Top 20 Documentary Directors of the 21st Century! (2020 edition)
List of the top documentary filmmakers since 2000.
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- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Alex Gibney was born on 23 October 1953 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) and Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015). He has been married to Anne Gibney since 14 August 1982. They have three children.Must Watch:
Zero Days
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has won numerous national and international awards for his poetic feature and documentary films.Must Watch:
Encounters at the End of the World
Grizzly Man
The White Diamond- Producer
- Director
- Editor
Must Watch:
Listen to Me Marlon
Everything or Nothing
Fire in Babylon- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Asif Kapadia is an Academy Award, Grammy and four time BAFTA winning Producer / Director / Writer who works across both film and television. Kapadia is known for his emotional engaging, visually striking, genre breaking films exploring 'outsiders' characters living in extreme circumstances, fighting against a corrupt or broken system and the price of fame. He has worked in drama and documentaries, Kapadia is best known for his trilogy of narratively driven, archive constructed documentaries SENNA, AMY & DIEGO MARADONA.
His debut feature 'THE WARRIOR' was nominated for three Bafta awards, winning Best British Film and Best Debut Film. His fourth feature 'SENNA', the story of the Brazilian motor racing legend Ayrton Senna, was nominated for three Bafta awards, winning Best Documentary and Best Editing. It went on to break UK box office records to become the highest grossing British Documentary of all time. 'AMY', about singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse has now overtaken 'SENNA' to become the most successful British Documentary of all time, winning numerous awards including the Academy Award, BAFTA, European Film Award and a Grammy for Best Documentary.
Born in Hackney, London in 1972, Kapadia studied filmmaking at the Royal College of Art where he first gained recognition with his short film THE SHEEP THIEF (1997) shot in Rajasthan, India, the film won many international awards including one in the Cinefondation section of the 1998 Cannes International Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the European Film Festival in Brest.
Kapadia's distinct visual style developed with his debut feature THE WARRIOR (Film4, 2001), shot in the deserts of Rajasthan and the snow capped Himalaya. The Warrior was championed in the British Press as 'epic' and 'stunning' (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) and in 2003 was nominated for three BAFTA awards, winning two for Outstanding British Film of the Year and The Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a Director in their First Feature, as well as being nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language. The Warrior won the prestigious Sutherland Award at the London Film Festival, the Evening Standard British Film Award for the Most Promising Newcomer and the Douglas Hickox Award at the BIFAs for Best Debut Film.
FAR NORTH (2007), Starring Michael Yeoh and Sean Bean premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Based on a short story by writer Sara Maitland. Kapadia used the epic and brutal Arctic landscape to show what desperation and loneliness can drive people to do.
Kapadia's feature documentary SENNA (Universal Pictures / Working Title, 2011), the thrilling story and emotional story of the Brazilian motor-racing legend Ayrton Senna, constructed entirely from archive, was a groundbreaking feature documentary, the film was a break out hit at the international box office, grossing over $15m worldwide. SENNA was Nominated for three BAFTA awards, winning Best Documentary and Best Editing, as well as being nominated for Best British Film. SENNA broke records at the cinema and on DVD & Bluray in the UK. The film has won awards around the world including the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Best Documentary at the London Critics Circle, the BIFA award for Best Documentary, the Audience Award for Best International Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated by the Producers Guild of America for the Documentary Theatrical Motion Picture Award 2012.
AMY (Universal Music, 2015), world premiered in Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival and tells the story of Amy Winehouse in her own words. The film was an international box office hit grossing over $20m, it is the highest grossing UK documentary of all time. AMY won the Academy Award for Feature Documentary, the BAFTA for Best Documentary, was nominated for Outstanding British Film. Kapadia was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for AMY by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) (Documentaries & TV).
Kapadia's third feature documentary Diego Maradona, about the controversial genius, Argentinian footballer Diego Armando Maradona world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the film was Nominated for a BAFTA for Best Documentary and completed his epic trilogy on the price of fame,
Kapadia directed two episodes of Mindhunter (Netflix) for David Fincher.
in 2021 Kapadia Executive Produced and Series Directed the music series 1971: 'The year that music changed everything' and he Directed & Executive Produced the series THE ME YOU CAN'T SEE with Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry focusing on mental health and well being, both for AppleTV+.
Kapadia was an Executive Producer of the landmark BBC ONE series Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation.
