| Rank | Title | Year | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | The Man with the Movie Camera | 1929 | Dziga Vertov | 284 |
| 2 | Nanook of the North | 1922 | Robert J. Flaherty | 339 |
| 3 | Hoop Dreams | 1994 | Steve James | 359 |
| 4 | Triumph of the Will | 1935 | Leni Riefenstahl | 432 |
| 5 | Olympia | 1938 | Leni Riefenstahl | 477 |
| 6 | Shoah | 1985 | Claude Lanzmann | 479 |
| 7 | The Sorrow and the Pity | 1969 | Marcel Ophüls | 502 |
| 8 | The Thin Blue Line | 1988 | Errol Morris | 525 |
| 9 | Crumb | 1994 | Terry Zwigoff | 605 |
| 10 | Dont Look Back | 1967 | D.A. Pennebaker | 630 |
| 11 | Gimme Shelter | 1970 | Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin | 726 |
| 12 | When We Were Kings | 1996 | Leon Gast | 752 |
| 13 | The Last Waltz | 1978 | Martin Scorsese | 797 |
| 14 | Salesman | 1968 | Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin | 914 |
| 15 | Roger & Me | 1989 | Michael Moore | 926 |
| 16 | Bowling for Columbine | 2002 | Michael Moore | 933 |
| 17 | Woodstock | 1970 | Michael Wadleigh | 1049 |
| 18 | Night and Fog | 1955 | Alain Resnais | 1066 |
| 19 | Koyaanisqatsi | 1982 | Godfrey Reggio | 1088 |
| 20 | Sans soleil | 1983 | Chris Marker | 1097 |
| 21 | Stop Making Sense | 1984 | Jonathan Demme | 1130 |
| 22 | Harlan County, U.S.A. | 1976 | Barbara Kopple | 1139 |
| 23 | Fast, Cheap & Out of Control | 1997 | Errol Morris | 1276 |
| 24 | Berlin: Symphony of a Great City | 1927 | Walter Ruttmann | 1277 |
| 25 | Dogtown and Z-Boys | 2001 | Stacy Peralta | 1281 |
| 26 | F for Fake | 1974 | Orson Welles | 1337 |
| 27 | Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse | 1991 | Fax Bahr, Eleanor Coppola, and George Hickenlooper | 1367 |
| 28 | The Endless Summer | 1966 | Bruce Brown | 1370 |
| 29 | Sherman's March | 1986 | Ross McElwee | 1382 |
| 30 | Touching the Void | 2003 | Kevin Macdonald | 1400 |
| 31 | Spellbound | 2002 | Jeffrey Blitz | 1407 |
| 32 | Pumping Iron | 1977 | George Butler and Robert Fiore | 1445 |
| 33 | Gates of Heaven | 1980 | Errol Morris | 1476 |
| 34 | Fires Were Started | 1943 | Humphrey Jennings | 1480 |
| 35 | Grey Gardens | 1975 | Ellen Hovde, Albert and David Maysles, and Muffie Meyer | 1481 |
| 36 | 28 Up | 1985 | Michael Apted | 1507 |
| 37 | Land without Bread | 1933 | Luis Buñuel | 1596 |
| 38 | Man of Aran | 1934 | Robert J. Flaherty | 1603 |
| 39 | Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat | 1895 | Auguste and Louis Lumière | 1649 |
| 40 | High School | 1968 | Frederick Wiseman | 1653 |
| 41 | The Hour of the Furnaces | 1968 | Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas, and Santiago Álvarez | 1685 |
| 42 | The War Game | 1965 | Peter Watkins | 1700 |
| 43 | Chronicle of a Summer | 1961 | Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch | 1769 |
| 44 | Buena Vista Social Club | 1999 | Wim Wenders | 1784 |
| 45 | Listen to Britain | 1942 | Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister | 1838 |
| 46 | Tokyo Olympiad | 1965 | Kon Ichikawa | 1846 |
| 47 | One Day in September | 1999 | Kevin Macdonald | 1893 |
| 48 | Capturing the Friedmans | 2003 | Andrew Jarecki | 1904 |
| 49 | The Gleaners & I | 2000 | Agnès Varda | 1907 |
| 50 | Burden of Dreams | 1982 | Les Blank | 1929 |
| 51 | Paris is Burning | 1990 | Jennie Livingston | 2014 |
| 52 | 42: Forty Two Up | 1998 | Michael Apted | 2046 |
| 53 | Brother's Keeper | 1992 | Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky | 2052 |
| 54 | That's Entertainment! | 1974 | Jack Haley Jr. | 2060 |
| 55 | American Movie | 1999 | Chris Smith | 2093 |
| 56 | Baraka | 1992 | Ron Fricke | 2096 |
| 57 | The Dream of Light | 1992 | Víctor Erice | 2128 |
| 58 | To Be and to Have | 2002 | Nicolas Philibert | 2154 |
| 59 | The Mystery of Picasso | 1956 | Henri-Georges Clouzot | 2183 |
| 60 | Grizzly Man | 2005 | Werner Herzog | 2203 |
| 61 | The Civil War | 1990 | Ken Burns | 2204 |
| 62 | Best Boy | 1979 | Ira Wohl | 2211 |
| 63 | American Dream | 1990 | Barbara Kopple | 2217 |
| 64 | Histoire(s) du cinéma | Jean-Luc Godard | 2229 | |
| 65 | Winged Migration | 2001 | Jacques Perrin | 2254 |
| 66 | Why We Fight 1: Prelude to War | 1943 | Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak | 2265 |
| 67 | À Propos de Nice | 1930 | Jean Vigo | 2266 |
| 68 | Primary | 1960 | Robert Drew | 2270 |
| 69 | The Times of Harvey Milk | 1984 | Rob Epstein | 2306 |
| 70 | Lessons of Darkness | 1992 | Werner Herzog | 2311 |
| 71 | Titicut Follies | 1967 | Frederick Wiseman | 2321 |
| 72 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | 2004 | Michael Moore | 2347 |
| 73 | Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie | 1988 | Marcel Ophüls | 2356 |
| 74 | Night Mail | 1936 | Harry Watt and Basil Wright | 2378 |
| 75 | Baseball | 1994 | Ken Burns | 2396 |
| 76 | The House Is Black | 1963 | Forugh Farrokhzad | 2407 |
| 77 | People on Sunday | 1930 | Curt and Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Fred Zinnemann | 2451 |
| 78 | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara | 2003 | Errol Morris | 2502 |
| 79 | 35 Up | 1991 | Michael Apted | 2506 |