“These Are the 71 Best Documentaries of All Time” (2021) – online at Vogue
A few of my favorites – and important films to know – organized chronologically
Lumière Brothers’ First Films. With Bernard Tavernier, 1895-1897 (1996), 62 min.
October: Ten Days that Shook the World. Dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1927, 103 min.
Land Without Bread. Dir. Luis Buñuel, Spain, 1932, 30 min.
Triumph of the Will. Dir. Leni Riefenstahl, Germany, 1935, 120 min.
The Plow that Broke the Plains. Dir. Pare Lorenz, 1936, 27 mins.
Night and Fog. Dir. Alain Resnais, France, 1955, 52 min.
Salesman. Dir. Albert & David Maysles, 1968.
The Sorrow and the Pity. Dir. Marcel Ophuls, France, 1969, 249 min.
Shoah. Dir. Claude Lanzmann, France, 1985, 570 min.
Eyes on the Prize. Dir. Henry Hampton, 1987, 360 min.
Roger & Me. Dir. Michael Moore, 1989.
The Civil War. Dir. Ken Burns, 1990. See also National Parks (2009), The War (2007)
The War Room. Dir. Chris Hedgus & D.A. Pennebaker, 1993.
Hoop Dreams. 1994.
Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. Brian Lapping Associates, 1995. See also his Death of Apartheid and The Second Russian Revolution.
Chicago: City of the Century. Dir. Austin Hoyt, 2003, 90 min.
The Fog of War. Dir. Errol Morris, 2003. Lessons from the life of Robert McNamara, one of the architects of the Vietnam War.
Ghosts of Rwanda. Dir. Greg Barker & Darren Kemp, 2004, 120 min.
Guns, Germs, and Steel. With Jared Diamond. National Geographic, 2005, 165 min.
10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. Various directors, 2006.
Man on Wire. Dir. James Marsh, 2008, 94 min. Philippe Petit plans a daring assault on New York’s World Trade Center towers.
The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World. Dir. Adrian Pennink, w/ Niall Ferguson, 2010.
Restrepo. Dir. Tim Hetherington & Sebastian Junger, 2010, 93 min. From the frontlines of America’s war in Afghanistan.
The Dust Bowl. Dir. Ken Burns, 2012.
Searching for Sugar Man. Dir. Malik Bendjelloul, 2012. The story of Rodriguez. His music made it big in South Africa, but he seemed to drop off the the end of the world.
The Square. Dir. Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, 2013. An eyewitness account of the protests in Tahrir Square that brought down the Egyptian government.
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. Dir. Werner Herzog, 2016. And see his many earlier films.