THE ODYSSEY (2012, Film4, BBC, LOCOG) Kapadia was commissioned to direct an official film for the London Cultural Olympiad, his film traces the journey from 2005 when London won the right to host the Olympic Games to the eve of the games in 2012. The film uses the voices of Londoners, archive, classic Olympic footage and stunning aerial photography of London to show how sport is essential, how it can inspire, provide unforgettable moments of beauty, purity and the sublime.
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (2013, Reprieve, Guardian films) More than 100 hunger-strikers in Guantánamo Bay protest as they continue to be held without charge, some for over a decade. A leaked document sets out the military instructions, or standard operating procedure, for force-feeding detainees. In this graphic four-minute film made by Human Rights organisation Reprieve and director Asif Kapadia, US actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), experiences the procedure. SOP was released on The Guardian newspaper's website, the film went viral and was picked up by every major news source around the globe, picking up more than 10million views in a matter of days.
Kapadia directed the award winning Burberry commercial, "A Tale of Thomas Burberry", featuring an all-star cast of Domhnall Gleeson, Sienna Miller, Dominic West and Lily James and written by Academy Award nominee Matt Charman. Comprising of a three-minute cinematic trailer, the film is inspired by Thomas Burberry's life and achievements, reimagining key events that have shaped the company's history and values.Must Watch:
Amy
Senna- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Charles Ferguson was born on 24 March 1955 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Inside Job (2010), No End in Sight (2007) and Watergate (2018).Must Watch:
Inside Job
No End in Sight- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Robert Kenner has won an array of awards and garnered rave reviews for his documentary work on a wide range of social and environmental issues. His latest film Command and Control opened theatrically to critical acclaim. His Academy Award-nominated film Food, Inc. had a monumental impact on how our food is regulated and is one of the highest grossing theatrical documentaries of all time. Kenner's rich body of work includes Merchants of Doubt which has been screened by Senators and US Attorneys General to influence climate policy, the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Two Days in October, When Strangers Click, and The Road to Memphis for Martin Scorsese's series The Blues. Kenner has directed a number of specials for American Experience, HBO and National Geographic as well as award-winning commercials and corporate videos for clients including eBay, Hallmark and Hewlett Packard.Must Watch:
Merchants of Doubt
Food, Inc.- Producer
- Director
- Cinematographer
Jehane Noujaim was born on 17 May 1974 in Cairo, Egypt. She is a producer and director, known for Control Room (2004), Startup.com (2001) and The Square (2013).Must Watch:
Al midan
Control Room- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Lucy Walker was born in London, England, UK. She is known for The Crash Reel (2013), Waste Land (2010) and Blindsight (2006).Must Watch:
The Crash Reel
Waste Land- Producer
- Director
- Cinematographer
Evgeny Afineevsky is an Oscar and Emmy-nominated director, whose current documentary, CRIES FROM SYRIA, was an Official Selection at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Afineevsky won Best Director and earned nomination for Best Documentary from the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. He and his film earned IPA Satellite Awards nominations for Best Documentary and Best Song in a Documentary for PRAYERS FOR THIS WORLD, performed by Cher. The Awards Circuit Community Awards nominated his movie as Best Documentary Feature for 2017. He won International Documentary Association's Courage Under Fire Award, earned a PGA Award nomination, won a Humanitas Prize and Cinema for Peace Awards as Most Valuable Documentary of the Year, won 32nd Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, Documentaries Without Borders Film Festival and 51st Houston WorldFest Film Festival, as well as the Overseas Press Club's Peter Jennings Award. Recently Afineevsky and his movie CRIES FROM SYRIA earned 4 Emmy nominations. In creating CRIES FROM SYRIA, Afineevsky spent months on the ground in Syria, using his cameras to craft a comprehensive account of the brutal five-year civil war. He edited hundreds of hours of footage from Syrian activists and citizen journalists, as well as testimony from child protestors, leaders of the revolution, human-rights defenders, ordinary citizens, and high-ranking army generals who defected to tell this important story. Afineevsky built his filmmaking career on providing a first-hand account of conflict, even if it means putting his own life in danger. He earned an Oscar and Emmy nomination in 2016 for WINTER ON FIRE: UKRAINE'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, which details the 2013 student uprising that transformed into a violent revolution. The film also looked at the shady negotiations between Ukraine's corrupt former president, Viktor Yanukovich, and Russian president Vladimir Putin that kept Ukraine from joining the European Union. Afineevsky's tenacity in his storytelling