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Critics’ 50 Greatest Documentaries of All Time | Sight and Sound

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The new Sight & Sound Documentary Poll is the result of a ‘why didn’t we think of that before’ moment. In the light of the amazing recent success and cultural impact of several nonfiction films, a group of curators, myself included, were chewing over what the BFI might do specifically for documentary films and television. It soon became obvious that we were not sure exactly what it was that we were trying to discuss. I’m usually loath to do anything that takes lustre away from Sight & Sound’s ten-year poll of the [[embed nid=2984 type­link title=”Greatest Films of All Time”]] but a new poll seemed to me the most obvious solution to getting a full view of the documentary canon. Approximately four months later I’m delighted with the quality of what more than 200 critics and curators – including many documentary specialists – and 100 filmmakers (the likes of John Akomfrah, Michael Apted, Clio Barnard, James Benning, Sophie Fiennes, Amos Gitai, Paul Greengrass, Jose Guerin, Isaac Julien, A

Introduction The new Sight & Sound Documentary Poll is the result of a ‘why didn’t we think of that before’ moment. In the light of the amazing recent success and cultural impact of several nonfiction films, a group of curators, myself included, were chewing over what the BFI might do specifically for documentary films and television. It soon became obvious that we were not sure exactly what it was that we were trying to discuss. I’m usually loath to do anything that takes lustre away from Sight & Sound’s ten-year poll of the [[embed nid=2984 type­link title=”Greatest Films of All Time”]] but

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