Greatest Docs of the 21st Century List Reveal Member Only

Watch Documentary magazine as they reveal the results of their “Greatest Docs of the 21st Century” poll.

The hour-long virtual event served as an exclusive preview of the magazine’s 2025 poll results and featured special guests unveiling the 25 projects that topped the list.

About the poll: 
In December 2025, Documentary organized a poll of the documentary community (both IDA members and past contributors to the magazine) to assess which documentaries they deemed the “greatest” released this century. Each voter could define “greatest” however they saw fit: the only criterion was that all projects they voted on were released after January 1, 2000. To mark the poll results, Documentary is releasing a special zine tied to our Summer 2026 issue, giving poll participants the chance to explain why those 25 docs deserve a spot on the list. In addition, Documentary curated 25 “Singular Picks”—projects that garnered only one vote across all ballots—to complement the Top 25 list, expanding and enriching the canon of what members of the documentary community consider the greatest in 21st-century documentary practice. Contributors to the zine include Kirsten Johnson, Robert Greene, Bing Liu, Iris Ng, Bill Nichols, and Peter Nicks.