UK’s Sight and Sound magazine published a “Greatest Documentaries of All Time” list last week to accompany their famed catalog of the “Greatest Films Ever.” The top 50 films — actually, the top 56 films, given all the ties — were selected by over 200 critics, programmers, and filmmakers, and covers nearly a century of nonfiction, from 1922’s Nanook of the North to 2012’s Leviathan and The Act of Kiling.
The women on the list represent a smaller range — from 1935’s Triumph of the Will to 2000’s The Gleaners and I (the only woman-directed film to make the Top 10) — but the diversity, passion, and experimentalism of their collective work speak to the important female contributions to the documentary genre.
Here are the women-directed Greatest Documentaries of All Time:
8. The Gleaners and I (2000) — Agnes Varda
19. The House is Black (1963) — Forough Farrokhzad
24. Harlan County USA (1976) — Barbara Kopple
24. Salesman (1968) — Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin (tied)
28. Gimme Shelter (1970) — Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin
37. Portrait of Jason (1967) — Shirley Clarke
47. D’est (1993) — Chantal Akerman
47. Triumph of the Will (1935) — Leni Riefenstahl (tied)
[via Sight and Sound]