Documentary

"Like real movies but with ugly people."

— Abet's take on this art form, Community, "Introduction to Film"

A film or series that revolves around non-news reporting of Non-Fiction subjects. While there are earlier examples, technical limitations prevented the genre from forming until the 20th century. The term itself was coined by reviewer John "The Moviegoer" Grierson in 1926.

Many documentaries are known to break several Omnipresent Tropes which exist in other genres due to nature of the documentaries.

Examples:

Subcategories:

Abducted In Plain Sight
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
The Act of Killing: Follows the perpetrators of a 1965-1966 mass political killing in Indonesia as they re-enact their deeds.
Air Crash Investigation
Baraka
The Battle of San Pietro
The Beaver Trilogy
Becoming YouTube is a weird mix of a serious documentary and Mockumentary-style sketches.
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
Beyond the Mat
Big Fun in the Big Town
Blackfish
Blood Dolphins
The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography: A biography Stacy Peralta(one of the best skaters in the 70s)'s creation of the Powell Peralta company after the sudden disband of the Zephyr Skateboard team, and the start of the Bones Brigade, their rise to fame, their revolutionary contributions to the skateboarding community and the emotional roller coaster of each individual skaters.

Bowling for Columbine
Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans Of My Little Pony
Brooklyn Bridge
The Business of Being Born: About pregnancy and birthing in America.
Capitalism: A Love Story
Capturing the Friedmans
Card Subject to Change: Life on the Professional Wrestling independent scene, for both Ring Oldies, current stars and young hopefuls.
Cartel Land
Carts of Darkness: The lives of homeless men who race shopping carts for thrills and collect cans for money.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
The Celluloid Closet
Chang
Chaos on the Bridge
China Blue
Citizenfour: About Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal.
Cocaine Cowboys: A documentary about the rise of the illegal cocaine trade in Miami during the 1970s and 1980s. Also spawned a sequel, Cocaine Cowboys 2, about a small-time coke dealer who ends up working for notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco.
The Cove: About dolphin hunting/fishing in Japan and won an Oscar.
Czechoslovakia 1968
The Dark Side of Chocolate: About the widespread but strangely unknown-to-the-public use of child slaves in the cocoa industry.
Dear Zachary
De Nieuwe Orde
De Nuremberg à Nuremberg: A French documentary about Nazi Germany.
Dirty Money
Disneyland Dream, one family's (unusually sophisticated) home movie of their visit to Disneyland in 1956.
Dreams of a Life
The Eagle Huntress
Earthlings: About the horrific treatment of animals in the food industry, puppy mills, etc...
The Endless Summer
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Everest
Fahrenheit 9/11
Fat Head: A rebuttal to Supersize Me.
Felicia: Documentary short about a teenaged girl in 1965 Watts
Fighting in the Age of Loneliness: A Join Bois documentary about the history of MMA and its popularity
First Strike: About the possibility of a nuclear surprise attack on the United States.
The Fog of War: About former Secretary of Defence Robert Macnamara.
Food Inc.
For All Mankind
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives
The Forgotten Frontier — nurses tending to the poor in 1931 Appalachia
For the Bible Tells Me So
Forensic Files
Forks Over Knives
Four Days in November
4 Little Girls
Freedom on My Mind
Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers
Gates of Heaven
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait
Genocide
The Gleaners and I
Grass
Grey Gardens
Grizzly Man
Going Clear: About the Church of Happyology.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Hale County This Morning This Evening
Harlan County U.S.A.
Hearts and Minds
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse: About the Troubled Production of Apocalypse Now.
Hellbound: A documentary about different perceptions of hell.
High School: A Day in the Life at an American high school in 1968.
A History of Scotland: Explores the history of Scotland.
Home (2006): This documentary looks at New York City through the eyes of a number of famous people.
Hoop Dreams
The House Is Black
I Am Big Bird
I Am Not Your Negro
Icarus
I Shouldn't Be Alive
I'll Find a Way
An Inconvenient Truth
Indie Game: The Movie
In Search of...: A documentary series centered around popular mysteries, with Leonard Nimoy as the narrator.
In the Year of the Pig: A 1968 documentary about The Vietnam War and the events leading up to it.
The Invisible War
Jesus Camp
The Jewish Americans
The Jinx: About billionaire murder suspect Robert Durst.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Jodorowsky's Dune
Jonestown
Kedi
The Kids Guide to the Internet
The Killing of America
The King of Kong
Kiss Loves You
Kon-Tiki
Koyaanisqatsi
