By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 3,  2026)

You didn’t dream it…reality has become wildly popular as escapist fare. Say what?

Remember when documentaries were the thing you only watched when you had a substitute teacher in high school? Or when you flipped to PBS for a few seconds on a Sunday? Now they’re everywhere… and that’s kind of awesome, right?

Seriously, pick one of the dozen or so streaming apps that you forgot you’re still subscribed to, and you’ll find at least a handful of docs that you’ll probably enjoy. There’s a doc you can watch about almost everything nowadays—from nostalgic pop culture rewinds to true crime deep dives.

The numbers tell the story. The demand for documentaries grew by a staggering 142 percent from 2018 to 2021, making them the fastest-growing genre on streaming. And sure, the pandemic (and the success of Tiger King) had a lot to do with that boom. But that number is growing every year and shows no signs of slowing down.

We’re still very much in the heat of the streaming wars. Pretty much every major studio and network has its own streaming service, and those streaming services need content—a lot of content.

That’s where documentaries come into play. You don’t have to be the owner of a major studio in Hollywood to understand that documentaries are cheaper to produce than those huge sci-fi movies or series. It’s just common sense.

You don’t need A-list actors. Or elaborate sets. Or CGI. You just need a good story, some old footage, a few interesting talking heads, and some moody background music. Throw all that together and you’ve got a 6-part series the entire world will watch.

So yeah, executives love them because they’re super low-risk but can still pack a punch. And viewers love them because they’re addictive and oftentimes extremely bingeable. Everyone wins, right?

That depends on how you define “winning”. I think two key takeaways there are “cheaper to produce” and “throw that all together”. The quantity of documentaries spewing into our living rooms these days does not necessarily equate with the quality of said product.

Which brings us to the criteria for my top 25 list. With very few exceptions, my picks had their original runs in theaters; and were not “thrown together” to satisfy a content quota. In fact, many of them were labors of love; independent productions that took real blood, sweat and tears to make and didn’t hinge on studio suits green-lighting them. That is not to say that there are no quality documentaries being produced these days; it’s just getting harder to find the gems amongst all the fool’s gold, as it were (fear not, I’m here to help).

Alphabetically:

56 Up – In 1964, a UK television film series-cum-social experiment kicked off with Paul Almond’s 7 Up, a documentary profiling fourteen 7 year-old kids from varied socioeconomic backgrounds, sharing their dreams and aspirations. 7 years later the same subjects appeared in 7 Plus Seven, with  Michael Apted taking over directing. Seven year updates continued with 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up and 49 Up.

Like its predecessors, Apted’s 2015 installment 56 Up was released to theaters. First, it’s nice to see that everyone is still above ground; this is not to say that the participants haven’t been put through life’s wringer in one way or another. Health issues, multiple marriages and financial problems abound. Some are doing better than 7 years ago, some worse; most maintain the status quo. Some are happy, some not so much.

In this age of dime-a-dozen reality TV shows and smart phone attention spans, the idea of a filmed series where the audience waits seven years between “episodes” may seem trite; perhaps downright anachronistic. But if you think about it for 10 seconds, I suspect that sitting down to watch any number of episodes of, let’s say, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, over any number of years, would not likely provide you with much keen insight into the human condition.

The lives depicted here may not be glamorous or exciting, but most people’s lives aren’t, are they? And as cliché as this sounds, it all seems to boil down to that most basic of human needs: to love or be loved. (Full review)

The Atomic Café – Whoopee, we’re all gonna die! But along the way, we might as well have a few laughs. That seems to be the impetus behind this 1982 collection of cleverly reassembled footage culled from U.S. government propaganda shorts from the Cold War era (Mk 1), originally designed to educate the public about how to “survive” a nuclear attack (all you need to do is get under a desk…everyone knows that!).

In addition to the Civil Defense campaigns (which include the classic “duck and cover” tutorials) the filmmakers have also drawn from a rich vein of military training films, which reduce the possible effects of a nuclear strike to something akin to a barrage from, oh I don’t know- a really big field howitzer. Harrowing, yet perversely entertaining. Written and directed by Jayne Loader, Pierce Rafferty and Kevin Rafferty (Kevin went on to co-direct the similarly constructed 1999 doc, The Last Cigarette, a take down of the tobacco industry).

The Beatles: Get Back – By 1969, the Beatles had done enough “living” to suit several normal lifetimes, and did so with the whole world looking in. It’s almost unfathomable how they could have achieved as much as they did, and at the end of all, still be only in their twenties.

Are there any other recording artists who have ever matched the creative growth that transpired over the scant six years that it took to evolve from the simplicity of Meet the Beatles to the sophistication of Abbey Road?

