Best Mockumentaries of All Time

Scene from This is Spinal Tap (1984) ranked number one mockumentary.

Welcome to our Reel Fives pre-launch movie rankings for the best mockumentaries of all time. Our Reel Fives team found 22 ranked lists of the top mockumentaries published online and ended up with 42 movies that made the list. For each ranked list of greatest movies for the genre, we have taken the top five ranked films. The movie rankings of the best mockumentaries we aggregated are included at the bottom of this post and include the best mockumentaries as ranked by movie experts as well as polling sites, such as ranker.com.

Mockumentaries poke fun at the seriousness of documentaries with satire. Any topic can have a mockumentary as long as it has colorful characters and the right amount of unfortunate events.Christopher Guest’s This is Spinal Tap (1984), the all-time best mockumentary (also ranked seventh best Spoof), chronicles a British band’s American comeback. Though the band has decent reviews on their albums, they keep having mishaps while they try to regain the audience they once had. Best in Show (2000), ranked second and another Guest film, follows five dogs and their owners through the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. The humans become the starts of the show in this mockumentary with their quirks and passion for having the best show dog. Guest’s Waiting for Guffman (1996), examines the politics of small town theater as they attempt to impress Broadway critic Mr. Guffman. The ordinary town puts on a show of its non-eventful history and that is what makes the film funny. Who really cares that the town got a Dairy Queen? Belgian film Man Bites Dog (1992), tied for seventh, takes a dark twist on mockumentaries. A camera crew follows a serial killer and loses their objectivity along the way as they help the serial killer. Anything can be made into a mockumentary with the right characters and some imagination.

Controversy follows some mockumentaries, especially when mockumentaries poke fun at something at the expense of a person or group. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), ranked third, mixes fictional and real life situations. Borat comes to America and decides he wants to get married so he does not have to move back to Kazakhstan, leading him into taking a cross country road trip. Some critics accused the film of being racist and anti-Semitic towards American and the state of Kazakhstan. 

Christopher Guest dominated the rankings and this should not be surprise as he devoted his life to making mockumentaries. His films make fun of people in the right ways. Mockumentaries can offend, as Borat (2006) did, but they do not have to. The rankings do not show a preference for any time period, though few mockumentaries were made prior to 1960. No subject or plotline dominated the genre and this gives the genre room to grow. 

Top 42 Mockumentaries based on 22 published rankings
Percent of online top fives movies appear in shown
1 . This Is Spinal Tap (1984): 72.7%
2 . Best in Show (2000): 54.5%
3 . Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006): 36.3%
4 . Waiting for Guffman (1996): 22.7%
5 (tied). Man Bites Dog (1992): 22.7%
5 (tied). The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978): 22.7%
7 . Zelig (1983): 22.7%
8 . Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010): 13.6%
9 . Lake Mungo (2008): 13.6%
10 . The Blair Witch Project (1999): 13.6%
11 . Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999): 13.6%
12 . Bob Roberts (1992): 13.6%
13 . A Hard Day’s Night (1964): 9.09%
14 . What We Do in the Shadows (2014): 9.09%
15 (tied). Forgotten Silver (1995): 9.09%
15 (tied). Take the Money and Run (1969): 9.09%
17 (tied). Fubar (2002): 9.09%
17 (tied). A Mighty Wind (2003): 9.09%
19 . Fear of a Black Hat (1993): 9.09%
20 (tied). The Grand (2007): 4.54%
20 (tied). The Last Broadcast (1998): 4.54%
20 (tied). The Making of '...And God Spoke' (1993): 4.54%
20 (tied). The War Game (1965): 4.54%
24 (tied). Troll Hunter (2010): 4.54%
24 (tied). Land Without Bread (1933): 4.54%
24 (tied). Punishment Park (1971): 4.54%
24 (tied). All You Need Is Cash (1978): 4.54%
28 (tied). Interview With The Assassin (2002): 4.54%
28 (tied). Clerks (1994): 4.54%
28 (tied). The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972): 4.54%
28 (tied). Chronicle (2012): 4.54%
32 (tied). A Necessary Death (2008): 4.54%
32 (tied). Hard Core Logo (1996): 4.54%
32 (tied). Incident At Loch Ness (2004): 4.54%
32 (tied). CB4 (1993): 4.54%
32 (tied). C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004): 4.54%
37 (tied). An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1997): 4.54%
37 (tied). How to Sleep (1935): 4.54%
37 (tied). A Day Without a Mexican (2004): 4.54%
37 (tied). I’m Still Here (2010): 4.54%
37 (tied). District 9 (2009): 4.54%
37 (tied). Tropic Thunder (2008): 4.54%
Mockumentary Movie Ranking Sources
Nonfics	List of top 11 (link)
IMDb	List of top 15 (link)
BuzzFeed	List of top 31 (link)
Paste Magazine	List of top 12 (link)
Taste of Cinema	List of top 12 (link)
Games Radar	List of top 20 (link)
Flickchart	List of top 180 (link)
Watch Mojo	List of top 10 (link)
Ranker	List of top 30 (link)
Scene-Stealers	List of top 10 (link)
PopCrunch	List of top 16 (link)
We Are Movie Geeks	List of top 10 (link)
the MOST 10	List of top 10 (link)
Culture Brats	List of top 17 (link)
Examiner.com	List of top 10 (link)
Askmen	List of top 10 (link)
Smashing Lists	List of top 10 (link)
Movie Film Review	List of top 10 (link)
Imgur	List of top 11 (link)
Cineplex	List of top 5 (link)
Movie Pilot	List of top 4 (link)
Weird Worm	List of top 6 (link)

Identifying the top movies is our mission.
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