ultimately attracted the unwanted attention of Russian intelligence agents, who continue to track him and his work. WINTER ON FIRE was an Official Selection of the Venice and Telluride International film festivals. He won the People's Choice Award for the Best Documentary from the Toronto International Film Festival and received Television Academy Honors Award. His documentary work dates back to his life in Russia as a teenager, where he won First Prize for Best Documentary at the Black Sea International Film Festival. He's since continued to demonstrate a commitment documenting important stories of change, but he also has worked in a wide spectrum of genres. From 1994-2000, he produced more than 30 musicals in Israel, including BAT (DIE FLEDERMAUS), GYPSY BARON, VIENNESE BLOOD, NIGHT IN VENICE, SILVA PRINCESS OF CHARDAS, MOZART KONZERTE (with the Prague National Opera Orchestra), among many others. He also directed the Israeli TV series DAYS OF LOVE in 1999. His work in feature films include producing a modern-day adaptation of Dostoyevsky's classic novel CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (2002), which stars Crispin Glover, Vanessa Redgrave, John Hurt, and Margot Kidder; OPEN HEART (2002); AND DEATH GAME (2001), starring Billy Drago and Joe Lara. All three films went on to win accolades from the Houston WorldFest. He wrote and directed the 2009 family comedy starring Lainie Kazan, OY VEY! MY SON IS GAY!! (2009), for which he won more than 23 international film awards. He also wrote and directed DIVORCE: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE KIDS' EYES (2014), which provides an educational look at the different situations the children of divorced parents deal with. Afineevsky resides in Los Angeles and is a member of the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Directors Guild of America and Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.Must Watch:
Cries from Syria
Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Kirby Dick is a two time Emmy-award winning and two-time Academy award-nominated documentary film director. His most recent film, The Hunting Ground (2015), a monumental exposé about sexual assault on college campuses, premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, was released by Radius/The Weinstein Company and CNN, is the 2016 recipient of the Producer Guild of America's Stanley Kramer award, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. His previous film, The Invisible War (2012), a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape within the US military, won two Emmy Awards for Best Documentary and Outstanding Investigative Journalism, the 2012 Independent Spirit Award 2012 for Best Documentary, a Peabody Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He also directed Twist of Faith (2004), the story of a man confronting the trauma of his past sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, which was also nominated for an Academy Award. Other films include Outrage (2009), nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006), a breakthrough investigation of the MPAA's secretive film ratings system, and Derrida (2002), a complex portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida. He is the 2012 recipient of the Nestor Almendros Prize for Courage and Filmmaking and the 2013 Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize.Must Watch:
The Invisible War
This Film Is Not Yet Rated- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Louie Psihoyos was born on 15 April 1957 in Dubuque, Iowa, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Racing Extinction (2015), Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times (2021) and The Cove (2009).Must Watch:
Racing Extinction
The Cove- Director
- Producer
- Cinematographer
Joshua Oppenheimer was born on 23 September 1974 in Texas, USA. He is a director and producer, known for The Act of Killing (2012), The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase (1998) and The Look of Silence (2014).Must Watch:
The Look of Silence
The Act of Killing- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Kevin Macdonald was born on 28 October 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He is a director and producer, known for The Last King of Scotland (2006), The Mauritanian (2021) and How I Live Now (2013). He has been married to Tatiana Macdonald since 2 July 1999. They have three children.Must Watch:
Marley
Touching the Void- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Amy Berg was born in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is known for Deliver Us from Evil (2006), West of Memphis (2012) and Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015).Must Watch:
West of Memphis
Deliver Us from Evil- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Michael Francis Moore was born in Flint, Michigan on April 23, 1954, and was raised in its Davison suburb. He is the son of Helen Veronica (Wall), a secretary, and Francis Richard Moore, who worked on an auto assembly line. He has Irish, as well as English and Scottish, ancestry.
Moore studied journalism at the University of Michigan-Flint, and also pursued other hobbies such as gun shooting, for which he even won a competition. Michael began his journalistic career writing for the school newspaper "The Michigan Times," and after dropping out of college briefly worked as editor for "Mother Jones."