Hindsight being 20/20, should we really be so shocked to see the four haggard and sullen “old guys” who mope through the 1970 documentary, Let it Be? Filmed in 1969 and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the movie was originally intended to be a TV special but ended up documenting the “making of” the eponymous album (there were also snippets of the band working on several songs that ended up on Abbey Road).

Considering Lindsay-Hogg had 60 hours of footage at his disposal, the original 81-minute theatrical cut feels stingy; leaving little room for nuance or providing context to the on-camera bickering the 1970 film is chiefly remembered for.

Perhaps predictably in this age of Tweet-length attention spans, there has been much lamentation and rending of garments regarding the decidedly less stingy running time of Peter Jackson’s nearly 8-hour long Get Back, his oft delayed and long-awaited 2021 re-edit, sifted from Lindsay-Hogg’s trove of footage.

The beauty of Jackson’s film is that his extended cut allows room for nuance and context around those storied studio spats, which in fact did not “cause” the break-up of the Beatles; rather they were symptoms of a longtime creative partnership that was literally “aging out”. An extraordinary document and a must-see for any Fabs fan. (Full review)

Brother’s Keeper – An absolutely riveting true-crime documentary about a dirt-poor, semi-literate rural upstate New York farmer named Delbert Ward, who was charged with murdering his brother in 1990. Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky follow a year or so in the life of Delbert and his two surviving brothers, as they weather pressures of the trial and the surrounding media circus .

The clock seems to have stopped around 1899 on the aging bachelor brothers’ run-down farm, where they live together in relative seclusion in a small, unheated shack (at times, one is reminded of the family in the classic X-Files episode, “Home”)

The prosecution claims the brothers conspired to kill their ailing sibling, coming up with some odd motives. The defense attorney’s conjecture is that the victim died of natural causes, and that Delbert was coerced by law enforcement into signing a written confession (admitting a “mercy killing”), taking advantage of the fact that he is poor and uneducated. He also cagily riles up the town folk to rally behind “the boys” by portraying the D.A. and investigating authorities as city slickers, out to railroad a simple farmer.

Is Delbert really “simple”? Watch and decide for yourself.

The Cruise – A number of years ago I became friends with a co-worker who would pace his living room, quaffing beers and expounding on the universe. Sometimes, he would stop dead in his tracks, give me a faraway look, and say, “Trust me, Dennis-you don’t want to be in here,” while stabbing a finger at his forehead. Then, he would resume his pacing and pontificating. The idea of being in someone else’s head is always a bit “horror show”, don’t you think?

If you can take it, Bennett Miller’s one-of-a-kind 1998 documentary portrait spends nearly 80 minutes in “here”. Specifically, inside the head of one Tim “Speed” Levitch, a tour guide for Manhattan’s double-decked Gray Line buses. Levitch’s world view is …interesting, to say the least. And he is nothing, if not verbose. Is he crazy? Is he some kind of post-modern prophet? Or is he yet another eccentric, fast-talking New Yorker? It’s a strange, unique and weirdly exhilarating roller coaster ride through the consciousness of being.

Crumb – So you thought your childhood was fucked up? Meet the Crumb family. Then shake your head in wonder that R. Crumb didn’t grow up to be a serial killer, as opposed to an underground comic icon. Director Terry Zwigoff’s propensity for championing the “outsider” (Ghost World, Bad Santa, Art School Confidential) was firmly established in this 1994 doc. Zwigoff toiled on his portrait of the artist for nearly a decade, and the result of his labor of love is at once hilarious, heartbreaking, outrageous and moving.

The Decline of Western Civilization – . Filmed in 1979, Penelope Spheeris’ no-holds-barred documentary was a “lightning in a bottle” capture of the L.A. punk scene, (to quote Hunter S. Thompson) right at that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. As a scenester named Eugene explains in the film’s opening: “Well, I like that (punk) is something new, and it’s just reviving, like the old rock ’n’ roll. It’s raw again, it’s for real, and it’s fun. It’s not bullshit…there’s no rock stars, man.”

Spheeris mixes fan and musician interviews with well-shot performance footage of some of the seminal L.A. punk bands of that era, like Black Flag, X, The Germs, The Circle Jerks and Fear. While every bit as arch and unconventional as its subject, you’ll notice touches (like providing subtitles for the song lyrics) that subtly position the film as more anthropological study than rockumentary. This once “shocking” film has since gained much cachet as a serious historical document; It is now shown in museums. (Full review)

Don’t Look Back – This 1967 documentary (arguably the “granddaddy” of what we now routinely refer to as “rockumentaries”) is a textbook example of the right filmmaker (D.A. Pennebaker) hooking up with the right artist (Bob Dylan) at the right place (London) at the right time (1965) to capture a zeitgeist (“The Sixties”) in a bottle. Pennebaker takes a “fly on the wall” cinema verite approach to his subject, as a mercurial Dylan (and entourage) turn the tables on the British Invasion with an ecstatically received series of sold-out London performances.

