International Documentary Assocation Releases List of Top 25 Documentaries

Posted by on October 5th, 2007   Filed under: Documentary, Movies
Source: indieWIRE

Well I’m sure Jay will give his own take on this over at The Documentary Blog, but I thought it was worth posting about this here as well just to generate some discussion. The International Documentary Association, a group consisting of over 3000 filmmakers, executives and educators, have named their top 25 documentaries of all time in honour of the group’s 25th anniversary. It’s no real surprise that Hoop Dreams topped the list, a movie that has long been heralded for telling a powerful story, and also for attracting more mainstream interest in documentaries in general. One surprising choice however was Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, which is not really a documentary so much as it is an experimental art film. Also on the list are 3 Michael Moore films, 3 from the Maysles Brothers and 2 from Errol Morris. Here’s the full list:

1. Hoop Dreams
2. The Thin Blue Line
3. Bowling for Columbine
4. Spellbound
5. Harlan County USA
6. An Inconvenient Truth
7. Crumb
8. Gimme Shelter
9. The Fog of War
10. Roger and Me
11. Super Size Me
12. Don’t Look Back
13. Salesman
14. Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance
15. Sherman’s March
16. Grey Gardens
17. Capturing the Friedmans
18. Born into Brothels
19. Titticut Follies
20. Buena Vista Social Club
21. Fahrenheit 9/11
22. Winged Migration
23. Grizzly Man
24. Night and Fog
25. Woodstock

Do you see any major omissions? Head over to the official site for some short essays about each of the top 10 films on the list.



  • Bowling for Columbine, An Inconvenient Truth and Roger and Me in the top 10 proves the idiocy of these people.

    We have watched some awesome documentaries in the past few weeks at school. Chronicles of a summer and We Are The Lambeth Boys are fantastic documentaries that are fucking way better than *Fahrenheit 9/11*.

    Seriously… Bowling for Columbine 3rd best ever made? What’s wrong with these dickheads.

  • Jon Rocks

    There are an awful lot of very contemporary documentaries on that list. Did they not realize that documentaries have been around for quite a while? Honest to God, Bowling for Columbine? Number 3? Super-size me? That was interesting, no doubt, but one of the best ever? This is ridiculous. Tell them to take even a Documentary 101 course and they’ll most likely see several much better movies than those listed.

  • Super Size Me definitely doesn’t belong on the list in my opinion.

  • American Movie is my favorite doc…dont know if it deserves to be on the list though.

  • TheSnowLeopard

    Where is Bus 174 and One Day In September?????

  • Ian

    I still don’t get what was so great about Grizzly Man? Some dingbat wash out actor goes off his rocker to live deliberatley (he tapes it to be sure) and then … gets eaten by a bear. And dont’ get me started on Super Size me what the hell? How about I do a documentary where I hit myself in the head with a hammer 2-3 times/day (depending on how I’m feeling of course). Then follow me in my brave journey to gain back my mental and physical health (learning to read, control my bowels, etc.) Damn!

  • Ian, I feel sad that you cant appreciate Grizzly Man for what it actually is – a complete character study of someone who doesnt fit in anywhere else, who even in his own secluded world was putting on a show. combine exactly why “into the wild” was made with the ‘holy shit they he recorded all this?’-ness of ‘capturing the friedmans’ and you have exactly why people love it so much. and its all told through Herzog, who makes everything so much more interesting.

    but i’m also scratching my head how a Documentary Association ended up putting Super Size Me on the list, or even how someone as divisive as Moore who people always say is not a ‘real’ documentarian, got all of them on there. this list either intends to legitimize the value of the ‘pop doc’ or yes, a lot of the members may simply have not seen as many docs as they think they have.

    personally, Gates of Heaven and Murder on a Sunday Morning deserve to be on there much mroe than a number of those movies.

  • I personally have a hard time seeing any deeper meaning in Grizzly Man, and I find it a little overrated. But it is an incredibly entertaining film, and I found the best parts by far were the ones were Herzog was treating Treadwell more as a filmmaker than as a weird person. When he is commenting on the shots and how Treadwell did various things just to make it cut together better and stuff like that, I haven’t seen that in any other documentaries.

  • TheSnowLeopard

    I thought Grizzly Man was a pretty profound meditation on the relationship between Man and Nature.

    I forgot about Murder On A Sunday Morning. Excellent Doco. Good call.

    I wonder if The Staircase counts?

  • The Staircase will definitely be on my list on the documentary blog.

  • Ian

    No. Grizzly Man was about a crazy guy (we all feel that Existential I don’t fit in anywhere thing that’s nothing new) and his attempt at a relationship with Grizzly bears (sure Nature can be violent but this is pretty one sided) because he was crazy. As a character study it has some value but like Henrick said it’s overrated as being anything more than that.

  • Well it’s definitely better than Bowling for Columbine! I think there are tons of other movies that are way less deserving of their position on this list.

    Didn’t you find the movie funny though? And beautiful? I think you’re being a little harsh on it. I don’t think it’s necessarily the ‘if you only see one doc, see Grizzly Man’-movie that some people have made it out to be, but definitely a good documentary. Like I said, the comments on filmmaking alone would have been enough, but Treadwell did capture some pretty awesome stuff as well.

  • TheSnowLeopard

    Grizzly Man is so much more than a character study…

    Herzog: “what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.”

    I think there is a truth in that statement which is quite profound.

  • I love documentaries where you YELL AT THE SCREEN at someones stupidity, and yet can appreciate other moments, to the point you’re torn about the person.

    with Grizzly Man, I see a portrait where you just want to yell at him for the risks he puts not only himself but others through, or his own delusions about what he’s doing. but then theres the scenes with him and the dead fox. i mean, wow. that scene is so complex – it shows him both as completely unprepared to deal with the reality of nature even though he immerses himself in it, while at the same time gives so much insight about why he was probably still overall a good person people deeply cared about. he’s tragically flawed, and thats interesting, and horrifying in the end.

  • TheSnowLeopard

    Here’s a review I wrote for Grizzly Man a while back (scroll to the bottom):
    http://www.streamingsoundtracks.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3291&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105

    Here are some of my other favorite documentaries:

    The Times Of Harvey Milk
    Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt
    Michael Apted’s Up Series
    The Corporation
    Murderball

  • paulm

    I like “American Movie” and “The Bridge” better than anything Michael Moore has done. Okay, maybe not more than “Canadian Bacon.”