Published at 7:00 AM on November 10, 2009

By Paste Staff

The 25 Best Documentaries of the Decade (2000-2009)

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5. Bowling For Columbine (2002)
Director: Michael Moore
Starring: Michael Moore
Studio: United Artists

Michael Moore can sometimes seem glib and shrill, driving even his supporters nuts. But with Columbine, arguably his most important film, he successfully tackles the insanity of America’s gun problem—a problem so insane that Marilyn Manson, in a candid interview, emerges as the voice of reason. Nick Marino

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4. The Fog of War (2003)
Director: Errol Morris
Starring: Robert McNamara
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

For those who lived through the ’60s, the name Robert McNamara provokes an entire range of emotions and experiences. But even those too young to remember the former U.S. Secretary of Defense will find Errol Morris’ amazing film an incredibly relevant portrait of a man who helped shape the 20th century. The primary thrust of the movie is a series of interviews Morris did with McNamara beginning in May 2001 and continuing through the winter of 2002-03. It’s principally a movie about war, which is why McNamara’s 13-year reign as the president of the World Bank is unfortunately ignored. However, the film raises enough issues, provokes enough questions and challenges enough assumptions to make it essential viewing. J. Robert Parks

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3. Grizzly Man (2005)
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Timothy Treadwell, Werner Herzog
Studio: Lions Gate Films

This profile of nature lover Timothy Treadwell, who unwisely tried to live among wild bears in Alaska until he was devoured, cuts a Herzogian swath across the hillside: A man attempts to find harmony with nature but instead finds, as Herzog puts it, “chaos, hostility and murder.” Looming over the film is not only the horror of Treadwell’s demise but also an audio recording of the tragedy, taped inadvertently by the video camera in Treadwell’s tent. Herzog tastefully omits it from the film, but he makes the viewer aware of its existence. “The question of the tape which recorded Timothy Treadwell’s death and Amie Huguenard’s death is something that I had to address,” Herzog told Paste in 2007. “So I listened to it, and that’s the only time I appear in the film. You only see me from behind, listening to it with earphones. The interesting thing is that Jewel Palovak who was working with Treadwell and living with Treadwell for 20 years tries to read my face, and it’s very, very intense and moving for her. The moment I heard the tape it was instantly clear: Only over my dead body is this tape going to end up in the movie. I’m not into doing a snuff film, and I have to respect the dignity and privacy of two individuals’ deaths.” Robert Davis

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2. Iraq in Fragments (2007)
Director: James Longley
Studio: HBO Documentary Films

Applying the full spectrum of cinematic technique to a nonfiction film, Longley made one of the most striking movies this year, an immersive view of life in Iraq; a record of opinions and faces from across the country, all captured at close range. Robert Davis

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1. Man On Wire
Director: James Marsh
Starring: Philippe Petit
Studio: Magnolia Pictures

In 1974, high-wire walker Philippe Petit fulfilled a longstanding dream by sneaking into New York’s World Trade Center, stringing a cable between the tops of the two towers, and—with almost unfathomable guts—walking across it without a net. The man is clearly a nut, but he’s also a great storyteller with a heck of a story, and Man on Wire gives him a chance to tell it. Petit’s stunt was both an engineering challenge and a test of, well, a test of something that most of us don’t possess in this much quantity. Filmmaker James Marsh uses standard documentary techniques, combining new interviews with a satisfying pile of footage and photographs, but his film has the suspense of a caper movie. The title comes from the report written by a police officer who was more than a little uncertain about how to respond to the audacity on display. Robert Davis

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