While there is a generous helping of concert footage, the most fascinating events occur between shows; at press conferences, in dressing rooms and hotel suites. I’ll confess I’ve never been a huge Dylan fan, but there’s something special, palpably electric about his (for wont of a better term) “aura” in this film that is compelling beyond description.

For All Mankind – Former astronaut Al Reinert’s 1989 documentary was culled from thousands of feet of mission footage shot by the Apollo astronauts over a period of years. Don’t expect standard exposition; this is simply a montage of (literally) out-of-this-world imagery with anecdotal and philosophical musings provided by the astronauts. Brian Eno composed the soundtrack. A mesmerizing visual tone poem in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi.

Gimme Shelter – It’s unfortunate that Albert and David Maysles’ 1970 film is chiefly known for its inclusion of (unwittingly captured) footage of the infamous incident at a 1969 Rolling Stones’ free concert at the Altamont Speedway in California where a man near the front of the stage was stabbed to death in full view of horrified fellow concertgoers by members of the Hell’s Angels (who were providing “security” for the show)-but there you have it. Those scant seconds of the doc’s running time have forever tainted what is otherwise (rightfully) hailed as one of the top rockumentaries. One of the (less morbid) highlights of the film is footage of the Stones putting down the basic tracks for “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar” at Alabama’s legendary Muscle Shoals Studios.

Grey Gardens – “The Aristocrats!” There’s no murder or mayhem in this real-life Gothic character study by renowned documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles (Salesman, Gimme Shelter), but you’ll still find it disquieting. Edith Bouvier Beale (in her early 80s at the time) and her middle aged daughter Edie were living under decidedly less than hygienic conditions in an old dark manor in East Hampton, L.I. with a menagerie of cats and raccoons when the brothers profiled them. The fact that the women were related to Jackie O (Edith the elder was her aunt) makes this scenario even more twisty. The cult appeal of the Edies was not lost on Broadway; a musical adaptation ran 2 years.

Harlan County, U.S.A. – Barbara Kopple’s award-winning film is not only an extraordinary document about an acrimonious coal miner’s strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973, but is one of the best American documentaries ever made. Kopple’s film has everything that you look for in any great work of cinema: drama, conflict, suspense, tragedy, and redemption. Kopple and crew are so deeply embedded that you may involuntarily duck during a harrowing scene where a company-hired thug fires a round directly toward the camera operator (it’s a wonder the filmmakers lived to tell this tale).

Heart of a Dog – I love Laurie Anderson’s voice…at once maternal, sisterly, wise, reassuring, confiding, lilting, impish. Hell, she could read the nutritional label on a box of corn flakes out loud…and to me it would sound artful, thoughtful, mesmerizing. That wondrous voice can be heard all over the soundtrack of this love letter to a rat terrier named Lolabelle. Unfortunately, Lolabelle’s appearance is posthumous. The spirit of Anderson’s late husband Lou Reed is present as well in this unique film; never directly mentioned, but palpable. You could say that Death is Anderson’s co-pilot on this journey to the center of her mind. But it’s not a sad journey. It’s melancholy at times, deeply reflective, but it’s never sad. (Full review)

Jazz on a Summer’s Day – Bert Stern’s groundbreaking documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival is not so much a “concert film” as it is a fascinating and colorful time capsule of late 50s American life. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of gorgeously filmed numbers spotlighting the artistry of Thelonius Monk, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, et.al. at the peak of their powers.

The effect is like “being there” in 1958 Newport on a languid summer’s day. If you’ve ever attended an outdoor music festival, you know half the fun is people-watching, and Stern obliges. Stern breaks with film making conventions of the era; this is the genesis of the cinema verite music documentary, which wouldn’t come to flower until a decade later with films like Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Gimme Shelter.

Koyaanisqatsi – In 1982 this genre-defying film quietly made its way around the art houses; it’s now a cult favorite. Directed by activist/ex-Christian monk Godfrey Reggio, with beautiful cinematography by Ron Fricke (who later directed Chronos, Baraka, and Samsara) and music by Philip Glass (who also scored Reggio’s sequels), it was considered a transcendent experience by some; New Age hokum by others (count me as a fan).

