Let's be real. We all kinda know they're not! But documentary's theatrical crisis might come from misunderstanding what people value about nonfiction in the first place.
Hi Penny, I've been arguing that documentaries can be movies a lot over the last decade (whether in teaching a class called "The Art of Documentary" or in curating docs for film festivals.) Of course, not ALL documentaries are movies, but movies can also be documentaries. I think you're playing into some of the old haggard and false stereotypes about docs in positing this as a question. (Yes, unfortunately, the industry does this, too, but I think we're well past these old formulations and we should stop repeating them.) To say that documentaries are "cinematic" isn't to borrow from fiction filmmaking--docs have always borrowed from fiction as fiction has from docs, from the beginning of cinema. Look at the Lumiere Bros! Vertov! Eisenstein! Marker! Varda! Morris! Oppenheimer! Fiction and nonfiction have always fed each other. As Godard famously said, "If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality"!
Am I playing into "haggard and false stereotypes" or I am being curious and practical by trying to understand what normal people who are not like us (obsessed with docs + steeped in its history) mean when they say they're not movies?
Or like, should I get into the comments on my trailer and argue with people about how my nonfiction movie IS a movie and they're all just so very WRONG? Or would it be more useful for me in creating and marketing my art to perhaps try to understand my viewers' real world attitudes and needs? None of this changes anything I personally think about documentary. I have very specific and elevated tastes in nonfiction that I would be foolish to ascribe to great numbers of people, I think!
Love the provocation, and it feeds right into a "secret" admission I've made to a few friends recently: I never watch docs in theaters. Ok, maybe not NEVER, but very rarely -- basically to catch up on awards nominees I feel would be better seen in a cinema. But that's way fewer than I could...
BUT! I do watch a TON of docs at film festivals. And that's really fun! Know why? The theater is packed, typically the filmmaker's there for a q&a, and, unfairly to my local cineplex, I'll likely know at least a handful of people in the room. It's a total community vibe.
So the question *I've* been asking is: How do we expand THAT? In a way that's scalable and sustainable? Though I'm not usually in attendance at them, filmmakers I know love community screenings. Is a doc with a robust community screening tour a movie or not? I dunno, but maybe that's less of an issue if the experience is that rewarding.
Love all of this. I also rarely go to docs in theaters except for film festivals. It’s all about that social milieu and larger context…. Agreed that ultimately the experience is what counts!!
I cannot explain why horror, but I think it's just as escapist as romance and fantasy. (Fantasy is expensive to produce in movie form, whereas romance and horror can be done successfully on the cheap.)
I think b/w all the platforms and all the content there's no doubt we're being trained to either be sucked in immediately or not at all. And many other things emerge from algorithms and so on.... but that's such a bigger topic...
Hi Penny, I've been arguing that documentaries can be movies a lot over the last decade (whether in teaching a class called "The Art of Documentary" or in curating docs for film festivals.) Of course, not ALL documentaries are movies, but movies can also be documentaries. I think you're playing into some of the old haggard and false stereotypes about docs in positing this as a question. (Yes, unfortunately, the industry does this, too, but I think we're well past these old formulations and we should stop repeating them.) To say that documentaries are "cinematic" isn't to borrow from fiction filmmaking--docs have always borrowed from fiction as fiction has from docs, from the beginning of cinema. Look at the Lumiere Bros! Vertov! Eisenstein! Marker! Varda! Morris! Oppenheimer! Fiction and nonfiction have always fed each other. As Godard famously said, "If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality"!
Am I playing into "haggard and false stereotypes" or I am being curious and practical by trying to understand what normal people who are not like us (obsessed with docs + steeped in its history) mean when they say they're not movies?
Or like, should I get into the comments on my trailer and argue with people about how my nonfiction movie IS a movie and they're all just so very WRONG? Or would it be more useful for me in creating and marketing my art to perhaps try to understand my viewers' real world attitudes and needs? None of this changes anything I personally think about documentary. I have very specific and elevated tastes in nonfiction that I would be foolish to ascribe to great numbers of people, I think!
I think you can stop worrying and just do your great work. Worrying is my job!
haha i am truly not worrying. just being curious about the world and how my work lives inside it! xx
Love the provocation, and it feeds right into a "secret" admission I've made to a few friends recently: I never watch docs in theaters. Ok, maybe not NEVER, but very rarely -- basically to catch up on awards nominees I feel would be better seen in a cinema. But that's way fewer than I could...
BUT! I do watch a TON of docs at film festivals. And that's really fun! Know why? The theater is packed, typically the filmmaker's there for a q&a, and, unfairly to my local cineplex, I'll likely know at least a handful of people in the room. It's a total community vibe.
So the question *I've* been asking is: How do we expand THAT? In a way that's scalable and sustainable? Though I'm not usually in attendance at them, filmmakers I know love community screenings. Is a doc with a robust community screening tour a movie or not? I dunno, but maybe that's less of an issue if the experience is that rewarding.
Love all of this. I also rarely go to docs in theaters except for film festivals. It’s all about that social milieu and larger context…. Agreed that ultimately the experience is what counts!!
Super interesting article, and also awesome that you're community-building. thank you. Have non fiction books been hit as hard?
And why horror? At the library we're seeing this need to flee today's troubled world in an uptick in romance and fantasy. That makes more sense to me.
Is youtube or even worse, TikTok, fulfilling doc needs? Shaping expectations?
And are those platforms perhaps shaping nervous systems to only attend to high levels of fear, rage, action?
good questions.
Nonfiction books -- yes, not doing so great these days: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/books/book-sales-trends-2025.html
I cannot explain why horror, but I think it's just as escapist as romance and fantasy. (Fantasy is expensive to produce in movie form, whereas romance and horror can be done successfully on the cheap.)
I think b/w all the platforms and all the content there's no doubt we're being trained to either be sucked in immediately or not at all. And many other things emerge from algorithms and so on.... but that's such a bigger topic...
We should call them “unscripted movies” and their heads would go….pouff!