Last Days in Vietnam — the panicked American flight from Saigon as the North Vietnamese close in on the South Vietnam capital at the end of The Vietnam War.
Let the Fire Burn
Let There Be Light
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
The Look of Silence: A companion piece to The Act of Killing, following a massacre victim's brother as he confronts the aging killers.
Loose Change
Lost In La Mancha
Making a Murderer
Manson, one of the first documentaries about Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Man with a Movie Camera
The Memphis Belle
Miracles For Sale: A Derren Brown special about the US faith healing industry.
Moscow Strikes Back
My Depression
Nanook of the North (1922), the Trope Maker, Robert Flaherty's film about life among the Inuk people of upper Hudson Bay.
The Negro Soldier
Next Goal Wins is the story of the worst team in international soccer and their attempts to win one game.
Night and Fog
O.J.: Made in America
Olympia — Leni Riefenstahl's documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which despite all the Nazi propaganda proved highly influential in how sports are dramatized onscreen.
Paris Is Burning is about ball culture in New York City during the 1980s.
The Pixar Story: about the history of Pixar.
The Plow That Broke the Plains
Powers of Ten
Portrait of Jason
Primary: Groundbreaking cinema verite film about the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary contest between Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy.
Project Nim: About an experiment on a chimpanzee to see if they could learn how to communicate like a human if raised like a human child.
Reclaiming the Blade: On medieval European swordmanship.
The Red Pill
Reel Bad Arabs: A documentary about the stereotyping of Arabs and other Middle Eastern peoples in mainstream media, particularly films, and all the Unfortunate Implications coming from it.
Religulous
Report from the Aleutians
Restrepo
Revolution (1968): This documentary explores hippiedom in San Francisco in 1967.
Revolution (2012): This documentary explores the importance of saving the environment.
Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World
Roger & Me
Ryan: Documentary short about animator Ryan Larkin unusual for itself being animated
Salesman
Sans Soleil
Searching for Sugar Man
Seconds from Disaster, about major disasters (natural or man-made) and the series of events leading up to them.
Serial: A podcast exploring the real life murder conviction of Adnan Syed and his potential innocence.
Sherman's March
Shoah
Showdown in Seattle
Sicko
Siege: A documentary short about the siege of Warsaw in 1939.
The Smash Brothers: A nine-episode Web Original following seven of the most influential Super Smash Bros. Melee players of all time, as well as the community surrounding them.
The Sorrow and the Pity
Soviet Storm: World War II in the East
Special When Lit: A look at the history, culture, and creators of Pinball.
Spielberg
The Square (2013)
The Statue of Liberty
The Story of the Weeping Camel
Street Fight
Super Size Me: One man's attempt to eat McDonald's, and only McDonalds, for 30 days in a row.
The Sweatbox: The look into the history and making of the abandoned Disney film Kingdom of the Sun and its painful transformation into the film The Emperor's New Groove.
Thank You for Playing: A documentary about the creation of the critically acclaimed indie game That Dragon, Cancer
They Shall Not Grow Old: a documentary by Peter Jackson about British soldiers' experiences in World War One, primarily using restored wartime footage and archived interviews from the soldiers themselves
This Film Is Not Yet Rated: A look at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the frequent Double Standards applied to film ratings.
The Thin Blue Line
Three Identical Strangers
Tickled: David Ferrier's documentary on "competitive tickling," which takes a dark turn.
The Ties That Bind 1985: A documentary on the life of the filmmaker's mother.
A Time for Burning
The Times of Harvey Milk
Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball: A documentary on the creation of the "Pinball 2000" game platform.
Tokyo Olympiad
Tower (2016): A documentary on the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting. Interestingly, this film recreates the shooting with actors portraying the people who there on the day of the shooting, recreating the scenes as recalled by some of the real survivors, then animated with rotoscoping to give the film a unique look.
TPBAFK: A documentary about The Pirate Bay and the trial of its creators.
Triumph of the Will
Trouble the Water
20 Feet from Stardom
Twist of Faith
Urasawa Naoki No Manben
Waking Sleeping Beauty
The Weather Underground
When We Were Kings
Who Killed the Electric Car?: It examines the reasons for the dismantlement of the electric car program of the early 2000s.
Why We Fight (2005)
Winnebago Man: Explores the phenomenon of viral videos, in particular that of one man's profanity-laden out-takes.
Word Wars: A documentary about competitive Scrabble playing.
Young@Heart: The inspirational true story of a choir of senior citizens who perform modern rock music.
Zoo