The title (from ancient Hopi) translates as “life out of balance” The narrative-free imagery, running the gamut from natural vistas to scenes of First World urban decay, is open for interpretation. Reggio followed up in 1988 with Powaqqatsi (“parasitic way of life”), focusing on the First World’s drain on Third World resources, then book-ended his trilogy with Naqoyqatsi (“life as war”).

Let the Fire Burn – While obscured in public memory by the (relatively) more “recent” 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, the eerily similar demise of the Philadelphia-based MOVE organization 8 years earlier was no less tragic on a human level, nor any less disconcerting in its ominous sociopolitical implications.

In this compelling documentary, director Jason Osder has parsed a trove of archival “live-at-the-scene” TV reports, deposition videos, law enforcement surveillance footage, and other sundry “found” footage (much of it previously unseen by the general public) and created a tight narrative that plays like an edge-of-your-seat political thriller.

Let the Fire Burn is not only an essential document of an American tragedy, but a cautionary tale and vital reminder of how far we have yet to go to completely purge the vestiges of institutional racism in this country. (Full review)

Let’s Get Lost – The life of horn player/vocalist Chet Baker is a tragedian’s dream; a classic tale of a talented artist who peaked early, then promptly set about self-destructing. Sort of the Montgomery Clift of jazz, he was graced by the gods with an otherworldly physical beauty and a gift for expressing his art. By age 24 he had already gigged with Stan Getz, Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan. He began chasing the dragon in the 1950s, leading to jail time and a career slide.

There are conflicting versions of the circumstances that led to a brutal beating in 1968, but the resultant injuries to his mouth impaired his playing abilities. While he never kicked the substance abuse, he eventually got his mojo back, and enjoyed a resurgence of his career in his final decade (he was only 58 when he died).

The nodded-out Chet Baker we see in Bruce Weber’s extraordinary warts-and-all 1988 documentary (beautifully shot in B&W) is a man who appears several decades older than his chronological age (and sadly, as it turned out, has about a year left to live). Still, there are amazing (if fleeting) moments of clarity, where we get a glimpse of the genius that still burned within this tortured soul.

One scene in particular, where Weber holds a close up of Baker’s ravaged road map of a face as he croons a plaintive rendition of Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue”, has to be one of the most naked, heartbreaking vocal performances ever captured on film. Haunting and one-of-a-kind, this is a must-see. The film snagged a well-deserved 1989 Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Man on Wire – Late in the summer of 1974, a diminutive Frenchman named Philippe Petit took a casual morning stroll across a ¾” steel cable, stretched between the two towers of the then-unfinished World Trade Center. On the surface, this may appear to be a straightforward documentary about this eccentric high wire artist who was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. In actuality, it is one of the best suspense/heist movies of the decade, although no guns are drawn and nothing gets stolen. It is also very romantic, although it is not a traditional love story. Like Petit’s sky-high walk itself, James Marsh’s film is ultimately an act of pure aesthetic grace, and deeply profound. (Full review)

Marwencol – From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the same instant, in the very same place; or one or the same thing in different places.

-John Locke, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Jeff Malmberg’s extraordinary documentary follows the unique journey of Mark Hogancamp. In 2000, Hogancamp was at death’s door, following a brutal beating by five men outside a bar in Kingston, N.Y. His situation was touch and go for the first week or so (the first 9 of his 40 days in the hospital were spent in a coma), but he eventually recovered enough from his physical injuries to become somewhat self-sufficient again. Unfortunately, however, the brain damage he sustained was permanent; as a result, he had virtually no memories of his life prior to the incident.

How Hogancamp pulled himself through this nightmare and found peace has to be seen to be believed. This is more than another “quirky portrait of a eccentric”. It’s a journey into the very essence of what defines human identity and the consciousness of “self”. It also demonstrates that the idea of reinventing oneself is not just an elective luxury, exclusive to the creative class. For some persevering souls, it is a means of survival. (Full review)

Monterey Pop – The three day Monterey Pop music festival was the brainchild of longtime Beatles publicist Derek Taylor, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, record producer Lou Adler, and entrepreneur/Delaney and Bonnie manager Alan Pariser (who figured prominently during early planning stages but ceded control to his higher-profile partners Phillips and Adler). With a stage banner that read “love, flowers, and music”, it was (and remains) the embodiment of the counterculture’s ephemeral yet impactful “Summer of Love” in 1967.

