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What's After the Movie?

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What's After the Movie?
Genres Genres, movements and visual styles, from film noir to found footage.

Documentary: Meaning & Definition in Film

A non-fiction film genre that documents reality for education or historical record.

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Documentary: Historical Development

Early documentaries like Nanook of the North (1922) laid groundwork for cinéma vérité and direct cinema movements. Technological advances—portable cameras, synchronized sound—enabled vérité’s immersive observation of real life.

Styles and Approaches

Documentary modes range from expository (voice-over narration) and observational (fly-on-the-wall) to participatory and reflexive, where filmmakers interact with subjects or highlight the filmmaking process itself.

Impact and Ethics

Documentaries can shape public discourse, from social justice to environmentalism. Ethical considerations—consent, representation and editorial framing—are central to responsible storytelling.

Documentary: Iconic Works

Influential documentaries include The Thin Blue Line, Hoop Dreams, Man with a Movie Camera and Bowling for Columbine. These films demonstrate the genre’s power to inform, persuade and inspire change.

See the vocabulary at work in real films

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More Genre & Style Terms

Entries filed on the same shelf as Documentary, each with the one-line answer first. They are the words that usually come up in the same conversation.

All 330 terms

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    The romantic thriller entwines desire and danger, leveraging love’s vulnerability to amplify suspense.

  • Matrix Shot

    A 'Matrix Shot,' more formally known as 'bullet time,' is a visual effect that detaches the camera's viewpoint from the flow of time, allowing it to move around a moment that is frozen or in extreme slow-motion.

  • One-Shot

    A film or sequence presented as a seamless continuous take intensifies realism and spectatorship.

  • Japanese New Wave

    The Japanese New Wave was a radical film movement of the 1960s that challenged social norms and cinematic conventions with bold and confrontational works.

  • Hyperlink Cinema

    A storytelling style featuring interwoven narratives connected by thematic or character links

  • South African Cinema Renaissance

    The South African Cinema Renaissance denotes the dynamic period of growth and creative expression in the nation's film industry following the end of apartheid in 1994.