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Top 10 Oscar-winning Documentaries

The Inside Job hits cinemas this week and carries an Academy Award nod with it, so here are our Top 10 Documentaries, all of them Oscar-winners...

Our Top 10 Films

Bowling For Columbine (2002)

Michael Moore’s investigative documentary style is based on kicking in the door of political and corporate hypocrisy with a size 13 boot and foghorning his revelations to all and sundry. This, perhaps his best, examination of US hearts and minds is full of his trademark charm and biting wit, and examines why the American pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence, asking: "Are we a nation of gun nuts... or are we just nuts?"

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Man on Wire (2008)

It really does need to be seen to be believed. Using a combination of recreation and real-life footage, Man on Wire tells the story of French high-wire enthusiast Philippe Petit, and his lunatic compulsion to wander among the clouds, with only a tightrope between him and a long drop to pavement oblivion. A compulsion that leads in 1974 to the 200 foot gap between New York’s Twin Towers, a quarter of a mile up in the air...

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An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Al Gore was Clinton’s Vice-President for 8 years, and would probably have succeeded him in the Oval Office had the Supreme Court not ruled in favour of George W Bush in the Florida recount. But now he’s got a Powerpoint presentation he’d like you to see. It’s about global warming. And since it pretty much earned him a Nobel Peace Prize, it’s probably worth your time – spruced up here into a compelling, thought-provoking film.

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The Cove (2009)

There’s not much Richard O'Barry doesn’t know about dolphins, having worked with them daily on 60s TV favourite Flipper. So his love for the marine mammals isn’t surprising, nor his determination to uncover the truth when he got wind of a hidden Japanese cove where very bad things were said to be happening. This is O’Barry’s covert mission with a team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers, and how that mission turned out.

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March of the Penguins (2005)

Voiced in the splendid, velvety tones of Morgan Freeman, this staggering wildlife spectacular documents the procession of a bunch of birds in dinner suits as they waddle from a summer’s deep-sea feeding into the frozen heart of Antarctica – a stunning, mind-boggling cycle of survival, punctuated by heartbreak, immense corporate courage, and sending the girls back on a 140-mile round trip for take-away. You might need tissues.

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The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)

The 2009 biopic ended up winning two of its eight Academy Awards nominations, including Sean Penn’s lead role. This documentary also has a statue to its name, of course, but was made a quarter of a century before; far closer to the actual life and times of Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist who became the first openly homosexual man to be elected into US public office (on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors).

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When We Were Kings (1996)

While America reeled in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, there came a distraction in the middle of Africa – the Rumble in the Jungle: Mohammed Ali, itching to reclaim his heavyweight title after suspension for refusing to join the Army in 1967 and losing in 1971 to then-champion Joe Frazier, versus George Foreman (long before lean mean grilling machines) in the climax of a three night music festival in the capital of Zaire (now DR Congo).

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Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

Two years after his nomination for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, director/producer Alex Gibney claimed an Oscar for this searing documentary. He dedicated the win to a young Afghani taxi driver called Dilawar, the subject of his film, whose arrest and imprisonment provide the focus for this inquiry into US policies on interrogation, torture and rendition, and the CIA’s active involvement with all three.

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Woodstock (1969)

Over 40 years on, and the very name of this legendary festival remains the shining, super-stellar standard beneath which all live outdoor music events must bow. This three hour epic, released less than a year later, captures the atmosphere, mood and spirit of Woodstock, and – of course – the music of some of the greatest artists of the day, including Jimi Hendrix, Canned Heat, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who, Santana, and Janis Joplin.

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One Day in September (1999)

Steven Spielberg dramatised the aftermath in his 2005 film, Munich, but this is the preceding horror: the dark night during the 1972 Olympic Games when 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage by a Palestinian terrorist group called Black September. Revelations abound in this shocking documentary, which includes details of the tense and tragic standoff at a German airbase, and the chilling perspective of the only surviving terrorist.

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Darren Bignell