The first films were documentaries--the French called them "actualités "--movies that showed everyday life such as Lumière's "Workers Leaving the Factory (1895)" and "Train Arriving at La Ciotat Station."  Almost immediately the distinction between documentary and fiction film was blurred:  Lumière's "The Waterer Watered," for example, was a staged comic scene that had the same texture as his unstaged pictures.  Today we speak of fiction films that have "the same feel as documentaries," e.g. "Osama," and authentic recreations such as "The Battle of Algiers."  The documentary is "In its broadest sense, a factual film depicting actual events and real people" (Katz's The Film Encyclopedia),  though this may be carefully staged to manipulate these events.  The following films are, of course, a very small sampling of this incredibly rich genre.

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THE BATTLE OF SAN PIETRO 
BEST BOY 
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE 
THE FOG OF WAR 
HIGH SCHOOL 
HOOP DREAMS 
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH 
MAN OF ARAN 
MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA 
MY ARCHITECT: A SON'S JOURNEY  
NANOOK OF THE NORTH 
NIGHT AND FOG 
OLYMPIA 
THE RIVER 
THE SORROW AND THE PITY 
TO BE AND TO HAVE 
TRIUMPH OF THE WILL 
"WHY WE FIGHT" series

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