| Rank | Title | Year | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Hoop Dreams | 1994 | Steve James | 292 |
| 2 | The Man with the Movie Camera | 1929 | Dziga Vertov | 296 |
| 3 | Nanook of the North | 1922 | Robert J. Flaherty | 364 |
| 4 | Shoah | 1985 | Claude Lanzmann | 415 |
| 5 | Triumph of the Will | 1935 | Leni Riefenstahl | 465 |
| 6 | The Thin Blue Line | 1988 | Errol Morris | 478 |
| 7 | When We Were Kings | 1996 | Leon Gast | 548 |
| 8 | Crumb | 1994 | Terry Zwigoff | 550 |
| 9 | Olympia | 1938 | Leni Riefenstahl | 596 |
| 10 | The Sorrow and the Pity | 1969 | Marcel Ophüls | 599 |
| 11 | Dont Look Back | 1967 | D.A. Pennebaker | 737 |
| 12 | Gimme Shelter | 1970 | Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin | 741 |
| 13 | Night and Fog | 1955 | Alain Resnais | 744 |
| 14 | F for Fake | 1973 | Orson Welles | 799 |
| 15 | The Last Waltz | 1978 | Martin Scorsese | 808 |
| 16 | Woodstock | 1970 | Michael Wadleigh | 828 |
| 17 | Bowling for Columbine | 2002 | Michael Moore | 840 |
| 18 | Salesman | 1968 | Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin | 878 |
| 19 | Roger & Me | 1989 | Michael Moore | 900 |
| 20 | Touching the Void | 2003 | Kevin Macdonald | 906 |
| 21 | Stop Making Sense | 1984 | Jonathan Demme | 926 |
| 22 | Harlan County, U.S.A. | 1976 | Barbara Kopple | 989 |
| 23 | Koyaanisqatsi | 1982 | Godfrey Reggio | 1014 |
| 24 | Sans soleil | 1983 | Chris Marker | 1033 |
| 25 | Grey Gardens | 1975 | Ellen Hovde, Albert and David Maysles, and Muffie Meyer | 1150 |
| 26 | Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse | 1991 | Fax Bahr, Eleanor Coppola, and George Hickenlooper | 1178 |
| 27 | Capturing the Friedmans | 2003 | Andrew Jarecki | 1255 |
| 28 | Fast, Cheap & Out of Control | 1997 | Errol Morris | 1279 |
| 29 | Pumping Iron | 1977 | George Butler and Robert Fiore | 1332 |
| 30 | The Endless Summer | 1966 | Bruce Brown | 1348 |
| 31 | Dogtown and Z-Boys | 2001 | Stacy Peralta | 1358 |
| 32 | Grizzly Man | 2005 | Werner Herzog | 1390 |
| 33 | Spellbound | 2002 | Jeffrey Blitz | 1401 |
| 34 | American Movie | 1999 | Chris Smith | 1453 |
| 35 | To Be and to Have | 2002 | Nicolas Philibert | 1470 |
| 36 | Buena Vista Social Club | 1999 | Wim Wenders | 1498 |
| 37 | Louisiana Story | 1948 | Robert J. Flaherty | 1523 |
| 38 | Sherman's March | 1986 | Ross McElwee | 1529 |
| 39 | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara | 2003 | Errol Morris | 1537 |
| 40 | Berlin: Symphony of a Great City | 1927 | Walter Ruttmann | 1552 |
| 41 | High School | 1968 | Frederick Wiseman | 1558 |
| 42 | Listen to Britain | 1942 | Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister | 1559 |
| 43 | Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat | 1896 | Auguste and Louis Lumière | 1561 |
| 44 | Tokyo Olympiad | 1965 | Kon Ichikawa | 1570 |
| 45 | The Gleaners & I | 2000 | Agnès Varda | 1598 |
| 46 | Burden of Dreams | 1982 | Les Blank | 1609 |
| 47 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | 2004 | Michael Moore | 1673 |
| 48 | Titicut Follies | 1967 | Frederick Wiseman | 1766 |
| 49 | Man of Aran | 1934 | Robert J. Flaherty | 1772 |
| 50 | Hearts and Minds | 1974 | Peter Davis | 1774 |
| 51 | One Day in September | 1999 | Kevin Macdonald | 1792 |
| 52 | The Times of Harvey Milk | 1984 | Rob Epstein | 1798 |
| 53 | Man on Wire | 2008 | James Marsh | 1809 |
| 54 | Paris Is Burning | 1990 | Jennie Livingston | 1818 |
| 55 | 42: Forty Two Up | 1999 | Michael Apted | 1830 |
| 56 | 28 Up | 1985 | Michael Apted | 1835 |
| 57 | Gates of Heaven | 1978 | Errol Morris | 1897 |
| 58 | Chronicle of a Summer | 1961 | Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch | 1931 |
| 59 | Histoire(s) du cinéma | Jean-Luc Godard | 1935 | |
| 60 | Land without Bread | 1933 | Luis Buñuel | 2013 |
| 61 | The Dream of Light | 1992 | Víctor Erice | 2039 |
| 62 | American Dream | 1990 | Barbara Kopple | 2132 |
| 63 | An Inconvenient Truth | 2006 | Davis Guggenheim | 2188 |
| 64 | Baraka | 1992 | Ron Fricke | 2213 |
| 65 | Winged Migration | 2001 | Jacques Perrin | 2302 |
| 66 | Metallica: Some Kind of Monster | 2004 | Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky | 2313 |
| 67 | Why We Fight 1: Prelude to War | 1943 | Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak | 2316 |
| 68 | Seven Up! | 1964 | Paul Almond | 2318 |
| 69 | Super Size Me | 2004 | Morgan Spurlock | 2337 |
| 70 | DiG! | 2004 | Ondi Timoner | 2357 |
| 71 | The Hour of the Furnaces | 1970 | Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas, and Santiago Álvarez | 2370 |
| 72 | Murderball | 2005 | Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro | 2379 |