Luckily, for those of us who were too young and/or blissfully unaware to attend (or not even born yet), the zeitgeist of the event was captured for posterity by music documentary maestro D.A. Pennebaker. Shot in his signature cinema verite style, and chockablock with electrifying performances Pennebaker’s 1968 film distills the 3 days of “love, flowers and music” into a concise 78-minute document of the event. (Full review)

Roger and Me – While our favorite lib’rul agitprop director has made a number of films addressing the travails of wage slaves and ever-appalling indifference of the corporate masters who grow fat off their labors, Michael Moore’s low-budget 1989 debut film remains his best (and is on the list of the top 25 highest-grossing docs of all time).

Moore may have not been the only resident of Flint, Michigan scratching his head over GM’s local plant shutdown in the midst of record profits for the company, but he was the one with the chutzpah (and a camera crew) to make a beeline straight to the top to demand an explanation. His target? GM’s chairman, Roger Smith. Does he bag him? Watch it and find out. An insightful portrait of working class America that, like most of his subsequent films, can be at once harrowing and hilarious, yet hopeful and humanistic.

Salesman – For my money, there are very few documentary filmmakers of the “direct cinema” school who approach the artistry of David Maysles, Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. Collectively (if not collaboratively in every case) the trio’s resume includes Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, The Grey Gardens, When We Were Kings, and Thelonius Monk: Straight, No Chaser.

In their 1969 documentary Salesman, Zwerin and the brothers Maysles tag along with four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they slog their way up and down the eastern seaboard, from snowy Boston to sunny Florida. It is much more involving than you might surmise from a synopsis. One of the most trenchant, moving portraits of shattered dreams and quiet desperation ever put on film; a real-life Willy Loman tale infused with characters who bring more pathos to the screen than any actor could.

Sherman’s March – Filmmaker Ross McElwee is one of America’s hidden treasures. McElwee, a genteel Southern neurotic (Woody Allen meets Tennessee Williams) has been compulsively documenting his personal life since the mid 70’s and managed to turn the footage into some of the most hilarious, moving and thought-provoking films most people have never seen.

Audiences weaned on “reality TV” may wonder “what’s the big deal about one more schmuck making glorified home movies?” but they would be missing an enriching glimpse into the human condition. Sherman’s March began as a project to retrace the Union general’s path of destruction through the South, but ended up as rumination on the eternal human quest for love and acceptance, filtered through McElwee’s search for the perfect mate.

Despite its 3 hour length, I’ve found myself returning to this film for repeat viewings, and enjoying it just as much as the first time. The unofficial “sequel”, Time Indefinite, is also worth a peek.

The Times of Harvey Milk – On November 27^th, 1978, San Francisco mayor George Moscone and District Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered  in their respective offices at City Hall; both men shot repeatedly at point blank range. Even more shocking (and bordering on the downright bizarre) was the fact that their killer was a fellow San Francisco politician-former District Supervisor Dan White.

Beginning in 1973, Milk began the first of three unsuccessful runs for a San Francisco District Supervisor position. His perseverance paid off in 1977, when he won. Although he wasn’t going to wield the political clout of a mayor, governor or senator, his victory was still a milestone in the history of the gay movement in America. His agenda was not limited to gay issues; he also advocated for other traditionally marginalized groups like the elderly, poor and the handicapped.

Released in 1984 and directed by Rob Epstein, this riveting and emotionally resonant portrait deservedly picked up a Best Documentary Oscar. It recounts an incredible real-life tale that was equal parts Greek tragedy, black comedy, political potboiler and film noir.

One of the most compelling elements of Epstein’s film are snippets of audio from a tape recording Milk had made shortly before his death, which he directed to be released to the public only in the event of his assassination. The sad, funny and insightful auto-biographical musings on that tape resonate beyond a morbid premonition of fate; they crystallize as the dedicated vision of someone who was determined to make a profound difference, and to inspire others to tap into those resources within themselves.

Word, Sound, and Power – Jeremiah Stein’s 1980 documentary clocks in at just over an hour but is the best film I’ve seen about roots reggae music and Rastafarian culture. Barely screened upon its original theatrical run and long coveted by music geeks as a Holy Grail until its belated DVD release in 2008 (when I was finally able to loosen my death grip on the sacred, fuzzy VHS copy that I had taped off of USA’s Night Flight back in the early 80s), it’s a wonderful time capsule of a particularly fertile period for the Kingston music scene.

Stein interviews key members of The Soul Syndicate Band, a group of studio players who were the Jamaican version of The Wrecking Crew; they backed Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, Burning Spear, and Toots Hibbert (to name but a few). Beautifully photographed and edited, with outstanding live performances by the Syndicate. Musical highlights include “Mariwana”, “None Shall Escape the Judgment”, and a spirited acoustic version of “Harvest Uptown”.