Best Mockumentaries

Spinal Tap to What We Do in the Shadows. The comedy form that pretends to be documentary, and the films that perfected the bit.

The mockumentary — comedy in the form of documentary — is one of cinema's most-disciplined forms. It demands that the comedy work without the standard cinematic helpers (score, dramatic lighting, dramatic camera moves). The films that succeed at the form are the ones where the deadpan documentary surface is itself the joke.

Our picks.

The picks

  • This Is Spinal Tap (1984) — Rob Reiner. Christopher Guest. The foundational text. The amp goes to eleven.
  • Best in Show (2000) — Christopher Guest. Dog-show ensemble. Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard.
  • Borat (2006) — Larry Charles. Sacha Baron Cohen. The mockumentary that crossed into real-world consequence.
  • What We Do in the Shadows (2014) — Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. New Zealand vampires.
  • A Mighty Wind (2003) — Guest again. Folk-music ensemble.
  • The Death of Stalin (2017) — Armando Iannucci. Not strictly a mockumentary but in the same satirical tradition.
  • Waiting for Guffman (1996) — Guest. Community theatre in Missouri.
  • I'm Still Here (2010) — Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix's rap-career mockumentary that briefly fooled the press.
  • American Movie (1999) — Chris Smith. Not a mockumentary but the real-life movie that all subsequent indie mockumentaries reference.

Why Christopher Guest's films matter

Almost half of any serious mockumentary list will be Christopher Guest films. Guest, an actor and director who came up through National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live, has built a working-troupe approach to filmmaking that has produced four canonical mockumentaries. The troupe — including Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Bob Balaban, Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Jane Lynch — has worked together across all of Guest's films.

Guest's method is to write a 15-page outline rather than a screenplay and let his actors improvise around the outline. The technique requires actors who can build characters from minimal direction and who can stay in character through long-form improvisation. The Guest troupe is one of the most-disciplined improvisational ensembles in modern American film.