He then turned to filmmaking, and to earn the money for the budget of his first film Roger & Me (1989) he ran neighborhood bingo games. The success of this film launched his career as one of America's best-known and most controversial documentarians. He has produced a string of documentary films and TV series predominantly about the same subject: attacks on corrupt politicians and greedy business corporations. He landed his first big hit with Bowling for Columbine (2002) about the bad points of the right to bear arms in America, which earned him an Oscar and a big reputation. He then shook the world with his even bigger hit Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), making fun of President George W. Bush. This is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. Michael is known for having the guts to give his opinion in public, which not many people are courageous enough to do, and for that is respected by many.Must Watch:
Sicko
Bowling for Columbine- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.Must Watch:
Les plages d'Agnès
Les glaneurs et la glaneuse- Director
- Producer
- Editor
Steve James was born in Hampton, Virginia, USA. He has been based in Chicago, Illinois, USA for his entire career. He is known for the documentary films Hoop Dreams (1994), Stevie (2002), The Interrupters (2011), Life Itself (2014) and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016). His documentary series works include America to Me (2018), City So Real (2020) and most recently, The Luckiest Guy in the World (2023).Must Watch:
Life Itself
Stevie- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Patricio Guzmán was born on 11 August 1941 in Santiago, Chile. He is a director and writer, known for Nostalgia for the Light (2010), The Battle of Chile: Part I (1975) and The Southern Cross (1991).Must Watch:
El botón de nácar
Nostalgia for the Light- Producer
- Director
- Writer
David Sington is known for The Fear of 13 (2015), In the Shadow of the Moon (2007) and Mercury 13 (2018).Must Watch:
The Fear of 13
In the Shadow of the Moon- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Rob Stewart is an award-winning biologist, photographer, conservationist and filmmaker. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Stewart began photographing underwater when he was 13. By the age of 18 he became a scuba instructor and then moved on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, studying in Ontario, Jamaica and Kenya.
Before making Sharkwater (2007), Stewart spent four years traveling the world as chief photographer for the Canadian Wildlife Federation's magazines. Leading expeditions to the most remote areas of the world, Stewart has logged thousands of hours underwater using the latest in camera and rebreather technologies. Stewart's highly sought after images have appeared in nearly every media form worldwide.
While on assignment to photograph sharks in the Galapagos Islands, Stewart discovered illegal longlining, indiscriminately killing sharks within the marine reserve. He tried promoting awareness through print media, but when the public didn't respond, Stewart decided to make a film to bring people closer to sharks. At the age of 22 he left his photography career behind and embarked on a remarkable journey over four years and 12 countries, resulting in the epic Sharkwater.
When Stewart boarded Sea Shepherd's ship, Sharkwater took a turn from a beautiful underwater film into an incredible human drama filled with corruption, espionage, attempted murder charges and mafia rings, forcing Stewart and his crew to become part of the story. During filming, Stewart encountered life threatening obstacles, including diseases such as West Nile, Tuberculosis, Dengue Fever and flesh eating disease.
Sharkwater has been hugely successful, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and winning a "Canada's Top Ten" award. Sharkwater made history with the largest opening weekend of any Canadian documentary, and was the most award-winning documentary of the year, winning over 35 awards at prestigious film festivals around the world. As of 2012 it is the third highest grossing Canadian documentary in the last ten years, next to the high budget films, Nascar and Oceans.
Stewart's hardcover book, Sharkwater: An Odyssey to Save the Planet, was released in October 2007 by Key Porter Books. His book Save the Humans will be released in the Fall of 2012 by Random House.
Stewart continues to work towards conservation and environmental education, speaking at the University of Victoria, Yale University, Vancouver Aquarium, ROM, various TEDx events, and others.
Stewart is on the board of numerous conservation groups including WildAid, Shark Savers and the Shark Research Institute, and recently founded his own charity, United Conservationists, based in Los Angeles and Toronto.
He has made featured appearances on numerous high profile TV shows including Larry King Live, The Today Show, Tonight Show, The Late Show, Nightline, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, ET Canada, Bloomberg, The Hour, BBC1, MTV and others.
In a 2011 The Grid Magazine survey, he was voted top living resident for making Toronto a better place.
Stewart is currently completing work on his second film, Revolution, due in theaters in 2013, with a companion rich digital media component, and How-to Guide to save humanity.Must Watch:
Sharkwater Extinction
Sharkwater