Defining Genre
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.
Filter the List
4,729/4,729 films
Master Score
Awards
Showing 50 of 4729
01
Stop Making Sense
1984 · Jonathan Demme
93.6
02Shoah
1985 · Claude Lanzmann
92.5
03The Rescue
2021 · Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
92.5
04Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
2008 · Kurt Kuenne
92.3
05MST - Terra Prometida
2025 · Elton Mesquita
91.7
06The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years
2016 · Ron Howard
91.6
07Won't You Be My Neighbor?
2018 · Morgan Neville
91.5
08Hoop Dreams
1994 · Steve James
91.5
09Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse
1991 · Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola
91.5
10Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
2021 · Questlove, Hal Tulchin
91.3
11For Sama
2019 · Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
91.0
12David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
2020 · Alastair Fothergill, Jonathan Hughes, Keith Scholey
90.9
13Blackfish
2013 · Gabriela Cowperthwaite
90.8
14The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
2007 · Seth Gordon
90.7
15Baraka
1992 · Ron Fricke
90.7
16The Last Waltz
1978 · Martin Scorsese
90.6
17Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
1996 · Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
90.5
18Apollo 11
2019 · Todd Douglas Miller
90.4
19The Alpinist
2021 · Peter Mortimer, Nick Rosen
90.3
20Exit Through the Gift Shop
2010 · Banksy
90.1
21M
Man with a Movie Camera
1929 · Dziga Vertov
90.0
22Paris Is Burning
1990 · Jennie Livingston
90.0
23The Thin Blue Line
1988 · Errol Morris
89.8
24Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry
2021 · R.J. Cutler
89.8
25E
Everybody's Everything
2019 · Sebastian Jones, Ramez Silyan
89.8
26Touching the Void
2003 · Kevin Macdonald
89.7
27Roger & Me
1989 · Michael Moore
89.6
28Senna
2010 · Asif Kapadia
89.4
29Tupac: Resurrection
2003 · Lauren Lazin
89.4
30Minding the Gap
2018 · Bing Liu
89.3
31The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
2014 · Brian Knappenberger
89.3
32Honeyland
2019 · Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov
89.1
33LA 92
2017 · Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin
89.0
34The Sparks Brothers
2021 · Edgar Wright
88.8
35Lessons of Darkness
1992 · Werner Herzog
88.8
36Fantastic Fungi
2019 · Louie Schwartzberg
88.8
37Crumb
1994 · Terry Zwigoff
88.7
38The Square
2013 · Jehane Noujaim
88.7
39Faces Places
2017 · JR, Agnès Varda
88.7
40BTS Permission to Dance on Stage - Seoul: Live Viewing
2022 · Ha Jung Jae
88.6
41American Movie
1999 · Chris Smith
88.6
42Cuba and the Cameraman
2017 · Jon Alpert
88.6
43Earthlings
2005 · Shaun Monson
88.6
44Sound City
2013 · Dave Grohl
88.5
45Indie Game: The Movie
2012 · Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky
88.5
46T
The Farthest
2017 · Emer Reynolds
88.5
47Miss Americana
2020 · Lana Wilson
88.4
48Marley
2012 · Kevin Macdonald
88.4
49The Salt of the Earth
2014 · Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders
88.3
50Three Identical Strangers
2018 · Tim Wardle
88.3
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