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Defining Genre
Peak 2010s

THE DOCUMENTARY

THE REAL, EDITED
The form that earns its truth in the cutting room. Where a camera, a subject, and an editor's nerve become an argument.
Peak 2010s
4,729
Films Catalogued
70.9
Avg Master Score
7.1
Avg IMDb
2010s
Peak Decade
WERNER HERZOG
Top Director
Of which 57 earned Oscar nominations or wins
The Defining Three

ESSENTIAL VIEWING

Top-ranked by master score. If you only saw three films from this decade, these are the three.

No.01
MS93.6
JONATHAN DEMME|1984
STOP MAKING SENSE
No.02
MS92.5
CLAUDE LANZMANN|1985
SHOAH
No.03
MS92.5
JIMMY CHIN, ELIZABETH CHAI VASARHELYI|2021
THE RESCUE
Filter the List
4,729/4,729 films
Master Score
Awards
Showing 50 of 4729
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01
Stop Making Sense
1984 · Jonathan Demme
93.6
02
Shoah
1985 · Claude Lanzmann
92.5
03
The Rescue
2021 · Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
92.5
04
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
2008 · Kurt Kuenne
92.3
05
MST - Terra Prometida
2025 · Elton Mesquita
91.7
06
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years
2016 · Ron Howard
91.6
07
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
2018 · Morgan Neville
91.5
08
Hoop Dreams
1994 · Steve James
91.5
09
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
1991 · Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola
91.5
10
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
2021 · Questlove, Hal Tulchin
91.3
11
For Sama
2019 · Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
91.0
12
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
2020 · Alastair Fothergill, Jonathan Hughes, Keith Scholey
90.9
13
Blackfish
2013 · Gabriela Cowperthwaite
90.8
14
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
2007 · Seth Gordon
90.7
15
Baraka
1992 · Ron Fricke
90.7
16
The Last Waltz
1978 · Martin Scorsese
90.6
17
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
1996 · Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
90.5
18
Apollo 11
2019 · Todd Douglas Miller
90.4
19
The Alpinist
2021 · Peter Mortimer, Nick Rosen
90.3
20
Exit Through the Gift Shop
2010 · Banksy
90.1
21
M
Man with a Movie Camera
1929 · Dziga Vertov
90.0
22
Paris Is Burning
1990 · Jennie Livingston
90.0
23
The Thin Blue Line
1988 · Errol Morris
89.8
24
Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry
2021 · R.J. Cutler
89.8
25
E
Everybody's Everything
2019 · Sebastian Jones, Ramez Silyan
89.8
26
Touching the Void
2003 · Kevin Macdonald
89.7
27
Roger & Me
1989 · Michael Moore
89.6
28
Senna
2010 · Asif Kapadia
89.4
29
Tupac: Resurrection
2003 · Lauren Lazin
89.4
30
Minding the Gap
2018 · Bing Liu
89.3
31
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
2014 · Brian Knappenberger
89.3
32
Honeyland
2019 · Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov
89.1
33
LA 92
2017 · Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin
89.0
34
The Sparks Brothers
2021 · Edgar Wright
88.8
35
Lessons of Darkness
1992 · Werner Herzog
88.8
36
Fantastic Fungi
2019 · Louie Schwartzberg
88.8
37
Crumb
1994 · Terry Zwigoff
88.7
38
The Square
2013 · Jehane Noujaim
88.7
39
Faces Places
2017 · JR, Agnès Varda
88.7
40
BTS Permission to Dance on Stage - Seoul: Live Viewing
2022 · Ha Jung Jae
88.6
41
American Movie
1999 · Chris Smith
88.6
42
Cuba and the Cameraman
2017 · Jon Alpert
88.6
43
Earthlings
2005 · Shaun Monson
88.6
44
Sound City
2013 · Dave Grohl
88.5
45
Indie Game: The Movie
2012 · Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky
88.5
46
T
The Farthest
2017 · Emer Reynolds
88.5
47
Miss Americana
2020 · Lana Wilson
88.4
48
Marley
2012 · Kevin Macdonald
88.4
49
The Salt of the Earth
2014 · Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders
88.3
50
Three Identical Strangers
2018 · Tim Wardle
88.3
Continue the Canon

NEXT GENRE

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CRIME
ASPHALT AND CONSEQUENCE

Where the city becomes a character. Heists, hits, and the long quiet stretches between the violence.

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DRAMA
THE LONG FORM

The genre that holds the others up. Where a glance can hit harder than a gun and a closing shot can rearrange a decade.

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