: 2008
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: James Marsh
Actors: Philippe Petit, Annie Allix, Jean-Louis Blondeau, Alan Welner, Paul McGill, Jean François Heckel
Plot: A documentary about Phillipe Petit's exciting but very illegal death-defying tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974, with interviews from all the participants and real coverage of the event.

27. Life, Animated

Year of Release: 2016
Overall Rating: 3.4 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary/Animation
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Roger Ross Williams
Actors: Owen Suskind, Ron Suskind

28. Brother's Keeper

Year of Release: 1992
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
Actors: Connie Chung, John Teeple, Delbert Ward, Lyman Ward, Roscoe Ward
Plot: This documentary enters and explores a world so removed from the mainstream that it seems to be from another time, long ago. A reclusive pair of brothers' lives are changed when one is accused of murdering a third brother and attention is brought on them.

29. Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia

Year of Release: 2013
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary/Biography
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Nicholas D. Wrathall
Actors: Gore Vidal, Joanne Woodward, Christopher Hitchens, David Mamet, Bill Maher, Jay Parini

30. Bathtubs Over Broadway

Year of Release: 2018
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Documentary/Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Dava Whisenant
Actors: David Letterman, Martin Short, Chita Rivera, Susan Stroman, Florence Henderson, Steve Young

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