documentary film
Non-fiction cinema work
A documentary film is a nonfiction motion picture that depicts real events, people, or conditions rather than fictional narratives.
Documentaries range from observational films that simply record what happens to advocacy pieces arguing a position.
The term distinguishes the genre from fictional features: We watched a documentary film about climate change.
Often shortened to documentary or doc.
- archival footagePreserved historical recordings
- found footageGenre mimicking discovered recordings
- docudramaDramatized account of actual events
- infotainmentNews-entertainment media blend
- journalismNews gathering and dissemination
nonfiction · real life · cinéma vérité · fly on the wall · oral history · Ken Burns · propaganda · social commentary · human interest · newsreel · cinematography · report · investigative journalism · media literacy · streaming platform · memoir · montage · behind the scenes
- visual mediavideo, drawing, photograph, television, TV
- documentariestrue crime docs, crime docs, nature doc, docuseries, docudramas
- entertainment historyvaudeville, talkies, Hollywood, movie palaces, radio drama
- Woodstock1969, three days, mud, rain, hippies
- TV moviesTV movie, TV movies, telefilms, made-for-TV, telefilm
- Balkan artshora, folk costume, brass bands, kilim, filigree
documentary filmfictional narrative
Invented story with plot
feature film · drama · blockbuster · soap opera · telenovela
documentary filmfictional narrative
Invented story with plot
fiction · fairy tale · fabrication · make-believe · tall tale
film, document, films, filmed, documentary, filming, filmmaker, documentation, undocumented