Documentaries, ranked

A look at how climate change affects our environment and what society can do to prevent the demise of endangered species, ecosystems and native communities across the planet.

In-depth look at the life of John McCain, from his time as a POW in Vietnam to his three decades of service in the US Senate.

Fictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in Eastern Europe.

A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

Caroll Spinney has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969; at 78-years-old, he has no intention of stopping.

One hundred superstar comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke--one shared privately by comics since Vaudeville.

Artist Matt Furie, creator of the comic character Pepe the Frog, begins an uphill battle to take back his iconic cartoon image from those who used it for their own purposes.

In this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle.

A documentary on the hate crime assault and subsequent death of a Latino man in Shenandoah Pennsylvania, including the alleged cover-up and shocking court verdicts.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity.

This documentary explores the murder of DeeDee Blanchard by her daughter Gypsy Rose, as well as the circumstances leading up to the event.

A documentary about fraud and fakery.

Human Flow is director and artist Ai Weiwei's detailed and heartbreaking exploration into the global refugee crisis.

In the Antarctic, every March since the beginning of time, the quest begins to find the perfect mate and start a family.

Spellbound follows eight teenagers on their quest to win the 1999 National Spelling Bee.

A documentary about two different searches conducted in the Chilean Atacama Desert: one by astronomers looking for answers about the history of the cosmos, and one by women looking for the remains of loved ones killed by Pinochet's regime.

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Varda films and interviews gleaners in France in all forms, from those picking fields after the harvest to those scouring the dumpsters of Paris.

The document of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin.

In 1910 the British Antarctic Expedition, led by Capt. Robert F. Scott, embarks from Lyttleton, NZ on a quest to become the first to reach the South Pole.

Nick Broomfield's second documentary about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, focusing on her mental state on death row.

A "shockumentary" consisting of a collection of mostly real archive footage displaying mankind at its most depraved and perverse, displaying bizarre rites, cruel behavior and bestial violence.

A film following the lives of two inner-city Chicago boys who struggle to become college basketball players on the road to going professional.

Kon Ichikawa examines the beauty and rich drama on display at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, creating a record of observations that range from the expansive to the intimate.

Filmmaker Michael Moore explores the roots of America's predilection for gun violence.