Documentary Genres

Interactive

An interactive documentary is a documentary in which the 

majority of the time the filmmaker is involved and on screen. 

Interactive documentaries are often a personal to the 

filmmaker/director themselves, which explains the reasoning of 

why they are on screen in the majority of interactive 

documentaries. A perfect example of this is the film 

‘Religulous’ which involves the director himself Bill Maher 

traveling to find out about and take on the current state of world 

religion. 

Expository

The genre of an expository documentary is a very factual style and 

mainly used for history or nature documentaries. These 

documentaries are uses evidence and information to prove 

something or educate and inform the viewer on the subject matter 

with help from a narrator giving details to explain and teach as 

such. The documentary TV series ‘Planet Earth’ does this very well 

as, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, it gives information and 

hard evident facts about the global overview of different habitats on 

earth. 

Observational 

An observational documentary where the film 

will follow and observe a person, event, or 

even a group of people and what they do. 

With no narration the story of the 

documentary is told through the visuals that 

the audience is observing. ‘Anywhere But 

Home’ is a documentary that follows the 

band Evanescence as they show their life 

whilst on tour.

Performative 

This is a documentary that is meant to make the viewers 

feel tension. By using recreations and some archive 

footage of events the majority of performative 

documentaries are structured as a drama. Having 

interviews with people from the event and experts helps to 

give the sense of drama through out as the audience is 

hearing it from the people who have experienced it first 

hand. A great example of this is the documentary 

‘Touching The Void’. A film about mountain climbers 

conquering the west face of Siula Grande with interviews of the climbers talking 

about the events that have happened and deadly risks they had to face. 

Essayistic

With a very simple structure, the essayistic genre is a documentary that is set out like an essay as if someone is explaining rather than showing the audience. Formed from personal events and opinions on a chosen subject the documentary, however still including the facts f the matter, is there more to educate rather for the sake of filming. An example of this style of genre is the Channel4 TV series ‘The Story Of Film: An Odyssey ’. This shows director Mark Cousins going through the history of film with facts, and his own opinions on the matter and personal events that have happened to him. 

Experimental